Three Tips for Writing a Thriller Story
Ever experience a nightmare in which you were running to escape someone or something? The “monster” is on your heels, breathing down your neck. Chills cause you to wake up in a cold sweat. You struggle for a sense of reality. Fear forces your heart to pound and your chest to ache. You awaken, startled, exhausted, and the darkness envelopes you like a shroud. That, my friends, is a thriller.
Writing a thriller follows the guidelines of every well-written story with the caveat of super high stakes and calculated suspense that pit the hero and villain against themselves. Neither will bow to defeat. Death is an accepted risk, and victory for the hero could mean saving hundreds or thousands of lives. Time is always running out!
The thriller’s macro level is a plot that involves a crime or espionage. That is the easy part. Understanding the micro level and applying expert thriller-writing techniques set the book up to be a potential bestseller. A true thriller, whether psychological, action, crime, or legal contains tension and gut-wrenching, edge-of-the-seat fear and its best friend, danger.
In your quest to reach acclaim for creating a masterful thriller, what are three tips to add to your writing arsenal?
1. Read thrillers. Lots of them. Understand the author’s method of building suspense.
Dissect the books like a biology class assignment. Highlight and write in them like a workbook. What makes the plot line work? What is different about the character?
Study the antagonistic setting in every scene. What is the heart of the story? As a reader, why are you scared for the hero/heroine and other victims?
2. Build emotive conflict. Use all seven universal emotions—surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, happiness, and contempt—to fill the characters and readers with near constant anxiety. Pack a punch with dialogue, ensuring that every word could translate into betrayal. Incorporate pressure for the hero to succeed. Incorporate pressure for the villain to succeed.
3. Drop your hero/heroine into a cauldron of inescapable danger. Increase tension with the action. Set the hero/heroine up to fail. Have them climb the ladder of determination with peril stalking their every step. Don’t save your darlings too soon. Make them pay for their courage with blood, sweat, and tears.
Bonus tip! Think like Agatha Christie, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz. Crawl into their minds and discover how to create your own unforgettable thriller.
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She creates action-packed, suspense-filled novels to thrill readers. Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists and won two Christy Awards, the Golden Scroll, Inspirational Reader’s Choice, and Carol Award contests. DiAnn’s latest novel, Facing the Enemy, releases from Tyndale in September 2023. Connect with DiAnn at diannmills.com.
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