David Mamet is often mentioned when learning how to write a story. In the afterward to his screenplay The Spanish Prisoner, Mamet said he’d wanted to create a ‘thriller lite’, placing it in the tradition of such thrillers as Hitchcock’s North-by-Northwest.
He was a bit vague about the details but right away I knew exactly what he meant. It’s obvious when you think about it, but it takes a genius like Mamet to point out just how obvious it is.
(For those of you from outside the U.S, ‘thriller lite’ is supposed to be a comic variation on the beer ‘Miller Lite’. It’s good to know even the best writers aren’t above the occasional pun.)
This particular thriller tradition has spanned decades and has a very specific set of recurring characters whose natural interaction with the hero sees them ideally suited to making the twists and turns of a thriller tick over like clockwork. When done well, hit movies and bestselling books follow.
The nature of the thriller genre means that some characters, or types of characters, are naturally suited to appearing in thrillers. Again and again the same similar characteristics pop up in succesful thriller after succesful thriller. They're not there because it's the rules, they're there because they're logical fits. You don't have to be a slave to any of the comments here when you decide to write a story, but you do need to accept that each represents how things are usually done.
Let’s look at a few classics of the genre. They provide a wonderful insight into the kind of supporting characters that a thriller might need.
Charade / N by NW / The Spanish Prisoner/ The Game
The hero - usually the protagonist, and not necessarily heroic in the traditional sense. The hero will be forced into a murky world by the villain and must draw deep to find the resouces to escape.
A friend – Sylvie/ mother / Lang/ Ilsa (lifelong servant) & Liz (ex-wife). The friend solves nothing, in fact they can easily get in the way. They do, however, provide emotional and practical support where they can. It may cost them and, in turn, our hero.
A (potential) lover (we hope they’ll live happily ever after with our hero, or at least be shagging by the end of the story). Like the hero, we want to trust them. Never who they seem to be, they are always someone new in the hero’s life) – ‘Peter’/ Eve / Susan/ Christine
A constant enemy (to get things moving) – 3 men at the husband’s funeral/ Vandamme/ Bosses/ CRS
An authority on what’s going on (seems to have potential to help) – Bartholomew/ Professor / Del / Conrad (brother)
The friend, the potential lover, the constant enemy, the authority: along with the hero, that gives you a cast of five. Everyone else is just a plot device.
Nothing is written in stone. The plot can go anywhere. At first glance, Charade and The Game couldn’t be more different, apart from their themes of deception and fortune. Look beneath the surface, and we see the same basic characters interact in incredibly similar ways.
There is a good reason for these repeating character types, and that reason is the thriller hero. These characters are well suited to creating dramatic situations that will test and reveal the thriller heroes' character. The lover who is not who they seem to be is the classic example of this. How the hero deals with the discovery that the object of his affections could be the cause of his pain is a great test of character.
More advice on how to write a story can be found here.
-Benet Simon & Mike Mindel
Technorati Tags: how to write a story, write a story, thrilling characters, hitchcock, north by northwest, the game, the thriller tradition
He was a bit vague about the details but right away I knew exactly what he meant. It’s obvious when you think about it, but it takes a genius like Mamet to point out just how obvious it is.
(For those of you from outside the U.S, ‘thriller lite’ is supposed to be a comic variation on the beer ‘Miller Lite’. It’s good to know even the best writers aren’t above the occasional pun.)
This particular thriller tradition has spanned decades and has a very specific set of recurring characters whose natural interaction with the hero sees them ideally suited to making the twists and turns of a thriller tick over like clockwork. When done well, hit movies and bestselling books follow.
The nature of the thriller genre means that some characters, or types of characters, are naturally suited to appearing in thrillers. Again and again the same similar characteristics pop up in succesful thriller after succesful thriller. They're not there because it's the rules, they're there because they're logical fits. You don't have to be a slave to any of the comments here when you decide to write a story, but you do need to accept that each represents how things are usually done.
Let’s look at a few classics of the genre. They provide a wonderful insight into the kind of supporting characters that a thriller might need.
Charade / N by NW / The Spanish Prisoner/ The Game
The hero - usually the protagonist, and not necessarily heroic in the traditional sense. The hero will be forced into a murky world by the villain and must draw deep to find the resouces to escape.
A friend – Sylvie/ mother / Lang/ Ilsa (lifelong servant) & Liz (ex-wife). The friend solves nothing, in fact they can easily get in the way. They do, however, provide emotional and practical support where they can. It may cost them and, in turn, our hero.
A (potential) lover (we hope they’ll live happily ever after with our hero, or at least be shagging by the end of the story). Like the hero, we want to trust them. Never who they seem to be, they are always someone new in the hero’s life) – ‘Peter’/ Eve / Susan/ Christine
A constant enemy (to get things moving) – 3 men at the husband’s funeral/ Vandamme/ Bosses/ CRS
An authority on what’s going on (seems to have potential to help) – Bartholomew/ Professor / Del / Conrad (brother)
The friend, the potential lover, the constant enemy, the authority: along with the hero, that gives you a cast of five. Everyone else is just a plot device.
Nothing is written in stone. The plot can go anywhere. At first glance, Charade and The Game couldn’t be more different, apart from their themes of deception and fortune. Look beneath the surface, and we see the same basic characters interact in incredibly similar ways.
There is a good reason for these repeating character types, and that reason is the thriller hero. These characters are well suited to creating dramatic situations that will test and reveal the thriller heroes' character. The lover who is not who they seem to be is the classic example of this. How the hero deals with the discovery that the object of his affections could be the cause of his pain is a great test of character.
More advice on how to write a story can be found here.
-Benet Simon & Mike Mindel
Technorati Tags: how to write a story, write a story, thrilling characters, hitchcock, north by northwest, the game, the thriller tradition
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