“Usually, when people get to the end
of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberatively write a book so when the
reader gets to the end of the chapter, he or she must turn one more page.” -Sidney Sheldon
Perhaps
responsible for more sleepless nights than he cares to take actual credit for,
Sheldon went from being a “good” television show producer to a great novelist,
writing some 20 books after the age of 50, including the best-sellers, Master
of the Game, The Other Side of Midnight, and A Rage of Angels.
Before
his death in 2007 just one week short of age 90, he had become one of the top
10 best-selling fiction writers of all time, and currently resides in the lofty
number 7 slot for that honor. His
novels often feature determined women who persevere in a tough world run by
hostile men, and contain a workshop’s worth of suspenseful devices that keep
his readers turning the page.
Sidney Sheldon
“If there is any secret to my
success, I think it's that my characters are very real to me. I feel everything
they feel, and therefore I think my readers care about them. I put my characters into situations that are
so precarious there is no way to get out,” he told an interviewer. “And then I figure how to get them out.” A legacy
of “how to write right,” especially when it comes to suspense.
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