Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy
Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr.was an American novelist and video game designer best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science story lines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels were bestsellers, and more than 100 million copies of his books are in print. His name was also used on movie scripts written by ghost writers, nonfiction books on military subjects, and video games. He was a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles and vice-chairman of their community...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 April 1947
CityBaltimore, MD
CountryUnited States of America
Keep at it! The one talent that's indispensable to a writer is persistence. You must write the book, else there is no book. It will not finish itself. Do not try to commit art. Just tell the damned story.
Suspense is achieved by information control: What you know. What the reader knows. What the characters know.
Speak your dialogue out loud. If it sounds like the way people talk, then write it down.
Learn to write the same way you learn to play golf. You do it and keep doing it until you get it right.
I write strictly for fun... as long as it stays fun I'll continue to do it.
If you don't write the book, the book ain't gonna get written.
You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf... You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired – it’s hard work.
Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.
I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.
My wife will tell you I'm practically addicted to the History Channel, ... And I read a lot of history.
My vision for this book and the others in the series is to let people know what kind of commanders we have, ... You don't pick generals off park benches. ... They are experts at what they do and lot of thinking goes into it. And I want to get across to people the intellectual dimension of command, to let people know that it's hard to be a general. And the people we have with general stars on their shoulders are pretty smart and pretty good guys.
People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad?
Before, it was always, 'Oh, no, here comes Clancy, that insurance agent.' Now it's, 'Oh, here comes Tom Clancy, bestselling author.' But I'm still the same basic middle-class slob.
When I was doing 'Executive Orders,' I talked about Ebola to people who know about infectious diseases and their use as weapons of war, and guys told me that these weapons are more psychological than physical.