What thriller readers expect
Thrillers run on threat rather than puzzle. Where a mystery asks who did it, a thriller usually asks whether the hero can stop it in time. Readers expect high and personal stakes, a capable antagonist, a clock that keeps getting shorter and reversals that make the hero's situation worse at regular intervals.
Subgenres pull in different directions: psychological thrillers trade action for unreliable narrators and domestic dread; espionage and political thrillers play out on a bigger board; legal, medical and techno-thrillers depend on believable expertise. That last group needs your knowledge in the brief, and a fact-check afterwards.
Length and structure
Many thrillers sit somewhere around 70,000 to 90,000 words. Short chapters are a convention of the genre, so a higher chapter count than you might use for literary fiction often suits it: the Full-length preset gives 20 chapters of about 3,000 words, and you can raise the chapter count to shorten them.
A dependable shape: an inciting threat in the first chapter or two, an early commitment the hero can't back out of, a midpoint twist that changes what the hero thinks is going on, an all-is-lost moment when the antagonist seems to win, and a climax under maximum time pressure. Plan the twist first, then work backwards to where its clues must appear.
How to write a thriller with Inkora
Start with the brief: protagonist, antagonist, the threat, the deadline and the twist. The planner turns it into a synopsis with the ending, a cast with wants and flaws and a chapter-by-chapter outline. Read the outline as a pacing chart before you approve it: does each chapter end worse than it began?
Each chapter is written as three to five scenes, each with a conflict and a turn, and the final scene of every chapter is written to pull the reader into the next one. The continuity ledger keeps track of the details thrillers live on: times, locations, who knows what, the make of the car outside.
What to put in your brief
The brief is the “Your book idea & instructions” box in the new-book wizard. The more specific it is, the less generic the book. Here is an example, with the settings that go with it:
Psychological thriller. Maya Okafor, 38, an air-traffic controller at a regional airport, gets a text at the start of a night shift: her teenage son has been taken, and he will be released at dawn if she makes one small mistake on a specific flight at 04:10. She can't tell her supervisor, who may be involved. Antagonist: a former colleague she reported for drinking on shift years ago. Twist at the midpoint: her son isn't kidnapped, he is helping the antagonist, believing Maya caused his father's death. Climax in the tower at 04:10. Short chapters, present tense, first person, real-time feel across one night.
Other wizard settings
- Genre
- Thriller
- Audience
- Adult readers of psychological thrillers
- Tone
- Fast-paced & punchy
- Point of view
- First person
- Length
- Full-length (60,000 words)
Example outline: Final Approach
A brief like the one above gives a plan along these lines. You can rename, reorder, add or delete chapters before any writing starts.
- 1
22:47
Maya signs in for the night shift and the text arrives with a photo of her son's bedroom.
- 2
The Rules
A second message spells out flight, time and the one instruction she must give wrong.
- 3
Supervisor
Her boss lingers too long at her screen and mentions her son by name.
- 4
Old Grudge
Maya realises who knows the airport this well and why he hates her.
- 5
Proof of Life
A video call she can't trace, and her son reading a script in a flat voice.
- 6
Off Frequency
She tries to signal a pilot without being seen and the antagonist punishes her for it.
- 7
His Father's File
Midpoint: the accident report she never read, and her son's handwriting in the margins.
- 8
Accomplice
Maya understands her son is not a hostage and has to decide what that changes.
- 9
03:30
The supervisor turns out to be the only person in the building on her side.
- 10
Lost Contact
The antagonist cuts the tower's backup line and the plan goes live early.
- 11
04:10
With a flight on approach, Maya talks to her son on an open channel.
- 12
First Light
The runway clear, the antagonist in custody, and a conversation she has avoided for five years.
Condensed to 12 chapters; the Full-length preset plans 20.
Common mistakes
- A twist with no clues before it. Readers should be able to look back and see it coming.
- A passive protagonist who waits for things to happen. Thriller heroes act and pay for it.
- An antagonist who is evil for no reason, which removes the menace of a plan that makes sense.
- Stakes that plateau. Each act should cost the hero something new.
- Long backstory dumps in the middle of a chase. Give it in lines, not pages.