There is no literary spy—and perhaps no literary character, full stop—more famous than James Bond, which should already be enough of an argument for any aspiring writer, but particularly any aspiring writer of thrilling tales, to seek advice from his creator, Ian Fleming.
Luckily, I recently stumbled across an essay by Fleming, aptly entitled “How to Write a Thriller,” which appeared in the May 1963 issue of Books and Bookmen, only a little over a year before the author’s death. (I admit that the below version has been pieced together from a few incomplete online sources, primarily this one, which was reprinted by Peter Morwood, and which seems to have been a slightly different edit from the Books and Bookmen version.) It meanders a little, and it’s a little pompous in places (even as it tries to be casual about it) and parts of it have not aged particularly well (delicate shade of pink, indeed), but in the end, most of it is still pretty good advice.
