How to Write a Damn Good Thriller: A Step-by-Step Guide for Novelists and Screenwriters [Hardcover]

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Reviewed by C J Singh

Frey begins by making a basic distinction between mystery and thriller: "In a mystery, the hero has a mission to find a killer. In a thriller, the hero has a mission to foil evil" (page xiii). Frey dedicates the book "To the memory of the Greek poet Homer, the greatest thriller writer of all time."

In the first chapter, "Germinal Ideas," he writes: "The ancient pattern for the thriller that has not changed in thousands of years is this: A clever hero has an `impossible' mission to foil evil. The hero is brave; he or she is in terrible trouble; the mission is urgent; the stakes are high; and it's best if the hero is self-sacrificing for others" (page 11). The example Frey cites is "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" by John le Carre (1963, film 1965) and notes that this literary thriller was later named `the best spy thriller of all time' by "Publisher's Weekly."

In the second chapter, "What You Should Know Before You Start Pounding the Keys," are the seven pillars of a damn good thriller and a warning that if "you leave any one out you may fail" (page 37):
1. High stakes;
2. Unity of opposites (the hero cannot run away from the challenge);
3. Seemingly impossible odds;
4. Moral Struggle (the hero locked in desperate struggle with manifest evil);
5. Ticking Clock;
6. Menace;
7. Thriller type characters (both heroes and villains must be very clever).

In the third chapter, "All About Your New Best Friend, Your Villain," he cites the character-creation process in Lajos Egri's classic The Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis In The Creative Interpretation Of Human Motives. Before beginning a step-sheet outline of your character-driven thriller, write detailed notes on each main character's physiology, sociology, and psychology. This is taken wholly from Lajos Egri, and most of other craft techniques from Syd Field's pioneering "The Screenwriter's Workbook."

Throughout the book, Frey cites novels and films such as Ken Follett's "Eye of the Needle," Stephen King's "Shining," Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," William Blatty's "The Exorcist," Lawrence Kasdan's "Body Heat," and M. Night Shymalan's "The Sixth Sense."

Moreover, Frey shows, step-by-step, the process of creating a thriller-in-progress "Peace Day." The germinal idea: "A bunch of young adults in their teens and twenties from the turbulent Middle East and elsewhere, calling themselves the International Association of the Sane, have met on the Internet...They are going to have a conference in the birthplace of the UN -- San Francisco--to hammer out an agreement to settle the Middle East crisis using peace, love, and world opinion as their weapons....Now here's the thriller element: A villain wants to sabotage the conference and menace a bunch of sympathetic characters. I don't know who he is at the moment, but I'll make him up" (pages 31-32). He does. Interspersed in the chapters are pages (by my quick count one fourth of the book's total) devoted to his "Peace Day" thriller-writing project, constituting a teach-yourself craft example.

Frey concludes his book with this exhortation: "Remember that you are creating dreams that others will dream.... Before the Nazis incinerated the Jews, the Gypsies, and the Communists, there were fiction writers demonizing these groups. Fiction writers created the Native Americans as heartless, heathen savages before the cavalry rode out to annihilate them. Fiction writing is a great responsibility.... Resist the temptation to create thrillers full of mindless violence. Such thrillers are nothing more than bloody pornography, and it should be beneath you to create such dreck, no matter how many BMWs it will buy you" (pages 248-49).

To that I say, "Amen." This concluding statement is the best part of the book.

-- C J Singh

..I'm afraid you'll be a little disappointed.

I would say around 80% of the content has been rehashed from the author's previous 'How to Write ..' publications. I desperately tried to find something to justify the purchase but it was to no avail.

Probably OK for someone new to the author but other than that I was left feeling I'd gained nothing from the read.

Worth a read from your local library if you're really curious - other than that not worth the outlay.

Sorry James .. but this was is a miss for me.

Simply stated; borrow this from the library instead of buying it.

While Mr. Frey does offer some great advice, it's riddled by very frequest mentions of his other books on writing (I counted 27 mentions before I gave up counting) and far more references to movies than novels.

I liked that he offers detailed advice, then showed you how it might be applied, through stories he starts and builds upon throughout the book. However...
What struck me as odd was that the stories he created in this book, were actually not thrilling to read, much less "Damn" thrilling. Maybe that explains why I was unable to find any of his fiction books still in print.

I was left feeling like Mr. Frey was unable to walk his talk. After all, one can know great information but lack the skill to effectively apply it. So while I personally do not find him to be a good writer of fiction, he does know how to collect solid information and share it with others.

Since I do not support people who are unable to expertly apply the very thing they teach, I can not recommend that you buy this book. I do however highly recommend that you borrow it from your Library and take notes.

That's My Opinion But You're Welcome To It.

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