The Writer’s Corner: The Craft of Writing Political Thrillers

I envy screenwriters. If they want a good fight scene, they can simply type, “Have the bad guy come through the window and fight Jason Bourne. At some point, have Bourne stab him in the hand with a pen.” The director and stuntpeople will then get together, take those directions, and create a masterpiece of hand-to-hand combat like you’ll find in The Bourne Identity. (Just a heads-up that this film is rated PG-13, and this scene may be too graphic for some viewers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFnmq5PPScA.) Nice, but how does one write an action scene for an actual novel?

I’ve discovered four rules as a thriller writer.

First, make sure your readers care about your hero. More than that: make sure your readers love your hero, want them to win, worry if they will lose. No one wants to read an action scene about people they don’t care about. It’s your job to make readers care before you put your hero in danger. Now how do you do that? Short version: people care about people with whom they sympathize. And they sympathize with, and identify with, people who have serious weaknesses. And they admire people—even love people—who press on despite their weakness, who are willing and able to summon something deep inside themselves to press on and do good and carry on the fight in spite of their weaknesses. Even though it’s hard. Especially because it’s hard. So don’t just give your heroes obvious strengths. Give them weaknesses and vulnerabilities, too.

Second, put your hero in real peril. Bring him or her close to losing this fight. Let the reader actually wonder, “Is this author really going to kill off my favorite character?” Unless you’re writing a comic book or the script for the next Marvel movie, don’t make your hero an invincible superman. Every character in your literary world must be expendable, and your reader needs to know that fact. I do it all the time. I want my readers to think, Joel wouldn’t really kill that person off, would he? Yes, I might. That very question draws readers in. Keeps the tension and excitement high. Keeps readers turning the pages to find out what will happen next and how. (By the way, the answer is “Yes, I would kill off that hero. I’ve done it before, and I guarantee that at some point I’ll decide to do it again.”)

Third, make your hero bleed. Don’t just put them in peril. Hurt them. Put them in real pain. How many ridiculous action movies have you seen where the heroes win and walk away without a scratch on them, nary a hair out of place? Ugh. I hate that. The more they bleed, the more scarred they are, the more they have to limp—or even spend time in a hospital—the more you know you have put your heroes in serious peril. That’s your job.

Fourth, don’t go overboard in adding layer after layer of minute detail. In a fight scene, for example, write the key moments in the blow-by-blow struggle and definitely keep the action moving. Then trust the reader’s imagination to fill in the rest. Let your FBI agent deliver one punch to the bad guy’s ribs and a second blow to his temple. Have him be coldcocked with a right jab, then throttled around the neck before being hurled against the living room wall. But don’t tell us that some photograph of his family taken in front of Grandpa Charlie’s cabin at the annual reunion at Lake of the Woods in southeastern Manitoba was knocked to the ground. Who cares?

Action scenes can be as tough as it gets when it comes to writing. But they are so much fun when you do them right. One more tip: once you’ve completed writing your next action scene, go back and read the passage out loud. Listen to it as if you were listening to an audiobook. If there is any word or phrase that slows down the pacing or throws you out of the moment, get rid of it. Keep your action lean and mean and your readers will love it!

—Joel C. Rosenberg