Renowned thriller novelist shares formula for writing best-sellers

YOUNGSTOWN

“Sometimes ignorance is bliss,” No. 1 New York Times bestselling thriller novelist Lisa Gardner said with a laugh before her appearance as guest speaker Thursday at The Literary Society of the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County’s top annual fundraiser.

Gardner’s topic at the main library was “The Path to the Best Seller List.”

The prolific novelist, who has had 20 thrillers and more than 30 books total published, was 17 living in rural Oregon when she “one day decided to write a book.” “Walking After Midnight,” written during her summer school break, was the result.

The problem, Gardner said referring to her “ignorance is bliss” comment, was that she had no idea how to get a book published.

As a result, she put the manuscript under her bed and went off to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and came away with a degree in international relations with the goal of working for a multi-national corporation.

In the meantime, family and friends kept urging her to get “Walking After Midnight” published. So she went to the local library and checked out a book on how to publish a best-seller and the rest, as they say, is history.

“It took about 10 years to become successful,” she said.

Gardner’s personal formula for writing a novel is to come up with a crime, most often based on a real incident, and begin a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.

Read more about her work in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.