American Author Thesis Proposal

Raul Valle Jr.
Block: L/D.
4.15.2008
Thesis Proposal for Richard Preston
(American Author)

Some thesis proposals that I first came up with were a bit dull or too weak. They were either based on just what I read and learned from reading, or they were based on simple topics that I took out of the books. Even though I have not finished reading my second book, there are some possible things that I may want to write about. One thing that I am really trying to focus on is the sense of style that Richard Preston likes to use when describing or writing his novels. Most of Richard Preston’s novels are related in some way or another. Well, at least the ones that I read were related. For instance, there is the way he likes to connect horrifying true stories and turn them into something ordinary. His use of style writing, as I like to call it, is something anyone can enjoy when reading his books. This type of writing is most definitely hard to find, though. In the books The Cobra Event and The Hot Zone, the one key thing is that Science can relate to almost anything. Not just plain Science, but science fiction in particular. Richard Preston knows how to put words in a way that is not only interesting to read but also informative and that is a special talent that not many writers can do.

ACTUAL THESIS: In both, The Cobra Event and The Hot Zone, Richard Preston’s use of science fiction enhances the ability of telling different stories and through that making a point that fiction sometimes is scarier than real life.

Although I’m not sure if I will stay with this thesis because I have not finished reading my books, I will try really hard to stick to only one because it makes it harder to keep changing ideas. The most important thing is that this thesis is based on most of the reading I did so it’ll be difficult to change it later. This thesis is not only challenging but stressful as well. That’s the way I like it. It will be hard to come up with a ten-page paper based on just this thesis so it is not a done deal that the whole paper will revolve around it. I will also want to include some of the author’s biography and some book reviews about The Cobra Event and The Hot Zone. I will try to connect them in some way. I will probably start off by introducing a clear thought of my thesis and then continue on with the biography and the different book reviews if I find any that are good. I will surely look at the books for some particular themes that will lead me to discovering more about “style writing”. I have read some short biographies of Richard Preston and from his novels to his lifestyle; it definitely shows how he can write such excellent pieces of novels.