Cascadia by H.W. Bernard

By David Healey

H.W. “Buzz” Bernard has just the sort of resume you might expect from an author of weather-related disaster thrillers. He has a degree in atmospheric science, spent a career in the Navy as a weather officer, was a senior meteorologist for The Weather Channel, and has gone in search of tornadoes with professional storm chasers. He has even flown into a hurricane aboard a hurricane hunter, an experience that helped prompt his best-selling thriller, Eyewall.

Now, Bernard has decided to shake things up.

Literally.

His newest novel is CASCADIA, set in the Pacific Northwest town of Manzanita. The plot focuses on Dr. Rob Elwood, a geologist who makes a startling prediction. Not only will a cataclysmic earthquake strike the region once again, but the event will be followed by an epic tsunami. Elwood knows this from his study of the geological record, which indicates that another “big one” is on the way.

Elwood puts his career, and even his marriage, on the line by making a very specific prediction: disaster will strike the Cascadia Subduction Zone over the busy July Fourth weekend.

The scariest part of the story may be that Bernard’s book, like his others, is based on fact.

“I try to stay within the realm of possibility,” Bernard explained.

Much of CASCADIA is based on current geoscience, he said, which points toward a natural disaster much like the one imagined in those pages.

“Unfortunately, that is a worst-case scenario that is going to happen someday,” he said. “When it happens, it’s going to be the worst natural disaster in the United States.”

For someone who has written several novels about super storms and natural disasters, Bernard is far from an alarmist. However, he does say it helps to be prepared for disaster. After all, the best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining—or in this case, before the earth starts quaking.

“At least be minimally prepared for when it hits,” he said.

One of the really fun aspects of CASCADIA is a subplot about the hunt for treasure on Neahkahnie Mountain. This well-known Pacific Northwest legend purports that treasure buried by Spanish explorers in the late 1500s lies buried somewhere on the mountain.

“That mountain has been dug up from top to bottom,” Bernard said. “As far as I know, nobody has reported finding treasure on the mountain.”

(Then again, who would report finding the treasure?)

Bernard got his start as a fiction writer after authoring several successful nonfiction weather books.

When he started, “I just sat down and wrote—how hard could this be?”

Pretty hard, as it turns out.

An encounter with best-selling thriller author Steve Barry at a conference in 2005 was a particularly humbling experience.

Bernard went into a one-on-one manuscript review session with high expectations. He was sure the novel would inspire awe and excitement. Maybe Barry would even recommend his agent!

But after reviewing the first 10 pages and synopsis, Barry handed them back with the words: “You’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“I don’t think I heard anything else he said. I was just crushed,” Bernard said.

That’s when Bernard got serious about learning the craft of thriller writing.

“That’s why you go to these conferences. You go to learn.” Also, there are many personal connections, and encouragement. “It keeps you going as a writer.”

His advice?

“You have got to learn the craft. That’s why the Southeast Writers’ Association was so valuable to me. I went to seminars and had people discuss the craft of writing. You’ve got to learn the craft.”

As the lessons sink in from attending workshops and seminars, he said, you can begin to pick and choose advice based on what works for you: “You kind of develop your own style that way.”

After 10 years of learning the craft, and four different manuscripts, his personal “perfect storm” arrived with Eyewall.

He is now taking the reins as president of the Southeastern Writers’ Association, the organization that was so helpful to him in learning to become a thriller writer.

“I attribute a lot of my success to them,” he said.

In addition to running the writers’ organization, he is busy marketing and promoting CASCADIA. These days, his writing schedule is flexible, and he carries his shih tzu upstairs to keep him company in the office.

“I don’t keep a hard and fast schedule,” he said with a laugh. “I’m supposed to be retired!”

*****

H. W. “Buzz” Bernard is a best-selling novelist, retired Weather Channel meteorologist, and a USAF veteran.  His debut novel, EYEWALL, was released in 2011 and went on to become a number-one best seller in Amazon’s Kindle Store. His next two novels, PLAGUE and SUPERCELL, won EPIC eBook Awards in the suspense/thriller category. His fourth novel, BLIZZARD, led to his nomination as a 2016 Georgia Author of the Year. CASCADIA, his most recent thriller, will be released in July 2016.

Buzz has penetrated the eye of a hurricane with the Air Force Hurricane Hunters, chased tornadoes, and provided field support to forest fire fighting operations in the Pacific Northwest. He also spent a summer working on Alaska’s arctic slope, and served two tours in Vietnam while on active duty with the Air Force.

He’s native Oregonian but now calls Roswell, Georgia, home. To learn more, please visit his website.

You can read the original article (and a lot of other great articles) in the July issue of The Big Thrill, published by the International Thriller Writers.

Robert Blake Whitehill speaking with other writers at the Queen Anne’s County Library.

Thriller author Robert Blake Whitehill was the speaker at Saturday’s gathering of Eastern Shore Writers. Robert shared his own success story with writing and publishing his Ben Blackshaw series, which has not only been a hit with readers, but has been optioned for film and is currently in the development process.

Whitehill grew up in a Quaker family in Mardela Springs (Wicomico County) but now lives in Montclair, N.J. Those Eastern Shore roots tugged at him in creating and writing his novels.

Earlier in life, he didn’t set out to be a writer, but an actor. However, he soon found a knack for writing personalized audition monologues for other actors, and then screenplays. He even found a gig writing for the “True Crime” TV series.

Both were good training grounds for how to write action and emotion: “For the monologues, whatever made them breathe faster and brought color to their cheeks, that was the subject of the monologue.”

For many years, Whitehill also worked on the ambulance crew in Montclair, which was a real eye opener into the many facets of how people really live—and die.

“Any experience you give yourself like that is tremendously helpful,” he said.

But the ambulance work took its toll emotionally and physically—hauling stretchers up and down staircases isn’t easy on a back—and he turned his attention to writing fiction. The result was his first Ben Blackshaw novel, “Deadrise.”

Blackshaw is one of those characters in the vein of Jack Reader or Travis McGee. And while McGree in particular is associated with Florida, Blackshaw is a Chesapeake Bay man.

Whitehill got to the core of his character: “If he learns of an injustice, he has to set it right. He is outside the firelight and working in the shadows, for good or ill.”

To help him in writing the books, Whitehill has assembled a team of experts on everything from firearms to the “emotional truths” of combat veterans to editing and cover design.

One unusual tip he suggested for writers is that they take a class in improv comedy. “It will take the stiffness and formality out of the dialogue you write,” he said. “Also, it will help you find your inner funny person. We all have one of those.”

The next step for the Ben Blackshaw character may very well be to the big screen. The stories are currently in the development phase, with the author taking time out to work on the screenplays. While a movie would definitely bring Ben Blackshaw to a wider audience, for now there are four popular novels where the character leaps off the pages.

Whitehill said his goal is for the reader to be entertained on every page.

“If a reader is going to give that time to me, I’m going to respect that to the utmost,” Whitehill said.

Warning Order by Joshua Hood

By David Healey

Joshua Hood may be a relative newcomer to the ranks of published authors, but he is one of those rare thriller writers who has lived more than a few of the experiences described in his military fiction.

Jumping out of airplanes? Check.

Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan? Check.

Combat experience? Check.

He served with the 82nd Airborne for five years, which included missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was decorated for valor in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Now out of the military, his day job still involves its share of excitement as a full-time member of the Memphis SWAT team.

Even while living the life of a thriller character, he never gave up on wanting to be a storyteller.

“I’ve always wanted to be a writer,” he said in a recent interview. “Very early on I developed this love for the written word. Being from the South, I think we’re all kind of natural storytellers.”

In WARNING ORDER, protagonist Mason Kane and other covert operators are in Syria, battling ISIS operatives. It is hard to know who to trust and where loyalties lie. This seems to be true among the American military operatives as well—the plot twists will keep readers off balance. Bullets fly off the pages of the urban combat scenes, described in graphic detail with the accuracy of someone who has been there. It’s worth noting that Kane has a particular skill with a custom-made combat knife.

The action is fast-paced, realistic, and tells a story that begins where the headlines end.

“There is no clear path to victory,” the author noted of the real-life situation.

At the same time, he wanted to create authenticity in his writing and pay homage to the soldiers who are fighting these battles today.

“I wanted Mason Kane to be as realistic as possible,” he said. His character  can have a hard time readjusting to “normal” life after a violent mission. “It’s kind of a dark place to go, but there are people out there who have shared this experience. To paraphrase Nietzsche, ‘If you spend enough time hunting monsters, you become one.’ ”

Growing up, he read anything he could get his hands on, thanks to a library card and a family that encouraged reading. Before joining the military, he was an English major at the University of Memphis.

The first thriller he read (if you don’t count The Iliad and The Odyssey, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Scarlett Pimpernel, all of which he read as a kid) was Eye of the Storm by Jack Higgins. “He is so good at taking these things that happened (such as the IRA mortar attack on Number Ten Downing Street) and building a story around them,” Hood said.

Drawing on an amazing knowledge of military history, Hood makes these same connections with current events. He posits that the current war on terrorism is repeating a cycle of conflict that began as far back as the Crusades.

The books he read in his youth, and his experiences in the military, have been encouragement to write his own thrillers. Before his new book, WARNING ORDER, there was Clear by Fire. He said that he learned a lot about the craft of writing with that book, particularly the need to create at least a rough outline of where the story is going.

“If I don’t know where I’m going I tend to get lost,” he said. He also carries a notebook to jot down ideas.

“Writing is a lot like golf,” he said. “Just when you think you’re good at this, you go out and have a terrible day.”

Hood said he has focused a lot on improving his craft as a writer, particularly because he wants readers to have a great experience with one of his books.

“I’m making a contract with every reader,” he said.

His efforts are being noticed. One of the bestselling authors who provided a blurb for WARNING ORDER was Ted Bell, who is no stranger to action and international intrigue in his own bestsellers. Bell wrote: “There are the guys who’ve been there, and the guys who haven’t. Joshua Hood’s been there, and it shows on every page. Helluva fine writer.”

Such praise set Hood’s head spinning. “It’s still a daydream,” he said of his writing success.

It also turns out that the particular skill set of this 36-year-old, polite and soft-spoken author includes woodworking. Before he settled down to write, he built his own desk from scratch.

“In my mind, it’s all about being a craftsman,” he explained. “I have a connection not only to what I’m writing, but what I’m writing on. It’s like a grounding principle.”

*****

Joshua Hood graduated from the University of Memphis before joining the military and spending five years in the 82nd Airborne Division, where he was team leader in the 3-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment. In 2005, he was sent to Iraq and conducted combat operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2005–2006. From 2007 to 2008 he served as a squad leader in the 1-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment and was deployed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom. Hood was decorated for valor in Operation Furious Pursuit. He is currently a member of a full time SWAT team in Memphis, Tennessee, and has conducted countless stateside operations with the FBI, ATF, DEA, Secret Service, and US Marshals.

To learn more about Joshua, please visit his website.

On the blog of the always interesting Jane Friedman, author Stuart Horwitz has a good post about the drafting process of writing a book. Stuart suggests writing a draft in three stages—basically a rough draft, a draft in revision, and a polished or “edited” draft. This is just the process that has evolved for me after writing more than a dozen published books.

However, it’s not as easy as 1, 2, 3. It’s more like cooking dinner. Sure, that can be broken down into three steps: prepare the ingredients, cook, eat. But somewhere in there you have to shop for the ingredients and try not to overcook the fish. And set the table. Open the wine. Writing is a lot like that—a process with myriad mini-steps to get things just right.

For anyone interested in how writers write, the thriller author Steve Berry has some good videos on YouTube about his own writing process. He states that he goes through the manuscript about 60 times … that sounds about right to me. That’s not actually reading the book from start to finish each time, but focusing on different areas of the draft, taking it from a mess to something that readers will enjoy.

Berry also talks about how much thinking goes into a book. First, I agree that it helps to have a rough idea of the whole story in your head. Before writing, it is useful to think through each scene, often by brainstorming on paper. Even better is to do this the day before so that you spend your precious writing time actually writing.

And let’s not forget research! For writers of historical fiction, that will involve lots of reading and maybe some travel, studying period photographs, or handling actual artifacts when possible to get the details just right. You will also need a good pen to get writing.

The process of writing a book is probably interesting only to other writers, and not so much to readers. Suffice it to say that writing is a messy and fascinating process that gets the story in your head down on the page. It’s as easy, and as hard, as that 1, 2, 3!