By Tina Pittaway in the Fall 2015 Dal Magazine.

When the September 11th attacks took place in 2001, Tony McFadden (BEng (TUNS)’85) was working in Malaysia for a telecommunications company.

His job required him to spend a lot of time in airplanes, prompting a friend to suggest that McFadden take a run at writing a thriller with a telecom expert at the centre of the action.

A novel direction

That novel, Matt’s War, would hook McFadden on the challenges of writing fast-paced, teeth-gnashing thrillers.

He credits his background in project planning for major firms like Nokia, where he managed a team of radio engineers, with helping him come up with a fail-safe formula for his writing, which to date includes 10 self-published novels and a couple of screenplays.

Proper planning

“[Outlining a story] is high-level design. I’m doing a lot of project planning now and I know that in order to have a radio tower ready to put your radio equipment on in six months I have to order that equipment right now, not in six months,” says McFadden from his office in Perth, Australia, the country he moved to 10 years ago with his wife. Born in Sydney, N.S. and raised mostly in Saskatchewan, McFadden’s love of the beach is what’s kept him in Australia.

“Story structure is basically a blueprint.” Before writing the first draft, McFadden has already thought of six to seven key scenes, and he knows how it’s going to end; he’s filled in the blanks on how the characters get to that ending and what elements come into play in order to get them there.

“I won’t write the first draft until I know what all these points are,” he explains. “Mapping that can take me longer than writing the first draft.”

Moving forward

His next big stage is tackling the marketing. As a self-published author, his books are available on Amazon and all major eBook platforms, as well as on his website, www.tonymcfadden.net. His plan from day one was to have a deep back catalogue in place before he mapped out his marketing blueprint.

“I always said I’d write 10 books to have a back catalogue and start working on the business side. The 10th dropped in February,” he says.