How to make a thriller really matter - raising the stakes!

All the steps in creating a plausible plot in thriller writing, I believe,  must come from the premise of an antagonist (villain) wanting one thing and a protagonist (hero) wanting the direct opposite. This creates the basic conflict that will drive the story to its final climactic end. Layered in and around this conflict may be more subplots and story lines that enrich the central story. In other words the story is multi-layered and thick with intrigue and suspense. It is this potent mixture of forces set one against the other that is the engine behind any thriller story.

The stakes in a thriller must also be very high so menace and threat are around every corner. Of course, the greatest threat (and the one many successful stories have thrived on) is world domination or a catastrophic event that threatens the entire world. For example ‘War of the Worlds’, ‘Alien’ and various James Bond’s epics. Plotting a novel like this may start fairly worryingly but then the plot should rise to epic proportions and stakes go higher and higher as more danger is piled on and more people realise the gravity of the situation and a race against time.

But it doesn’t always have to be about threats to the entire world - it may simply be threats to a main character’s nearest and dearest! And, in my opinion, the best way to raise the stakes is for the reader to strongly identify with the characters in peril and thereby worry for their safety. So the plot cannot be all about action and suspense - character development and engendering empathy is integral to the plot too. Put together it should make for one heck of a thriller…

Worry ought to be a key element in a thriller, do you agree?

A Curious Thing Happened...

One of the things I learned early on in my novel writing was that you must have fully formed multi-dimensional characters. I wondered what this actually meant and after reading around and talking to other writers I realised that the characters (at least the main ones) must come to the page with an agenda, motivation, likes, dislikes and tons of personality.

Of course, you cannot bore readers to death with masses of personal history, but what you can do is compile a character sheet with all the personal traits you want the character to have – as recommended by many a ‘how to write’ author… But wait… That still didn’t feel quite right to me. How can a simple list of likes, dislikes make a person? The answer is they don’t!

But I made my lists anyway and then a curious thing happened… I found myself wondering ‘why’ this character would like this and ‘why’ did they hate that?  I started writing more (on my character sheet) about the character’s childhood, upbringing, status in life and what brought them to this point in their existence. Suddenly I had a story character with formidable motivation who felt real – great! But it did not exactly fit the plot I had in mind. What to do? I changed the plot.

I did this with other characters too – especially the antagonist – trying to go against the main traits I had in my protagonist. Voila – I had inbuilt conflict. When I finished doing all the character sheets I realised I had stacks of back story which I could draw on at any point in my story without going into information and descriptive overload.

I have to say this method of drawing up extensive back story really worked for me and I think my stories benefitted enormously from my knowing what motivated the characters.  Most of this work never saw the light of day, of course, but it helped me to have it in my mind that a certain person would react/behave in a certain way because they were pre-programmed by fate, upbringing and circumstance. I like to think my characters ‘came to life on the page’ – tried and trusted cliché I know…  Sorry.

So now, when I am trying to put a story together, I start with the germ of an idea and then go onto character pretty quickly so I can write their history and what makes them the person/character that they are.  It generally results in a well-rounded, believable plot too. At least that’s what I like to think…

So, do you write character sheets that tie in with the back story?

Killers

K – Killer

So many types of fiction have murders in them that it feels almost unnecessary to have ‘who dun it’s’ as a genre. My own fiction is mostly supernatural thriller writing but somewhere in the story, there will likely be a dead body/murder of some kind.

I suppose death fascinates and scares all of us but it becomes really shocking when people have died in violent circumstances, or by another’s hand. It threatens all that we hold dear – that of being able to accept death as natural and inevitable at some point when our bodies wear out… None of us want our lives to end this way…

So perhaps that is why we abhor people who take life (kill or murder), so much. I think it is also the fact that the majority of ordinary people cannot imagine how someone can kill as it goes against what we perceive as the nature of being human and protective of fellow human beings. Killers, who murder and mutilate appear to have little regard for human life and appal and fascinate us at the same time. We cannot put ourselves (mostly) in their place and carry out the same deeds.

From time immemorial murderers have been the antagonists and adversaries in all types of fiction. The policeman/woman, in crime writing, trying to solve a case finds the murderer a tough opponent in a battle of wits and the secret agent in spy thrillers may well be trying to stop the murder of many. The war hero/cowboy fighting an enemy he perceives has murdered his fellow countrymen… Even some romance stories take murder and mayhem as their settings. But the ultimate fictional murderer has to be the Devil himself who not only kills but takes souls!

Whilst, in real life, unlawful killings are relatively few, in fiction they happen left right and centre!  They add an extra dimension for so many stories because there are no higher personal stakes than the risk of losing one’s life!

For myself, I relish dreaming up a murderer for my stories – it is wicked!

Do you use killers in your stories - even if you don't write in the crime genre?