Recently I’ve read a few books marketed as thrillers and which didn’t thrill me at all. I think the definition is more concrete than for those nebulous categories such as classics or literary fiction, but maybe there is room for doubt? Or are publishers and promoters misleading us, persuading us to pick up books by describing them as thrillers?
There are many kinds of thrillers, such as psychological, spy, techno, action, gothic, legal, mystery, crime… in fact, you could add ‘thriller’ on to any descriptor, providing it has these elements common to all thrillers:
- Secrets or mysteries to uncover and / or solve. Quite often, this will be in the form of murders, missing people, conspiracies, or shady events from characters’ pasts coming back to haunt them.
- Suspense. The building of tension throughout the story will have the reader on the edge of their seat. This often includes characters being stalked, the outcome of legal cases, sinister settings or violent confrontations.
- Unreliable narrators / characters. If you can’t trust anyone, even the person telling the story, this increases the intrigue, makes all the characters suspects and keeps the reader guessing.
- Fast pace. New information, snappy dialogue or action scenes crop up very frequently to keep the reader turning the pages and racing through the book.
- Plot-driven. A focus on the events of the story, rather than detailed character development. The best thrillers will have good character development which doesn’t get in the way of the plot.
- Twists. Readers like to guess and are impressed with thrillers that are very unpredictable. In my opinion, the more shocking and out-there the twist is, the better! As is demonstrated in my book We Watch You – the twist certainly divided opinion!
How would you define thrillers? Have you encountered any falsely marketed ones lately? Let me know!
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