I love tropes that are a race against time - they can raise the steaks, can be used in any type of scenario, it's a good plugin element. I also have always been a sucker for any time there is kidnapping involved, or even better when the protagonist is the kidnapper. National Treasure 2 comes to mind, really intriguing. A really good trope is when the protagonist is equally smart and doesn't keep making stupid decisions. I've always been a huge fan of John Grisham because his stories are pretty feasible! What happens when the law and government that is supposed to protect you is actually harming you? And how can you turn it around? I always find myself at the edge of my seat
I literally laughed out when you mentioned amnesia. That stuff needs to stick too bad soap operas. My trope that I'm using is about Redemption. Hopefully it will come out better and still be considered financially plausible in the end.
May be it doesn't have many tropes because it's a genre that's subordinate to other genres. Eg. Action thriller, mystery thriller, horror thriller, etc. It helps for stories to be attention holding, suspense inducing and cliff hangers. I think this works best for longer stories.
Thanks, Shaelin, very helpful. I love your elocution, too. I thought the movie "The Accountant" had a new spin on both the unavailable protag and the woman apprentice. Both were complex, interesting and believable.
How do you suppose we write up a situation where all the characters are trapped in a space together, without risking the real culprit’s identity? Would the culprit have to be off screen? Or would we disguise their thoughts to trick the reader? How can we write that kind of trope?
This depends, is the story only told from one perspective? If so, as long as that perspective is not the killer, you aren't giving anything away. If you are giving multiple POVs then we start to have problems. I've done this before and the way I got around it is by having the killer not look at what they are doing as wrong or even think of it at all. This way we get their thoughts without it having to be "kill murder kill!". This only works in specific situations though. If you want to make more POVs, perhaps just have most people seem ready to kill by having thoughts of such but not acting on them.
To give an example, there was a movie called "Devil" where 5 people are trapped in an elevator and one is the Devil. This works especially great for movies because you generally get a limited set, limited cast, low-budget situation. In a novel, likely need to tell the story from a single POV, most likely, not the devil. You could do the same with one person being a spy or something in some limited space, and avoid the supernatural. Perhaps a spy steals a McGuffin from another spy on a plane, so the second spy must figure out who has it? Or, maybe the spy was supposed to make an exchange and finds the target dead in the lavatory? Low-budget horror films often use this trope. I recently watched a movie called "Harpoon" that featured 3 people on a stalled boat (and a spear gun, which they joked was not a harpoon).
I like the info given in this video, however, I never think, hmm what trope shall I use to write a thriller.... worn out tropes seem to plague the romance genre over any others. But this is fine because the readers desire them (any genre) that’s why they are tropes. In any other genre, the cold-male-apathetic-morally-gray-character is considered an anti-hero but in thriller this character archetype is a Gary Stu? Why do you think this is a problem in the thriller genre, besides being over done? Thank you for always providing great content for writers :)
The mention of "emotionally unavailable" tropes brought to my mind the "Dirty Harry" movies. They were made in the seventies, and all of us junior high and high school boys thought Dirty Harry was so cool. Clint Eastwood plays the role of Dirty Harry, and he is so cold, and yet eloquent in a brutal sort of way. He always maintains his composure, and he just looks like a super tough police detective. The movie "Unforgiven" turns the whole tough guy trope on its ear. The violence in this movie is dark and disturbing. The viewer isn't supposed to embrace it. People make witty little comments in the movie, but they're not enough to lighten the mood. For instance, when her father keeps firing his pistol at an empty can and missing, his daughter asks, "Did Pa used to kill folks?" The kicker is that she isn't expressing dismay. She is expressing disbelief. Then the sheriff "Little Bill Dagget" says about gunfighters, "They got no character, not even bad character." You can take a badly worn trope and breathe new life into it if you can come up with some new and original angle on it.
I think the big problem with the thriller male protagonist is that he's one-dimensional. That might have played well in an earlier time (decades ago), but today, we look for character-driven stories and it's pretty hard to for Mr. Flat Hero to generate any excitement. James Bond, in the 1960's, was interesting because he was different; Jack Reacher, in the 1990's, is just... boring. It becomes one explosion after another. Who need a plot? Who needs a complex character? Who needs a scene that doesn't look like the previous dozen books' scenes? Just blow something up and you're set. And, no - this isn't "typical leftist man-hating" because I adore a charming, adventurous, complex, hero who actually adds something to the story.
Often I see a character as described in #1 and wonder, "If this is the best, how aweful are the others?" A lot of things are cool with an amateur suddenly pulled into a situation, but how does a guy with little regard to his own safety manage not to get killed before becoming a seasoned veteran? How does he manage not to kill innocents if he fires his gun at pure instinct, not knowing that this suspicious looking guy is really a villain? How this he manage never to hit a bystander during shootouts or car chases? Why is nobody noticing that the second or third victim would be still alive if this detective did his job properly? So, many times I may be supposed to root for this type of protagonist, but I don't. Sorry, Commander Bond, I'm no fan of you.
Well I have also made my homework on thriller genre and couldn't find that many tropes! It's probably either cuz it's self explanatory or becz it's just that common ... Who knows
I am currently writing a story where the protagonist is married to a woman who solicit criminals to commit murder on a regular basis, except that the protagonist had no idea that his wife had done that.
I've been noticing you're adding plural pronouns when you end your videos, instead first person pronouns. I'm new to your channel, and wondering who is , we, us, our? Since it just, you, I, me...
