This post is as much for myself as anyone reading it. I'm not even a debut author yet — I will be publishing my first novel, a thriller, within the next twelve months. What business do I have writing this post? I did not even research what makes a thriller before writing — and I'm glad I didn't. It means my book doesn't follow a formula. But, as I research what others say makes a thriller, my book does have many of the essential elements.
In my opinion, there are five things that make a thriller: a gripping opening, daunting consequences, character conflict, pacing, and unexpected twists. Let's look at each.
Gripping opening
Though not from a thriller, the all-time iconic classic opening in literature is: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…" I don't even need to name the book — everyone knows it. Another classic is The Stranger by Albert Camus, which opens with, "My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday…" One of my favorite books hooked me right away with this opening: "Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery." From The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
In contrast, common cliché book openings include starting with a character waking up, a dream sequence, heavy exposition or world-building dumps, or "I was completely unaware that my life was about to change forever." That last one starts with author filtering and no action — very few want to keep reading after such a first sentence.
Openings need to immediately make a reader curious and interested. It could be a surprise action, a short startling reflection, or succinct and brilliant prose — and this last one is extremely hard to pull off, balancing genius without any hint of hubris. It should be a small story that can be told quickly — a subplot or a scene adjacent to the main plot. An author cannot launch straight into the plot. A plot complex enough for a novel will not entice readers in the sentences it takes to introduce it before losing them. It's important that the opening is not cliché and not something you've read a dozen times in other books. It needs to be something that readers can immediately feel intrigued by and invested in. It should relate to the plot, but not be the plot — yet.
Daunting consequences
Danger, or the threat of it. Many refer to this as suspenseful plot, but what is suspenseful plot if not daunting consequences? Authors have to let readers know what the consequences are and build fear of that consequence occurring. Readers can't stop turning pages if they worry about the protagonist escaping or thwarting the consequence. In What Must Be Stopped, there are three consequences — one that each protagonist is trying to stop. Consequences have to feel real and important. Just as importantly, the action that causes a protagonist to triumph has to be believable too.
Character conflict
I cannot think of a single thriller without conflict between characters. Someone has to be working against the protagonist. The best thrillers are not cliché good versus evil, but characters with good intentions working against each other. Those good intentions are often flawed, but those who inflict evil on our world often claim most loudly they are doing good. Authors have to make conflict believable by making protagonists flawed and antagonists with positive traits striving to do good. This increases the suspense of a thriller.
Pacing
Pacing has to build, but not linearly — that's not life. Authors should create intensity right off the bat with a gripping opening, then reduce the temperature and calm things down without slowing it so much that readers get bored. Pacing should increase gradually, but not consistently through the book.
Of note: pacing is one of the things that AI gets wrong and is an easy tell for agents, publishers, and readers — because the pacing is the same in a chase scene as a character-building reflection. One tool to increase pacing is for chapters and sentences to get shorter throughout the book.
Unexpected twists
The staple of any good thriller is a plot twist — and the bigger the better. The all-time greatest plot twist that helped sell over 80 million books was The Da Vinci Code's reveal that the holy grail wasn't a cup, but the bloodline of Jesus Christ. Wow. That's heavy. Great twists have four elements:
- Earned. It doesn't just happen — the character has to work for it.
- No rearview mirror reveal. No deception. Readers learn something when the characters do. It chaps me when something is hidden through subterfuge and then protagonists slowly scrape away at it until the reveal becomes obvious.
- Subtle breadcrumbs. Readers have to be truly surprised by the plot twist. But in reflection, subtle breadcrumbs have to allow a reader to look back and see the plot twist was possible in hindsight. Authors have to create both the complete surprise and the hindsight understanding — a difficult balance.
- Recontextualizes everything. Whatever the plot twist, it has to change everything. I was shocked when Emil Martel, a Jew living in Ukraine in The Last Green Valley, chose to retreat with the Nazis rather than remain under Stalin's oppressive rule. In hindsight it makes sense — as grisly as the thought is. And it completely changed the struggles the Martels endured for the rest of the book. The twist invested readers in their plight in a way no other device could.