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Sample idea: Research equals ideas
One point that stands out in just about any decent thriller
you read is that the writer has done some research. Whatever
the story is about - legal, medical, police, forensics, business,
computers, and so on - the writer has visited companies or organisations
that do that sort of thing in real life. Perhaps he took a guided
tour, or interviewed someone who does that job for a living,
and perhaps tagged along with him for a day or two. He's able
to describe the exact process in detail. Detail is important
in thrillers because lives often depend on it.
Let's say that your thriller centres around someone finding
and defusing a bomb. In that case you should know the main details
of how to defuse a bomb yourself, even if you couldn't actually
do it in real life. You should be able to describe the process
in considerable detail, and know what different types of bomb
look like. Ideally you'll have spoken to a bomb disposal expert.
You might also have read books and articles on the subject, studied
photos of real bombs, found articles on the internet about bomb-making
and defusing, and so on.
(You might want to look up that sort of thing on someone else's
computer rather than your own - maybe use one in a public library!)
With the clock ticking in the background, the bomb is slowly
and painstakingly disarmed. You can't rush something like that.
If your hero rushes it he'll make a mistake and the bomb will
explode anyway. But he has to rush, because if it goes
off then many people could die. That presents a fantastic dilemma.
If you're writing a medical thriller you might need to describe
a particular surgical procedure in painstaking detail. Again,
you'll need to research this - and ideally watch it being performed,
even if it's just a recording.
The process of researching it should generate a list of all
sorts of things that could potentially go wrong with the procedure
- and you could talk to the surgeon about these things. Hopefully
the real-life procedure you're observing will go perfectly, but
that needn't be the case in your fictional version.
So, what exactly is your thriller all about? What are the crucial
details? How will you find out all about them? And what could
go wrong? The best way: find someone who does it for a living,
observe him, and ask plenty of questions. It's a good idea to
have some questions prepared in advance, such as: What's the
worst thing that could go wrong? What mistakes have you or other
people made when doing this? What would happen if you didn't do
it? And so on.
[EXTENSION] Don't forget that villains can
be very evil, very clever, and very cunning. For example, the
bomb might have a timer on it that counts down to zero. But what
if it's actually set to go off with 5 minutes to go, rather than
0? What if the timer has nothing to do with the bomb, which is
triggered remotely? What if the bomb is booby trapped, so it
goes off if someone tries to defuse it?
Who would the villain be in other sorts of thriller, such as
the medical example? How might he demonstrate his cunning and
evilness?
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