Steven James is the author of more than thirty books, including the critically acclaimed Bowers Files, an eight-book series of psychological thrillers

Psychological thriller

Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller with heavy focus on characters. However, it often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, along with the typical traits of the thriller genre...

 which currently includes The Pawn, The Rook, The Knight, The Bishop and The Queen. The series has received two Christy Award

Christy Award

The Christy Awards are awarded each year to recognize novels of excellence written from a Christian worldview. Awards are given in several genres, including contemporary , historical, romance , suspense, and visionary...

s and numerous other honors.

Personal life

Steven James was born in Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

 in 1969. He earned his M.A. in Storytelling at East Tennessee State University

East Tennessee State University

East Tennessee State University is an accredited American university located in Johnson City, Tennessee. It is part of the Tennessee Board of Regents system of colleges and universities, the nation's sixth largest system of public education, and is the fourth largest university in the state...

 in 1997. He lives with his wife and three daughters in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee.

The Bowers Files

Steven James' most famous books to date form the psychological thriller series, The Bowers Files. Each book delves into the life of Pat Bowers, an Environmental Criminologist

Environmental criminology

Environmental criminology focuses on criminal patterns within particular built environments and analyzes the impacts of these external variables on people's cognitive behavior...

. Each book is its own story, but they all tie in together in various points.

The Pawn (Synopsis)

Special Agent Patrick Bowers never met a killer he couldn't catch. Until now.

Called to North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 to consult on the case of an area serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

, Bowers finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse

Cat and mouse

Cat and mouse, often expressed as cat-and-mouse game, is an English-language idiom dating back to 1675 that means "a contrived action involving constant pursuit, near captures, and repeated escapes." The "cat" is unable to secure a definitive victory over the "mouse", who despite not being able to...

. Cunning and lethal, the killer is always one step ahead of the law, and he's about to strike again. It will take all of Bowers's instincts and training to stop the man who calls himself the Illusionist.

Thrilling, intense, and impossible to put down, The Pawn will hold you in its iron grip until the very last page.

The Rook (Synopsis)

Patrick Bowers is about to uncover the military's darkest secret . . . and his own dark past.

While investigating a series of baffling fires in San Diego, Special Agent Patrick Bowers is drawn into a deadly web of intrigue where nothing is as it appears to be. With a killer on the loose and one of the world's most deadly devices missing, Bowers is caught in a race against time to stop a criminal mastermind's trap before it closes around the people he loves.

The Knight (Synopsis)

The stakes have never been higher.

Agent Bowers is used to tracking the country's most dangerous killers, but now it looks like a killer is tracking him. Bowers faces a race against time to decipher who the next victim will be and to stop the final shocking murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 — which he's beginning to believe might be his own.

Gritty, chilling, and intense, this psychological thriller is guaranteed to keep you up all night.

The Bishop (Synopsis)

The game is on.

FBI Agent Patrick Bowers's cutting-edge skills are about to be pushed to the limit when a young woman is found brutally murdered in Washington DC

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. Her killers continue a spree of perfect crimes in the Northeast, but with nothing to link them to each other, Agent Bowers faces his most difficult case yet — even as his personal life begins to crumble around him.

The Bishop is a gripping, adrenaline-laced story for readers who are tired of timid thrillers. Strap on your seat belt and get ready for a wild ride.

The Queen (Synopsis)

While investigating a mysterious double homicide in an isolated northern Wisconsin town, FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers uncovers a high-tech conspiracy that ties together long-buried Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 secrets with present-day tensions in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

. Amid the hazardous winter weather and harsh landscape, Bowers must piece together the puzzle before it’s too late.

Opening Moves

The synopsis has yet to be announced, but Steven has announced that this novel will be a prequel to the series. Recently, he announced that the novel will be taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...

, the city in which the series protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

, Patrick Bowers, was a homicide detective before becoming a FBI agent. Speculation has been that Opening Moves will deal with a well-known character and killer in the series, Richard Devin Basque, whom Patrick put in jail. Opening Moves will be released September of next year.

The King

The King returns to the title of a sequel

Sequel

A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

. As with Opening Moves, the synopsis

Synopsis

A synopsis is a brief summary of the major points of a written work, either as prose or as a table; an abridgment or condensation of a work.-See also:*Synopsys, an electronic design automation company based in Mountain View, California...

 for this title has not been announced, but Steven has mentioned a few events that he has planned. Following the timing of the previous books' release dates, The King should be released sometime around September of 2013.

Checkmate

Checkmate will be the last book in the series. There has been no word on what we can expect when it is released. Checkmate will most likely have the release date of September 2014.

Writing career

Besides writing the suspenseful Bowers Files series, Steven James has also written other inspirational nonfiction books, including Sailing Between the Stars: Musings on the Mysteries of Faith, Never the Same: Stories of Those Who Encountered Jesus, Becoming Real: Christ’s Call to Authentic Living, A Heart Exposed: Talking to God with Nothing to Hide and Story: Recapture the Mystery. Steven has received two Christy Awards for best suspense, one in 2009 for The Rook and the second in 2011 for The Bishop. He has received four Storytelling World Honor awards and two Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

 starred reviews. The Bishop was named the 2010 Book of the Year by RT Review, Suspense Magazine

Suspense magazine

Suspense Magazine —founded in 2007— is an American print and digital magazine, providing interested readers with articles, interviews, short stories and other content based primarily on horror, suspense, mystery and thriller novels and best selling and newly discovered authors.A small list of...

and The Christian Manifesto. Steven is an active member of International Thriller Writers

International Thriller Writers

International Thriller Writers, Inc., was founded October 9, 2004, at a meeting at Bouchercon World Mystery and Suspense Conference in Toronto, Canada. Six months later, some 150 authors with more than one billion books sold worldwide had joined the organization as founding members.Co-founders...

, Mystery Writers of America

Mystery Writers of America

Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....

, the Authors Guild, and the International Association of Crime Writers. He is also a contributing editor to Writer's Digest

Writer's Digest

Writer's Digest is an American magazine devoted to both beginning and established writers, offering interviews, market listings, calls for manuscripts, and how-to articles....

. He has taught writing and storytelling principles on three continents.

In addition, he has written prayer collections, dramas, monologue

Monologue

In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...

s, a nine book series on creative storytelling, and young adult fantasy.

Early Beginnings

Steven’s infatuation with stories has been with him throughout his life. When he was in sixth grade, he and a friend made up and wrote their own epic adventures. Steven also told himself stories to escape the monotony of his job as a school crossing guard

Crossing guard

A crossing guard , a school crossing patrol officer , school crossing supervisor or school road patrol is a traffic management specialist who is normally stationed on busy roadways to aid pedestrians...

. “I remember older people driving past and staring at me, because this crossing guard kid was standing there talking to himself,” Steven recalled with a chuckle. “I can still picture some of these older drivers staring at me while driving past, almost driving into mailboxes.”

Learning to Write

When Steven was in college, he took wilderness guide training and became a camp program director. “I always enjoyed that, but I found that even when I was leading trips, in the back of my mind, I was kind of making things up … and thinking, Oh, I’d rather be sitting down writing about this.”

“Finding my own voice took me a while,” Steven said. In fact, he had to write 18 books before he felt like what he was writing was truly “him.” One of his English professors and later a great editor, who reaffirmed him as a writer, provided encouragement in his journey. He also gained impetus and courage to write by reading Why Geese Fly Farther Than Eagles by Bob Stromberg and Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

John Bunyan

John Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...

.

Writing Habits

Steven has come a long way since his early years. When it’s time to crack down on some serious writing, the office in his basement, his porch, and his kids’ tree house

Tree house

Tree houses, treehouses, or tree forts, are platforms or buildings constructed around, next to or among the trunk or branches of one or more mature trees while above ground level...

 (which he built “supposedly for them”) are a few of his favorite places to tune out the world’s distractions.
Finding his optimum time to write, however, can be tricky: “It’s funny; I work really well late at night from 11 to like 1 and from like 6 to 10 a.m. or so, which really stinks because I can’t do them both one day after the other. I have to choose: Do I want to stay up late or get up early?”

Writing Style

Steven describes his style as “writing forward and backward at the same time,” and he’s not afraid to change things around while he’s writing. While he was editing The Knight, he realized that if he was reading his own book, he would correctly identify the killer. For a Steven James thriller, predictability

Predictability

Predictability is the degree to which a correct prediction or forecast of a system's state can be made either qualitatively or quantitatively.-Predictability and Causality:...

 is unacceptable, so with three days left before his deadline, Steven began the intricate process of changing the culprit’s identity.

Perspective on Reading Other Thriller Authors

Despite some advice he has received, Steven doesn’t like reading books in his own genre. “I don’t want to unconsciously begin to mirror the writing that I’m reading,” he said, “and also, I get critical of them because I notice all the plot flaws.”

Perspective on What Makes a Good Story

What are the most basic ingredients of a good story? Steven defines a story as having “a character who wants something but can’t get it. At its core that’s what every story is about.” According to an article Steven wrote for Writer’s Digest, the three secrets of good story telling are the mastery of cause and effect, believability and escalation.

Steven also believes that a good story doesn’t make promises without keeping them. That is, evil people don’t make empty threats, and the author doesn’t waste the reader’s time with meaningless details. “Every word in a sentence is a promise to the significance of that word in the story,” he said.

Another essential is narrative tension, which must be used by the writer to hold the reader’s curiosity and interest. He gives an example: “Romance is not about romance. It’s about romantic tension: two people trying to get together and not being able to do it. Once the romance starts, the story’s over!”

Steven also says that there are benefits to the “organic” story-writing process, which he uses. “I believe you need to be responsive to where the story is going as you write it,” he said.

He explains that getting acquainted with fictional character

Fictional character

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

s is a process: “I can’t just sit here and expect that I’ll know everything about a character, but as I write, I spend 6 or 9 months to a year, 5 to 6 hours a day with this character.” Steven notes that over time, he is able to fill in characters’ back-stories, and he learns how they would respond to different situations. His process of refining characters and plot points is an extremely holistic process. For this reason, he is incredulous of authors who can outline a story and then fill in the details linearly from beginning to end. He believes that such an approach would feel too boxy and be too predictable.

Perspective on Christian Fiction

“Many people come up and ask me, ‘Well, are your books really Christian fiction, because they have so much violence and evil?’ ” Steven said. “People have these strange beliefs that Christian fiction means it doesn’t have sex, it doesn’t have bad language and it doesn’t have violence.” He pointed out that even the Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

 and the stories of Jesus don’t fit such restricted criteria.

“I believe non-Christian fiction, if you want to call it that, is fiction that promotes or celebrates things that go against God’s character,” Steven explained. Therefore, he believes a Christian fiction book can portray evil, so long as it portrays it without glamorizing it or endorsing an agenda contrary to God’s. With his books, he aims to value the things that God values without glamorizing what He abhors.

Still, Steven doesn’t recommend the Bowers Files for teenagers. He said his books target “guys who are about 30 or 35 years old who like to see things blow up….” Despite this, he remembered being approached by an older woman who claimed to be the series’ biggest fan. “I thought, 'You’re not exactly my target audience

Target audience

In marketing and advertising, a target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which the marketing message is aimed .....

, but whatever! If you enjoy it, more power to you!'”

Perspective on Plot Adversity and Evil

Steven strongly opposes some writers’ practice of “muting” evil to make it look less disgusting or terrifying. Where other authors might choose to substitute in cardboard cutouts for their villains, he prefers to give a more honest view of reality, even when reality is gruesome. He has been disturbed by some of the fictional serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

s he writes about, but he insists that it’s necessary for authors to explore fictional personalities so that the characters seem more real on the page. It can also be difficult for him to make his main characters suffer. As an example, Steven mentioned Tessa, a teenage character in his Bowers Files, who struggles with cutting

Self-harm

Self-harm or deliberate self-harm includes self-injury and self-poisoning and is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue most often done without suicidal intentions. These terms are used in the more recent literature in an attempt to reach a more neutral terminology...

and emotional instability. Without realistic obstacles to overcome and suffering to stir the readers’ emotions, however, there’s no story. “I think at its heart, reading is an emotional experience,” he observed. “A book should draw us in, and it should move us. And if it doesn’t move us, it probably fails.”

The Bowers Files

• The Pawn
• The Rook
• The Knight
• The Bishop
• The Queen
• Opening Moves (2012)
• The King (2013)
• Checkmate (2014)

Other Fiction

• Quest for Celestia: A Reimagining of The Pilgrim’s Progress (re-released 2012)

Nonfiction

• Sailing Between the Stars: Musings on the Mysteries of Faith

• Never the Same: Stories of Those Who Encountered Jesus

• Becoming Real: Christ’s Call to Authentic Living

• A Heart Exposed: Talking to God with Nothing to Hide

• Story: Recapture the Mystery

• How to Smell Like God: True Stories Burning with the Scent of Heaven

• Praying from the Gut: An Honest Prayer Journal for Teens

• Sharable Parables: Creative Storytelling Ideas for Ages 3–12

• The Creative Storytelling Guide for Children’s Ministry: When All Your Brain Wants to Do Is Fly!

• 30 New Testament Interactive Stories for Young Children

• 30 Old Testament QuickSkits for Kids

• 30 New Testament QuickSkits for Kids

• Bible Story QuickSkits for 2 Kids

• Crazy and Creative Bible Stories for Preteens

• 30 Old Testament Interactive Stories for Young Children

• Believe It!

• Jawdroppers: 36 Shocking Stories for Students Based on the Sayings of Jesus

• Drama for Real Life: 16 Scripts About Choices that Shape Us

• Gather Round the Dinner Fable

• Worship Sketches 2 Perform

• 24 Tandem Bible hero Story Scripts for Children’s Ministry

• 24 Tandem Bible Storyscripts for Children’s Ministry

• Astonishing Tales of Spiritual Truth: Gripping Stories Based on the Sayings of Jesus

• More Worship Sketches 2 Perform

• On the Edge: A Collection of 17 Hard-Hitting Christian Monologues for Youth

External links

• Website http://www.stevenjames.net
• Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/sjamesauthor
• Blog http://stvjames.blogspot.com
• http://www.thequeenbook.com
• http://www.amazon.com/Steven-James/e/B001IU0RQS/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1310574836&sr=8-1
• http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8007-1896-1
• http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8007-1897-8
• http://www.christianfictionreview.com/?review=535
• http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8007-3302-5