Paul Tomlinson - Suspense Thriller: How to Write Chase, Spy, Legal, Medical, Psychological, Political & Techno-Thrillers

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Suspense Thriller is Copyright 2018 by Paul Tomlinson

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, or used in any manner whatsoever, without the express permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in the context of a book review.

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First published July 2018

Publisher: Paul Tomlinson

www.paultomlinson.org/how-to

Cover image and design 2018 by Paul Tomlinson

Thrillers account for twenty to thirty per cent of all adult fiction sales, making this genre second only to Romance. And between 1995 and 2018, Thriller/Suspense movies accounted for 8% of American cinema revenue almost $18 billion putting them in fifth place. There is a big audience looking for new stories from writers who understand the conventions of the genre and can provide something that is the same only different.

What is a thriller? Many genres are defined by their content: a Romance, for example, centres on the relationship between two people, and a Western is set in the American West during the late 1800s. But the Thriller is defined by what it does. It thrills. That is, it evokes and sustains an emotional response that is exciting and pleasurable. That emotional response is usually described as involving suspense, tension, anxiety, or anticipation. Beyond that, there isnt really a formal definition of what a thriller is.

The 100 Thrills list produced by the American Film Institute in 2001 included a wide range of movies whose adrenaline-inducing impact created an experience that engages our bodies as well as our minds. The list includes the obvious crime and mystery stories but also some horror, science fiction, action-adventure, and war stories. Even if we exclude these outliers, the thriller genre still includes a broad range of subject matter, including crime, espionage, medicine, politics, the law, technology, and human psychology. It would be impossible to cover the full spectrum in a single volume, so I have split coverage of the thriller across two books in this series: Suspense Thriller and Crime Thriller.

In Suspense Thriller I will cover the following sub-genres:

• Amateur-on-the-Run Hitchcock and beyond
  
• Spy Thriller & Espionage James Bond and John Le Carr
  
• Political Thrillers conspiracies and cover-ups; assassination; terrorism, and hostage-taking
  
• Medical Thrillers conspiracies and outbreaks of deadly diseases
  
• Legal Thriller prosecution and defense cases in the courtroom
  
• Techno-Thriller technology misused; technology gone wrong, and technology as weapon
  
• Psychological Thriller psychoanalysis, amnesia, stolen identity and mistaken identity, woman in jeopardy, and stalker thrillers
  
• Manhunts and chases
  

And in Crime Thriller I will cover the following:

• Hardboiled/private detectives
  
• Gangsters
  
• Police Procedurals
  
• Forensic investigation
  
• Undercover cops
  
• Psychological profiling and serial killers
  
• Capers & Heists
  
• Prison thrillers
  
• Noir Romance
  
• Enforcers & Vigilantes
  

In Supsense Thriller, we will also explore the concept of a conspiracy and coming back to the idea of emotional response well look in some detail at theories relating to suspense and at techniques you can use to create suspense in your stories.

Well begin by looking at the two main variations of a thriller plot those with an amateur hero, such as Hitchcocks thriller The 39 Steps, and those with a professional hero, such as the James Bond series. Then we will explore specific sub-genres listed above, before rounding off with a quick look at how popular modern thriller writers have mixed-and-matched different thriller elements in their stories.

I should also point out at this early point that I am only discussing full-length stories feature films and novels and not short stories, novellas, or television episodes or series. While many of the ideas in this book could be adapted for shorter or episodic works, that is not my primary focus. I dont particularly distinguish between film and novel in what follows the basic plot structure of both is very similar, and many of the movies I refer to as examples are adapted from novels. If there are any major differences between the way a story can be presented in a movie or a novel in terms of point of view, for example I have noted them, otherwise I assume that techniques are equally applicable between the two. Full-length plays for the stage or the radio are subject to additional restrictions in terms of presentation, but much of what is included in this book could be adapted for use in those media.

In the following pages you will fine twenty-two plot templates for different types of thriller including terrorism plots, legal trials, amnesia thrillers, women in jeopardy, technology-gone-wrong, and disease outbreaks. There are also thirty or so large and small-scale techniques for creating suspense in stories.

People choose to read genre fiction because they want books that have certain things in common but at the same time they want a fresh new story. The trick for the writer is identifying those things that need to remain constant and those areas where originality is required how can we create something that is the same only different?

In the Genre Writer series, I am using a standard set of genre conventions to show what story elements readers expect to find in a particular type of story:

• Setting: Where and when the story is set including physical place, historical period, and social milieu.
  
• Iconography: What objects or props, clothing, or other items appear, and what is their symbolic meaning?
  
• Themes: What human values are defended or opposed? What issues or concepts are explored?
  
• Tone: What is the emotional mood or style of the story?
  
• Characters: What roles are required and what types of people fill them?
  
• Plots: What is the typical sequence of events and what scenes regularly occur?
  

In chapter two, I will look at each of these conventions as they relate to the archetypal amateur-on-the-run thriller, and in subsequent chapters I will highlight any differences or additions to these that relate to each of the other sub-genres.

Coming up with definitions for genres and sub-genres (and sub-categories of sub-genres!) can be tricky. I want to have something that is both helpful for writers wanting to create new stories and that can be used to classify existing stories to provide lists of examples. But genres are notoriously slippery things they dont have official names or definitions, people use the same name to mean different things, and individual films or novels can often legitimately be listed in more than one sub-genre. All of which is by way of saying that Ive done my best to provide usable definitions and descriptions but mine may not always match up exactly with those you see elsewhere.