6 tips for writing crime and thrillers
BY Sarah Hilary
14th Aug 2024
Sarah Hilary is the author of the six novels in the acclaimed D.I. Marnie Rome crime series. The first novel in her series, Someone Else’s Skin, won the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year 2015 and was a World Book Night selection as well as a Richard & Judy Book Club pick. Her latest standalone novel Black Thorn is a slow-burn psychological mystery.
Sarah is also the tutor of our Writing Crime & Thrillers – Advanced online course, with weekly Zoom lesson, workshops and tutorials.
Here Sarah reveals her top tips for aspiring crime and thriller authors – from writing characters and villains that feel human to when you should withhold and reveal crucial information to ensure you pull off a satisfying twist.
1. Open with action
Not the same as ‘open with a bang’. This action needn’t be loud or explosive. It can be quiet and insidious. But it must grip us, and move us. Events must be unfolding. Don’t slow things down with too much world-building or backstory at this early stage. Readers don’t need to know everything you needed to know when you wrote the story, so remove your scaffolding and drop us directly into the beating heart of what you want us to feel.
2. Provide no easy answers
In the first three chapters in particular, your job is to withhold information. Readers don’t require explanations or context at the outset. They’re looking for ways to connect to your characters and/or the set-up. Intrigue us, or disturb us. Make us laugh, or wonder what is going to happen next. Raise questions in our minds, and make us read on for the answers. Later, as the story unfolds and you begin to provide those answers, remember to raise new ones which will keep us turning the pages until the very end.
3. Manage your gods and monsters
Every character in your story needs to feel real. This means no moustache-twirling villains, and no heroic supermen (or women). It means even those with a walk-on part must be fully realised. The best characters are brought to life with a line of dialogue or a compelling action, they don’t need pages of description. Forget about black and white. Seek out the grey areas of flaws and contradictions, all the little inconsistencies that make us human. Remember, your antagonist probably thinks they’re the protagonist. So make certain you’ve given them a proper set of credible motives and emotions behind the actions they take.
4. Don’t let us get comfortable
Readers of crime and thrillers love to be kept guessing. They expect this skill from every new writer, so consider it one of your key goals. To play a great guessing game, you should become an expert in the difference between surprise and suspense, seeking to unsettle readers with secrets, humour, thrills, horror, romance and more … Twists needn’t be breathtaking; it’s more important to deliver on the promise of a satisfying puzzle or mystery, in whichever form this takes. (People are the puzzle, for example, in psychological thrillers.) While rhythm is a natural part of all good storytelling, take care never to allow your reader to become complacent. If they think they know What Happens Next, they might stop reading.
5. Settle on a theme
Your theme is the thread that holds your story together, running through every part of the plot and subplot. You don’t need to decide on your theme before you start writing, but you will need to know it before you can edit successfully; when you understand your theme, you will know what to keep and what to cut. Study your favourite crime novels and thrillers for the themes they illuminate. Think about how your chosen theme can be shown, in big ways and small, throughout your story.
6. Make endings matter
It’s not just writers who love to reach ‘The End’. Readers have a special set of expectations as they approach the close of a story. Everything must make sense in the context of the world you created and the journey both characters and readers have been on. While the safe delivery of your characters from chaos isn’t guaranteed, the crime itself should have been resolved. You’ll have kept the promises you made at the outset, in terms of theme, character and puzzle. Even when justice hasn’t been served, there should be a sense of balance at the heart of the ending. And if readers can’t stop thinking about your characters even after the book is closed? That’s the best kind of bonus. Endings, like beginnings, are all about how the reader feels.
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