The document discusses common elements of the thriller genre. It notes that thrillers create suspense and raise stakes for the protagonist through faster-paced tension compared to mysteries. Character growth is also important, with the hero learning something by the end. Typical plot structural elements include an inciting incident, complications, a climactic battle, and a resolution. Villains must be equally matched with heroes and challenge them repeatedly. Psychological thrillers focus more on the mind and skills of characters rather than physical action, with conflict occurring through their wits.

1. Genre Research
Common Elements Thriller Genre
• Suspense, tension, raising of stakes for the protagonist. Typically the pace of this tension is faster in a
thriller against a mystery.
• As with most good fiction, the hero needs to have grown and learnt and ultimately changed by the end of
the novel. This character growth is what leads to the main character’s ability to get
through his darkest hour, and win during the climatic ending.
• Typical structural elements to the plot – an inciting incident or turning point that makes the main
character move from their everyday and go on their journey to solve the issue, conflict,
pace, complications, a darkest hour where everything seems lost, a climatic battle and
denouement.
• The ending should resolve all loose ends, but provide a satisfactory twist if possible. Good should prevail
over bad. And the hero should have learnt something about himself or the human
condition.
•
• No Coincidences – although they happen in real life all the time – should be avoided in fiction, even
though they can provide character conflict. Readers aren’t satisfied by coincidental events
or conflict.
Characters
• Villains don’t necessary need accompanying characters, they can often operate completely alone.
If they do have henchmen or minions, one of these may appear to everyone including the reader
as being the villain, hiding the real one behind (although this trope has been overused a little
recently).
• The villain must be equally matched with the hero, somebody as smart, resourceful, determined
and as multi-dimensional as the hero. The antagonist must challenge the protagonist to the max,
over and over again, winning all the way up to the ultimate showdown. She must be worthy of the
reader’s hatred, but with multi-dimensions, the reader should also be invited to have ‘sympathy for
the devil‘ (Jessica Page Morrell) or at least an understanding of why they are so villainous (even for
creatures or paranormal monsters).

2. Plot
• The emphasis in a thriller is typically on plot – action, pace, movement. Not character.
• Tension and conflict should start from the very first line and paragraph. If not the actual inciting
incident, the first paragraph should create a hook for the reader and set the genre in their mind.
Donald Maas calls this initial opening tension a ‘bridging tension‘.
Thrillers
• Action and psychological aspects both are used to add to the suspense.
• With a psychological thriller the conflict is through the mind, skills, and wit of main characters,
reversing the more normal thriller “plot over character” expectations ie. a psychological thriller reader
needs to understand the character, character can (sometimes) be slightly more important than plot
(although I prefer both in equal measures).
• Characters shouldn’t win using physical talents or efforts, but rather using their mind, wits or smarts.
• Elements of drama, mystery and horror can often find themselves in the psychological thriller due to
the emphasis on motivation and the mind.