The Influence Of Stieg Larsson On My Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you were to have asked me a decade ago what novel I saw myself writing, I would have said some sort of scifi novel. But here I am, working on a thriller in the style of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I, of course, am actually using his The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook.”

The only reason why this happened is I love The Girl Who Played With Fire so much that I can read it over and over and over and over and over and over and not get bored. The ironic thing is I haven’t even read it all the way through that much. I just read the first 50-100 pages a lot as part of my “study.” Larsson, in some ways, was far more ambitious in his structure than I am.

My novel is going to be a lot more straightforward in its structure. I just don’t know squat about police procedurals and was never that good a journalist, either. So I just have to try to fake it. This is going to be a far more journalistic oriented novel than The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Anyway, I keep being paranoid that the Larsson estate is looking at this blog in alarm for this or that reason. If you are — cool it guys, you have nothing to worry about. While my heroine is meant to be an American Lisbeth Salander, that’s where the similarities stop. I will, however, give myself credit – I’ve come up with a pretty good heroine, if I do say so myself.

I’m sure something will happen to make my dreams of writing a break out thriller moot, but I’m digging the endorphin rush of allowing myself to be delusional for an extended amount of time.

Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

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