Thriller Writing Tip: The Anatomy of a Thriller
Every thriller has three C’s: the contract, the clock, and the crucible.
- The contract: an implied promise you make to the reader about what will be delivered by the end of the book. It’s crucial to keep every single promise you make, no matter how trivial.
- The clock: the fact that adding time pressure to any character’s struggle will create higher stakes and more interest for the reader. The goal of this element is not to be stunningly original but to add pressure that will prompt conflicts and intense responses from your characters.
- The crucible: a box that constrains your characters, offers them no escape, and forces them to act. Your story should present an increasingly difficult series of tasks and situations for the hero that will funnel them into the most severe trial of all. You must make sure that each successive task is harder than the previous one and that, for the hero, there is no escape. If readers begin to sense that the journey is becoming easier, they’ll lose interest.
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