http://www.dystel.com/blog/2015/05/characteristics-of-a-great-thriller/ Mon, 26 Jun 2017 15:15:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.15 http://www.dystel.com/blog/2015/05/characteristics-of-a-great-thriller/comment-page-1/#comment-41892 Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:09:23 +0000 http://www.dystel.com/?p=11403#comment-41892 Thanks for sharing, Mat! You make some good points. Pacing is especially key.

]]> http://www.dystel.com/blog/2015/05/characteristics-of-a-great-thriller/comment-page-1/#comment-41881 Tue, 30 Jun 2015 04:32:12 +0000 http://www.dystel.com/?p=11403#comment-41881 I was looking through the agents that I would like to sit opposite at the coming Thrillerfest 2015 to pitch my work, and I saw this post. So yes, why not make a comment!For me, thrillers are more about the protagonist being hunted or chased. It may not be to kill, but it is to take something something from them (maybe even their freedom).A thriller is also a story that moves quickly. More importantly, it is a story that starts with the pace already at a jogging or running speed. Which is why I removed my first three chapters that covered the why, and have now sprinkled some of that back into the remainder of the chapters.A thriller will also have enough sub-plots to keep the reader interested while the main plot continues. Thrillers are not books that put you to sleep. They are stories that don\’t allow you to put the book down.A thriller can encompass many aspects, suspense, mystery, action, etc. Although, to be a product that can be sold well, it needs to keep to a classifiable area. This doesn\’t mean that it can\’t be a mixture of sub-genres, it\’s just that a reader of thrillers can\’t be thrown to much out of their safe zone (unless you\’re an established author). It\’s commercial fiction after all.

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