How to Write a Psychological Thriller Novel
Authors write psychological novels in a variety of styles, but these works all share a few key characteristics. A psychological thriller is an adventure-type story with suspenseful overtones revolving primarily around the emotional elements of the story rather than the physical. A well written psychological thriller draws your readers in, compels them to turn pages and keeps them coming back for more.
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Instructions
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Start with an outline so you have an idea where you're going. It doesn't need to be detailed. A short, stepped outline touching on the major turns in your story will do. The finished novel may not go in the initial direction you plan, but having an outline gives you a grounding point and something from which to build.
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Define your characters. Know the background of each main character, especially on an emotional level. This is a psychological thriller, which means the emotional history of each of your characters will be essential to how they interact with one another throughout the story.
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Always keep emotional stress at the forefront of a psychological thriller. The emotional stress is the driving force of your story. Usually, the antagonist places the emotional stress on the protagonist, who must battle to overcome it before he can defeat the antagonist.
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Tie your protagonist and antagonist together emotionally. Learn to write cat-and-mouse scenes in which the antagonist exploits the emotional weakness of your protagonist. Then, have your protagonist turn it around at the end of the story by overcoming that emotional weakness and using it against the antagonist. Another effective technique is to find an equal emotional weakness in your antagonist and have your protagonist use that to her advantage.
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Take advantage of internal writing as opposed to external. Internal writing allows you to dig more deeply into your characters' minds than a story that's primarily external, or action oriented. If you keep these thoughts in mind, your psychological thriller can have the same edge-of-the-seat effect on readers as a story driven by intense action.
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Comments
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markyoung
Mar 21, 2010
... writing that a large group of people can identify and agree with. While you yourself must know every aspect of your characters to try and make them real persons (animals or other beings that can take human qualities), do not bog down the readers with the details. Avoid adjectives and adverbs unless they are vivid and exact, and try using strong nouns and verbs. This is because in today's culture of "now", details must only describe the action. Characters and their actions (nouns and verbs). Don't stop the story at any point to drag out a background or flashback unless it is expertly part of the dialogue and in use for character development.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Experts won't enjoy reading a manual or textbook filled with knowledge they already know and neither will other readers learning this new wave of information.[7] While revenge might seem like a very tasty subject for psyc... -
markyoung
Mar 21, 2010
... tasty subject for psychological thriller, stay away from it. Revenge is not for the faint in writing nor for the beginner. Even experts have difficulties struggling with it and those that succeed usually have strong secondary elements or side stories in development. This is because revenge, as I discovered, represents the absence of a care. Wikipedia has a good place to start for themes and ideals for psychological thrillers. I would start there and have a look to see where your inspiration might fit or even grow. 1. Writing the Novel (From Plot to Print) By Lawrence Block 2. Writing Mysteries 2nd Edition Edited by Sue Grafton 3. Creating Characters (How to Build Story People) Dwight V. Swain 4. Building Believable Characters Marc McCutcheon 5. The Art of the Page Turner - Writer's Digest article 6. 10 Ways to put the THRILL in Thriller Jay Bonansinga 7. Science ...
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markyoung
Mar 21, 2010
... threatened. Oftentimes, it is important to set up the care to prepare the threat, and the character (protagonist usually) must react accordingly.[3][5][6] Authors must write what they know. It's a common phrase in the writing world, but it's also very important. Authors must be researchers. If you want to write a psychological thriller, it helps to know and learn psychology. In this way, you can make stories realistic because your audience, including the skeptical psychologists and those who studied it, will know that you know what you're talking about. Mentioning it will also reach out to those particular people in an audience and grab them. You acknowledge what they know and form a sort of loose bond that can grow over time. So you must write what you know, otherwise you will look like an idiot, and you will lose a smart audience.[6] You earn fanatics by having fantastic writ...
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markyoung
Mar 21, 2010
I would ignore Step 1. Everyone has their own personal tastes on how to get started, and how to end, their books. Some can arrange characters and scenes on large index cards, some will use the standard outline, and others will just write as they go.[1] In fact, most mystery authors don't even use outlines (the type of story one might think this would be most required!).[2] A lot of successful authors seem to just come up with inspiration as they write the story and conduct research.[1][2][3] Personally, as soon as I create an outline, I stop, because I have lost my sense of thrill in finding out how my characters play it out to the end. The core of the story is the characters, and the core of the characters is the care (or rather, the ability to care). Step 3-5 emphasize on this point. A plot is nothing more than the interaction of characters and their conflicting cares. ("Care" is ...
