A webinar attendee recently asked me if spy thrillers are still holding their ground, or have psychological thrillers completely taken over the genre. In this video, I answer that question while exploring the four key variables that every successful thriller must have, regardless of the subgenre of thriller you might be writing.
Hello, Jane Cleland here.
Are spy thrillers still popular or have psychological thrillers taken over? This is an interesting question for a couple of reasons. First of all, spy thrillers known as espionage are enduringly popular. But second of all, let’s back up a second and think about thrillers. Thrillers are delineated by four variables.
There’s a really, really good guy or gal with a personal reason to act. Failure is not an option. The consequences of failure are global in proportion. So it would be a nuclear bomb exploding, or in a domestic thriller, it would be a kidnapped child dying, something horrible like that, to that family, that’s global in consequences. And the fourth variable is there’s always a ticking clock.
Under the umbrella of thrillers, there are many sub-genres.
There’s legal thrillers,
political thrillers,
techno thrillers,
domestic thrillers,
psychological thrillers,
and probably others as well.
But here’s my final point, and I really think it’s the important one. Don’t try to write to the market. Write the story that is yours alone to tell, that you are driven to tell.
You know, my new book Beat the Bots: A Writer’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Age of AI, out in August, 2025. I’d love it if you pre-order, and if you’re seeing this video after August 25, please buy it. The thesis of the book, which is science-based, is that no matter how sophisticated AI becomes, it can’t tell your story. Only you can do that.
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