Writing the Non-Violent Thriller

oakbark

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One of my 2014 projects is a thriller. I have vowed to make it a novel that does not use violence as a cornerstone.

It's a lot more difficult than anticipated. But worth it I think since I'm pretty tired of seeing gore, death, violent crime and terrorism as the main fuel for thrillers. And I want my nephews to be able to read exciting stuff without gunshots, decomposing bodies in the forest or machete wielding drug lords being central to the story.

Yes, generalizing. I understand not all thrillers go this way but for me it has become a matter of principle. We'll see how it goes.

Whats you opinion on violence as the main fuel of the mystery/thriller/suspense genres?
 

slhuang

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Hmm. I'm a little confused because I'm having trouble imagining what "thriller" would mean without violence of some kind. Wouldn't that put the book in a different genre?

I mean, I'm completely behind the tension/conflict in a book coming from nonviolent events. But I can't think of how one would write that and still call it a thriller. Maybe it's a lack of imagination. ;) Do you mind sharing more of what you're attempting? I'm intrigued!

Mystery or suspense, on the other hand, I'd certainly buy could be nonviolent. In fact, there are plenty of kids' mysteries that have no violence at all -- I used to love Encyclopedia Brown as a kid, for instance. And I'm not 100 percent sure what defines a "suspense" novel, but I'm guessing that you might be able to up the tension with nonviolent stakes enough to make it happen . . .

IDK, I might not know what I'm talking about! All my betas have informed me I've written a thriller even though I did not think that's what it was at all. Sooooo . . . salt and all that . . . (there IS lots of violence in my book, maybe that's why!)

eta: Okay, I guess I can think of thrillers that don't have violence perpetrated by humans -- something like Jurassic Park, or a medical thriller where the disease is the big antagonist. But I would still consider that violence, just not human-instigated violence . . .
 
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Introversion

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Whats you opinion on violence as the main fuel of the mystery/thriller/suspense genres?

I suppose it depends on what one's definition of "violence" is.

Is it only "human-on-human" physical violence, or can it also be emotional violence (verbal abuse)? How about natural disaster (storm, earthquake, virus, etc)?

Must it be actual violence, or can it be threatened violence?

I've liked many thrillers which centered around natural disasters. But I don't know if a plot without any form of violence, or the threat of it, could be called a "thriller"?
 

onesecondglance

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This strikes me as somewhat akin to trying to play funk without any groove. The threat of imminent harm or death is kinda what drives thrillers - so without that what have you got left?
 

Putputt

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Hrmmm...the only thing that comes to mind is DISCLOSURE by Michael Crichton. But sex, or rather, sexual power play, is a big part of the plot. The stakes are that the MC might lose his job and his family as a result of his sex scandal, which work very well in the novel...so it certainly can be done. Like everything else, it just depends on the execution.
 

mccardey

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You can certainly write
exciting stuff without gunshots, decomposing bodies in the forest or machete wielding drug lords being central to the story.
. Whether or not it's a thriller will just depend on how you frame it.

ETA: To answer your question - I think maybe m/t/s is too broad a category to have a single main driver. And I have to say a lot of other styles have all the things you mentioned - but don't fit into either m, t or s.

ETA (2) Having said that, an exciting book without violence will be a nice thing for your nephews. :)
 
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TerryRodgers

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I was going to ask the same thing as the others. I'm trying to think of a thriller that doesn't have some kind of violence in it. I'll have to think about this one.

Mystery and suspense I believe you can do it.
 

buz

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This strikes me as somewhat akin to trying to play funk without any groove. The threat of imminent harm or death is kinda what drives thrillers - so without that what have you got left?

The threat of insanity or losing your mind to someone else's control can work beautifully:) I think Being Trapped could also work, though I can't think of specific examples...

Shutter Island...well, that had a really violent backstory, so violence was still central to it...but the imminent threat was mostly about people losing their minds, wasn't it? (Been a while :) ) and there are other things like that...Planet of the Apes :D lolz

...but I also fully support violence, as long as it isn't the same old story, know what I mean ;) so. Anything that feels fresh is good for me. Like, I dunno if you guys saw that movie In Time--stupid title, but I really liked the concept; it made the entire running-around-committing-crimes-blowing-shit-up-killing-bad-gang-dudes thing feel new again for me :)

But I'm easily amused like that ;)
 
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oakbark

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I should have been more explicit, in saying violence I specially mean human malevolence played out by harming other people (physically or mentally) or threatening to, and harm of animals.

Natural catastrophes, illness, social complexity, non-violent threats, etc etc , all good.

My main goal is to create enough nail-biting thriller fuel mainly through psychology, and less through blood shedding evil antagonists.

I won't mention specifics on theme, plot, etc. at this point.
All I can say is that it's.. pretty hard.
 
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GailD

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The way I see it, a thriller has 1) Something dire is about to happen 2) The MC is in a unique position to stop it from happening 3) The clock is ticking 4) There are all sorts of obstacles in the MC's way.

Oakbark, I like your idea. I think it can be done without the gore etc. Readers are smart people, they can figure out implied consequences without necessarily having them spelled out.

Man's inhumanity to man does seem to lie at the heart of so many thrillers. It would be very interesting to see something different. :)
 

Russell Secord

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What about cyberterrorism? Knocking out a bank's website or the FBI's DNA database wouldn't kill anybody, but it would create a lot of disruption. The same hackers that the protagonists are looking for could throw all kinds of roadblocks in their way (think Die Hard with a Vengeance): make traffic lights change, put out APBs for them, intercept their emails, even spy on them through their appliances.

To take it up a couple of notches, the terrorists could threaten to shut down a power plant or a mass transit system. They wouldn't have to carry out the threat to make their point, but they might stage a small-scale demonstration.
 

onesecondglance

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The threat of insanity or losing your mind to someone else's control can work beautifully:) I think Being Trapped could also work

Fair enough - I can see how those would work.

To the OP - I'm still a little confused. You state examples of non-violence being natural disasters, and we all know those can work as stories - so what's actually the question here?
 

cbenoi1

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> Whats you opinion on violence as the main fuel of the
> mystery/thriller/suspense genres?

Violence - the 'for-the-sake-of-it' type - is what you end up with when an author puts too much emphasis on plot and not enough on character.

-cb
 

PaulLev

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I should have been more explicit, in saying violence I specially mean human malevolence played out by harming other people (physically or mentally) or threatening to, and harm of animals.

Natural catastrophes, illness, social complexity, non-violent threats, etc etc , all good.

You could write a medical thriller, in which the "violence" is done to victims by the virus.
 

Jamesaritchie

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One of my 2014 projects is a thriller. I have vowed to make it a novel that does not use violence as a cornerstone.

It's a lot more difficult than anticipated. But worth it I think since I'm pretty tired of seeing gore, death, violent crime and terrorism as the main fuel for thrillers. And I want my nephews to be able to read exciting stuff without gunshots, decomposing bodies in the forest or machete wielding drug lords being central to the story.

Yes, generalizing. I understand not all thrillers go this way but for me it has become a matter of principle. We'll see how it goes.

Whats you opinion on violence as the main fuel of the mystery/thriller/suspense genres?


Beats me. I've never read a thriller that didn't have violence as a cornerstone, and can't think of a reason on earth why I would want to?

But instead of writing what you would like your nephews to read, you might ask them what they want to read. My guess is they'll want something to go along with the video games they play, which probably make most thrillers look like Disney classics.

I'd want my nephews, as I did my children and grandchildren, to read about the real world, and to understand that evil is real, that violence happens, and that they need to be prepared to deal with it. For that matter, children are often just as violent as adults, and sometimes more so because they lack adult control. They don't have to be taught violence, they learn it on the first playground they see.

Before Namby-Pamby psychologists and Disney cleaned them up, even fairy tales for children were filled with violence. The Brothers Grimm really were pretty darned grim.

I suppose it depends on the age you're writing for, but even most of the children's books I read take a realistic view toward violence. A world without violence just doesn't hold many thrills.
 

Max Vaehling

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I ignored this thread the first time I saw it for pretty much the reasons alsmost everybody mentioned above, i. e. 'so what? SAren't thrillers supposed to be all about the threat of violence?'. Since then, I've mapped out the plot to a heist story I've been contemplating for a while, then decided it needs moresuspense, so now I'm thinking along the same lines because I want it to be as non-violent as I can get away with. The story started as a con story, and the cool thing about con stories is that the protagonists don't outgun their antagonists - they outwit them. It's why I want to write one.

So now I came across the thread again, and this time I'm listening. Well, reading. You know.

So, a possible answer to the OP may run along one of these dimensions:

- The threat of violence vs. actual violence: Nothing wrong with the MC fearing for her life. Pegleg Pete tried to kill Mickey Mouse over and over, didn't make the stories any darker. They do change their flavor once you actually show the violence. Knowing there's a killer on the loose is one thing, seeing him dismantle his victims is another. I can do without the latter, keep the former and still call it a nonviolent thriller. In 'The Man Who Knew too Much', the threat is that the villains kill the couple's son if they don't assist in that other murder, and the suspense comes from them traing to avert both murders. Good enough for me.

- Strong or explicit violence vs. the less outrageous type: So the bad guy has a gun, or a knife, or even an ice pick. Generations of directors got away with a minimum of bloodshed, although recently that seems to be out of fashion. I can do with a lot less gore. And it's not just a matter of taste: the more the violence becomes the normality of your story's world, the less of an impact any violent act will have, and the less suspense you'll get from it. (Personally, I've groewn to find movie gun fights extremely boring. Unless you're John Woo or someone like that, I'd rather watch a good brawl. But that's beside the point.)

- Violence against the MC vs. violent MCs. It's a different game. You live by violent rules, you accept that violence is what's coming to you. If the MC reacts violently to a violent threat, the violence escalates. While that can be fun to watch, it isn't necessary for the suspense. Unless the threat comes from something very different (dunno, maybe deafness from all the shooting). If the violence is one-sided and doesn't escalate, well, that may be one way to write a thriller that's not about the violence.

- the nature of the threat: Medical thrillers and natural diasters have been mentioned before. There can be a threat of insanity, of being deported, of an evil conspiracy taking over the world, of hackers rendering you legally dead and taking over all your possessions and just recently, we've all become very aware of how real and all-encompassing surveillance is. There's a whole sub-genre there - the paranoia thriller. Not to mention countless supernatural threats.

Yeah, I saved that for last because otherwise there wouldn't have been much point to mapping out the other ones.
 

onesecondglance

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When I first read the OP's question, I thought he was asking the equivalent of "is it possible to have heavy metal without drums?"

To which the answer is, yes, but it's a gimmick. It's initially impressive, then all the fans who like the genre go back to bands with drums, because it's one of the features that they actually, y'know, like. If they didn't like drums, they wouldn't be listening to that genre.

Reading back, with oakbark's qualifications to the question, it's more like: "is it possible to have heavy metal with a drum machine?"

To which the answer is, yes, and there are subgenres where you'd fit right in. However, being that those are subgenres, they come with their own set of genre features - things that the people involved have found work in that context, and that fans are now looking for. You might not have to conform to all of them, but you need to know the rules of the game.

i.e. if you think disaster fiction, or medical thriller, or psychological suspense all fit your bill of "non-violent", and you want to play in their sandbox, then you also have to recognise that they have their own set of characteristics.
 

johnhallow

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I think it's doable too. I read somewhere that the stories with the best stakes are about death of some kind -- physical, emotional or social death (etc.)... so a scandal (as mentioned earlier) would count as social death if it would destroy all of a characters' relationships irreparably. It's a big enough fear to make the situations in the story tense. You'd have to replace the violence with a kind of threat/risk relevant to the kind of stakes you're using... but I do see it working.
 
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V.W.Singer

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People are so jaded that even natural disasters without lots of deaths and injuries would make an audience yawn. The closest you get a non violent thriller is the mystery novel ala Miss Marple, and even then somebody dies in the beginning.

You could have a *threat* of violence, say a nuclear bomb buried under New York and the heroes running around to find it. But without violent confrontations, the action is going to be pretty academic and keeping reader interest high will be a challenge. You can only have so many "wrong addresses" and "cut the red wire" scenes.
 

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John Le Carre's books spring to mind - spy thrillers where it's all about putting together a jigsaw of the past by second guessing lying witnesses.

And quite a lot of Scandinavian detectivey books aren't especially violent. Sure, there's a body, but there's not Tess Gerritsen style post mortems etc. They tend to be far more about character, culture, and politics than viscera.
 

gp101

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You can def write a mystery/thriller where the stakes don't hinge on life or death, where sex or violence is prevalent. A lot of YA or kids stories might have the stakes as minimal as being accepted by peers, rejected by love interests, condemnation by parents, school, society, etc. If you're writing for adult audiences, the fear of an oncoming end-of-the-world comet or some such thing can make for a great thriller without much violence--the ticking time bomb element will make it intriguing.

But if you're writing a detective and/or noir story? If there ain't a dead body or two early, no fight or gunplay, no sex, then why would I read it? Certain tropes are expected and enjoyed so long as you make them different for your particular story.
 
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Aleiarity

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I thought psychological thrillers were pretty common.

There are plenty of things that people can fear, aside from threat to physical self. If fear is the driving emotion behind the adrenaline rush of a thriller... just find other things a reader could care about, besides the physical, and devise a plot that threatens the safety of those things.

One of those valuable things might be freedom. If a villain (human or otherwise) was a threat to a person's freedom to make choices, or even to act of his own volition, it might be enough of a threat to intrigue even the most violence-jaded reader.