Black Friday--Thriller or Mystery
Post-Thanksgiving Greetings, blog readers . . . hope you had a lovely day. As I am on this vegan-macrobiotic kick, I overindulged in sweet potatoes, but didn't eat turkey--and had a lovely time. Woke up today--Black Friday in the retail biz, with one discussion on my mind--thriller or mystery?
Off-line, I have been discussing this with Jude Hardin. What makes a mystery vs. what makes a thriller? To a certain extent, there's an "I'll know it when I see it" aspect to it. Thomas Harris . . . thriller. Andrew Vachss . . . thriller. Ruth Rendell . . . mystery. Barbara Vine (being as they are one and the same person) . . .mystery. Sometimes it gets a little tricky when you have an in-between book . . . seems a little thrillerish but at the same time a mystery.
The reason I am so interested in this is I am working on a proposal still WAY in the beginning stages, intersecting a crisis in Africa with the dean of a small university in America. And it seems, as I am writing, thrillerish.
So what makes a thriller? Some say it's the marketing. Thrillers sell big, they're hot. Mysteries less so.
But it's more than that, right?
To me, a mystery has a deed already done. A crime has occurred and the protagonist must figure out "whodunnit." A thriller is very often a race against time to PREVENT something awful from occurring. In Thomas Harris's work, for instance, it's to stop a serial killer--and a very gruesome and exceedingly clever one at that--from striking again.
Very often, in a thriller, the stakes are enormous. It's not just to prevent a serial killer from striking, but the WORST serial killer ever. Or . . . even more common, to save the world, a town, a school bus full of children. A global stake is involved.
Very often, too, I think in a thriller, we know who did it. In fact, the villain rises up large. In a mystery, it might well be the last page before we know.
What else? I am as interested as anyone in the answers here. Also, Jude told me, and he's right, in a thriller, what do you do for an encore? In Murder She Wrote, that woman had a new "mystery" to solve each week. In a thriller, the stakes were so high, how do you top them for book #2. I think I already know for my main character--in fact, I do. But there's a tricky thing for the writer as well.
Please chime in!
Peace,
E
Off-line, I have been discussing this with Jude Hardin. What makes a mystery vs. what makes a thriller? To a certain extent, there's an "I'll know it when I see it" aspect to it. Thomas Harris . . . thriller. Andrew Vachss . . . thriller. Ruth Rendell . . . mystery. Barbara Vine (being as they are one and the same person) . . .mystery. Sometimes it gets a little tricky when you have an in-between book . . . seems a little thrillerish but at the same time a mystery.
The reason I am so interested in this is I am working on a proposal still WAY in the beginning stages, intersecting a crisis in Africa with the dean of a small university in America. And it seems, as I am writing, thrillerish.
So what makes a thriller? Some say it's the marketing. Thrillers sell big, they're hot. Mysteries less so.
But it's more than that, right?
To me, a mystery has a deed already done. A crime has occurred and the protagonist must figure out "whodunnit." A thriller is very often a race against time to PREVENT something awful from occurring. In Thomas Harris's work, for instance, it's to stop a serial killer--and a very gruesome and exceedingly clever one at that--from striking again.
Very often, in a thriller, the stakes are enormous. It's not just to prevent a serial killer from striking, but the WORST serial killer ever. Or . . . even more common, to save the world, a town, a school bus full of children. A global stake is involved.
Very often, too, I think in a thriller, we know who did it. In fact, the villain rises up large. In a mystery, it might well be the last page before we know.
What else? I am as interested as anyone in the answers here. Also, Jude told me, and he's right, in a thriller, what do you do for an encore? In Murder She Wrote, that woman had a new "mystery" to solve each week. In a thriller, the stakes were so high, how do you top them for book #2. I think I already know for my main character--in fact, I do. But there's a tricky thing for the writer as well.
Please chime in!
Peace,
E
posted by Erica Orloff at 9:07 AM
12 Comments:
Hi, Erica, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving or--as my dad always said--a great Thanksgrabbing.
I'm interested in the in-between. I like the idea of knowing the bad guy through his voice, but not finding out exactly who he or she is until the good guy, or gal, finds him. I think in that respect, the story can easily be elevated to literature, if you'll excuse that pompous term. For instance, Cormac McCarthy's, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.
Hi, Erica, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving or--as my dad always said--a great Thanksgrabbing.
I'm interested in the in-between. I like the idea of knowing the bad guy through his voice, but not finding out exactly who he or she is until the good guy, or gal, finds him. I think in that respect, the story can easily be elevated to literature, if you'll excuse that pompous term. For instance, Cormac McCarthy's, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.
Great post, Erica.
Another difference between mysteries and thrillers: In mysteries, much of the important action happens offstage, behind the scenes. We don't necessarily get to see the crime committed, for example, but must sift through clues and suspects along with the protag in order to reach logical conclusions about who committed the crime and what their motive was.
In a thriller, most of the important action happens onstage, and often pushes the envelope of credibility (a theme park with live dinosaurs, for example, or a serial killer stitching together a suit from his victims' skins) Through multiple POVs, the reader is often privy to information witheld from the protag, and the question becomes not "whodunnit?" but "will the protag stop what is happening before it's too late?"
Traditional mysteries are intellectual, by nature, while traditional thrillers lean more toward emotion.
But it seems to me that the two have sort of melded in recent years to one large category we call Crime Fiction, with many many subcategories (Techno-thrillers, medical thrillers, legal thrillers, Cozies, hardboiled, etc.). I don't think there's as clear a delineation between mysteries and thrillers as there used to be. Readers expect their mysteries to be thrilling, and their thrillers to be mysterious. At least those are the types of books I like.
Hey Gerry!!
I like that "in-between" kind of book, too. To me, in the proposal I am working on, I think it would work SO much better to leave the villain until the last couple of chapters.
E
Jude:
Onstage and offstage. Great point. I like my characters getting pushed to the limit, not removed from the action.
And I agree. Our expectations have been turned on their heads by some of the really hot thrillers--so that romantic suspense, mysteries, and all the subgenres, have an expectation that's quite ramped up. I know, there too, lies a problem with breaking into the field. A serial killer? Big so-what? A dinosaur theme park? Been there, done that. You know what I mean. Really BIG ideas have been done and those page-turners are out there. So some of it then falls back on your protagonist. You have better be sure he or she is different and someone you care about. The intersection of plot and character.
E
Spot on about the characters making all the difference, Erica.
I'm a big believer in that.
Like I always say, plots are finite, characters infinite.
I agree with Mr. Hardin. I think it is all becoming 'crime fiction,' but if you notice, Erica, because of the market and its limits, genre fiction, and especially 'crime fiction' drama is a way to bite into the literary market. Case in point, Charlie Huston and George Pelecanos. I just think that coming in the back door with good writing in the genre is the way to end up elevating to another level, or maybe that 'toher level' is just being subsumed.
gerry:
That's true for a lot of genres. "Women's fiction" contains a lot of literary works--but I am not 100% sure what that IS (women's fiction). It's a way of branding a more literary work that wouldn't get to be shelved with popular fiction coming out, or a way (by a cover or marketing) to get women to pick up something they might not ordinarily.
E
You're absolutely right. I didn't mean to overlook (women's fiction). In fact, probably it happens more in that genre. Perhaps we're going through a revival of when mostly women were reading fiction and women writers were using a male pseudonym to get published (George Sand, for instance). Hmmm, now maybe that's an idea. Push my newest novel using a different name. Geraldine Ford?
There you go. :-)
Geraldine . . .
E
I think everyone is right...I also think the level of danger is a factor in whether something is mystery or thriller. In a mystery, the sleuth may or may not have the killer come after them, but even if they do, the tension is generally not as high as it is in a thriller. In a thriller, something could come at the protagonist(s) at any instant, no matter how "calm" any given scene may be.
Action-adventure is another subgenre that falls under this big umbrella (and what I write, with a romantic component). It's different, because a killer may not be part of the picture, unlike in most mysteries and thrillers.
Natalie:
Wow . . . a great addition to this discussion. I hadn't thought of that, but yes. Look at Sherlock Holmes--mystery. You never really felt as if he was in danger.
And action-adventure, yet another sub-genre. I know when I was writing Bombshells, I was always conscious of making the stakes higher and higher in every scene.
E
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