Article length: 5000'ish words (preview 1500/wds)

“The pitch” is a bedrock in indie comics.

Pitching your incomplete comic to a publisher in hopes they’ll accept it into their lineup and publish it under the umbrella of their imprint (and marketing machine).

Additional pitches you might not even realize are pitches;

• Sending a portion of your script to an artist enticing them to join the production team.
• Sending a portion of your script to an investor to secure funding.
• The preview pages on your crowdfund page.

Indie creators commonly send the opening scene to their book, simply because it’s the start of their story. Or latch on to a later action scene, because it’s a cool dynamic visual. Often these are costly mistakes, leading to outright rejection, or worse… crickets; no reply at all. Your submission chucked into the slush pile without second thought, leaving in you in stress-ridden limbo for months on end.

This article is going to give you the tools you need so your pitch not only gets read, but gets accepted.

Recognize what your pitch actually is; Your proof of concept.

A small glimpse into a much larger work, proving the validity of that larger work.

You’re preselling the production.

Hooking the gatekeepers who represent the mass market.

Proving with a mere glimpse just how much potential your story has.

[ Hmmm, story potential, where have you heard that before? ]

First, the preliminaries.

Wait a second, where’s that breeze coming from? Look out, duck! It’s our friend, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS flying down from the sky.

Only Pitch What they Ask For!

I’m not going to get into this rule in detail, it’s mostly self explanatory. Mostly.

Image wants:

• Cover letter.
• One page synopsis.
• Minimum; 5 pages of fully inked and lettered final pages (color optional).

Darkhorse wants:

• Logline. 1 or 2 sentences.
• One page synopsis
• Complete Outline. One page per issue.
• Any 6 consecutive pages, completed. (hard line; no more than 6 pages.)

Note that each of these example publishers I’m showcasing makes particular note NOT to send character profiles, supplemental works, and other art. I’m pointing this out because it’s very common for creators to be so enamored with their own work, that they send a ton of extra material, thinking “if 8 ounces is great, 5 lbs will be awesome!”

This is the absolute worst train of thought.

Editors do not want to slog their way through a ton of supplemental material from every submission, trying to dig out and uncover the value to each project. But more than that, sending extra material immediately shows the publisher, either you don’t respect them enough to honor their posted requirements, OR you can’t follow instructions. Both equivalent to signing your own pitch death warrant.

Follow the guidelines, delivering exactly what they’re asking for. NO MORE, no less. 

And don’t create one pitch kit, for all publishers, thinking if it works for one, it’ll work for everyone. Customize each pitch to the publisher you’re pitching.

Lastly here, make a 120% effort to make everything shorter than you actually want it to be.

Nothing screams “greenlight me” more than brevity in a comic pitch.

Now let’s get to the good stuff…

 

Publishers are businesses first and patrons of the arts second.

All comic publishers are in the game to make money.

As such, they are RISK AVERSE.

Every publisher goal is to find an IP that will sell well. Period. 

If it’s a great story. If the humanity of it changes the world. If the story somehow becomes the benchmark for all other stories to come in its genre, well that’s just icing on the money cake.

I’m not just spewing hyperbole here. Understanding this matters. (You’ll see why in a second.)

Most creators make their first big misstep here. They attach themselves, consciously or subconsciously, to the setup, or 1st act intro material of their book. As the creator, intimately close to the story, this is often the material that anchors them personally to the story.

Imagine the story as the creator’s child, the 1st act setup material is the child’s youngest years and holds tremendous emotional attachment.

Key Narrative Direction

On initial review, publishers classify every story in one of two ways:

• Monument stories (closed-ended narratives).
• Series stories (open-ended “franchise” narratives).

MONUMENT STORIES: Story Over Execution

A monument is a statue or structure developed to represent a specific thing or for a specific unwavering purpose. A monument is not added to, or changed after its creation.

For the monument story, the publisher looks for a story where nothing is left wanting. A perfect, self-contained story ecosystem.

The monument has to rise and thrive based solely on its own merit. It doesn’t get a second chance to hook the reader or improve with another installment later on.

Story perfection. Ninth inning. Down by a run. Bases loaded. Two outs. Two strikes. This is it, son. You got one swing. It’s all or nothing.

Monument stories must be unique takes, with a strong hand of underlying originality somewhere in the concept. In other words they must have tremendous identity. (more on this later.)

Of course, execution matters, but in monument stories, story fundamentals are king. With a big emphasis falling on the third act fundamentals, the climax of the story, where everything comes together.

No comic with a soft landing survives as a monument story.

Circling back to what I said a moment ago…

Most creators pitch and showcase material from the start of their story, act 1.

• Does act 1 showcase those original concept elements?
• Does it show how effectively and with how much energy the story drives toward the book climax?

The reality check is: it could, (especially if your read my articles on opening scenes and promises) but usually doesn’t. If you want your pitch to get noticed and picked up, you have to make sure it’s all in there.

If you’re working on a monument story, first and foremost, the story has to sell itself.

PITCH RISK ASSESSMENT:

• • Is the story complete?
  • Does it fire on all cylinders?
  • Does it have wow factor?
  • Is the conclusion exemplary elevating the entire narrative?
  • Does it set itself apart from its peers?

SERIES STORIES: Execution Over Story

Alternatively, the second major narrative pathway is the series story. This the concept, while pitched initially in a finite space, maybe 4 or 6 issues, it’s specifically made for longevity… far beyond its initial confines.

In a sense, the series story gets a little more flexibility to error in its debut. Or more accurately, a series story needs the same high level of story fundamentals as a monument story, only, it has the luxury to play with and develop these fundamentals over a vastly greater amount of real estate.

Make no mistake, if Image picks up your 4 issue mini-series, they are not agreeing to publish 3 more mini-series installments in your story world.

But they are hoping to do this.

They are hoping the sales of your initial series makes them enough profit that future installments guarantee MORE PROFIT. No publisher wants to make money only once, when they can do it twice, or more times.

With an initial series story pitch review. The editor switches their primary assessment from how much money can this book make, to how much money can this series continue to make.

This is critical switch to understand. 

Where the monument story needs a uniqueness to the core concept that explodes to a terminal endpoint, a complete and finite conclusion, the series story needs a uniqueness that doesn’t explode in complete fruition, but instead, continues to produce… Issue after issue, steadily creating fresh new content with each installment.

The final conclusion explosion in a series story is always promised later, deferred, pushed back to a distant installment. (The reality other editors won’t tell you, when a series runs it’s final season, it’s failed. Or to put another way, a series with steam and readership, doesn’t close shop.)

The editor’s concern shifts away from the strength of the final narrative climax or payoff and onto the execution of the story run leading to it. And in turn, how effective the writer/creator be in delivering each of those installments. Instead of one massive major climax, fifty awesome but smaller ones.

If you’re working on a series story, the story has to prove it has legs.

PITCH RISK ASSESSMENT:

• • Does the concept have energy for longevity?
  • Is the creative team capable of executing the life of the series?
  • Does the concept hook have transmedia implications?
  • Does the pursuit of the conclusion equal or trump the conclusion itself?

Alright, coffee topped off?

Now let’s hit the core considerations how to capture that wow factor in your monument pitch or the endless spark in your series pitch. Then we’ll finish off with where to actually find the most effective part of your existing story to pitch.

Follow along as we pitch ZOMBIE WORLD!, a fictional zombie horror mini-series, where you'll discover the exact metrics to make sure your own comic pitch makes the cut. Genre, Story Shine, Master Theme, Protagonist Showcase, Concept Hook, Identity, and more. All concepts you probably already know, but if you're not applying them correctly to your pitch, you're setting yourself up for the hard pass without even realizing it.

Article length: 4979 words (preview 1383/words)

This is the end, my only friend…

the end…

Of your story.

So you better make it aces. Or else your readers ain’t comin’ back.

As a writer who advocates spending as long as needed in the story discovery process, endings have never been an issue for me, in fact, I’d even say “I live in my endings,” they’re the culmination of countless hours building a thoroughly thought out narrative, but apparently lots of folks have trouble crafting endings with legs–so here we are.

Truth is, I’ve already explained the basics of landing a solid ending, with my article on opening scenes and more recently, this one on obligatory scenes and genre.

And wait for it…

Ultimate truth is, if you’ve written a solid opening, YOU’VE already given yourself everything you need for a proper ending.

Wait up, wait up.

What exactly is the ending?

• Is it the entire third act?
• The last issue in your series?
• The final sequence of your story?
• The last scene?
• The last page?
• The last panel or line?

It makes sense to me, if you don’t know exactly what the ending is, it’s gonna be pretty hard to nail it…

Ok, chainsaws out. Time to see the forest for the trees. Let’s unpack it and identify everything you need to make your ending… unforgettable.

So you’re third act is the Resolution act. To get a proper ending, it makes sense that we first understand where exactly the end, lands.

I’m feeling colorful (you know, like Picasso, Pollock, or Piet Mondrian)… Let’s pull up the computer dictionary and pull a definition on the “End”

End [noun]

1. The final part of something.
2. the furthest part or point of something.
3. a goal or result one seeks to achieve. As in, cue the musical interlude.

As it turns out, all three of these are useful for the writer.

Stick with me here…

The Final Part

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, story doesn’t actually have a beginning and end. Only the perceiver, perceives a beginning and end, based on where they pick up a narrative and where they exit. (The first perceiver being you the writer.)

This is why we have prequels and sequels to any successful fiction.

Environments may change. The Cast may change. Underwear hopefully changes…

but the story always remains. It’s been there before and will be there long after.

This may sound goofy and far too abstract, but it’s actually more useful to take note of this than you think.

OK, so the End is the final part… or in other words, nothing else arrives after the end.

— SERIOUSLY, STOP, don’t punch me. —

Narratively speaking an arc that reaches its end, has no further development… and more to the point, since we know confusing readers is to be avoided at all costs, we can say, an arc reaching its end has reached full clarity and delivered on the readers’ desires, needs, and expectations.

• No loose ends.
• Nothing left on the table.
• The reader wanting, needing, expecting nothing more… with the exception of such grand satisfaction, they actually, do, want more (more on that later).

The Furthest Point

It’s worth paying attention to this second part of the definition too, because you can’t actually gauge distance in writing without the most fundamental element of writing.

Change.

Narratively speaking, this is to say, the furthest point from A to B, is recognized not in millimeters, inches, feet, or miles, but in the degree of transformation or change, in a thing.

Something that’s just changed a wee bit, most certainly has not reached its furthest point.

Said another way, if something changes only a little, by definition, additional room for more change exists… therefore, said thing hasn’t reached the end.

And lastly,

A goal or result one seeks to achieve

Here things start to get interesting for us writers.

Taken at face value, the outcome of a goal or sought after result can be achieved… or not achieved.

Just because something is sought, doesn’t mean only by achieving it, have we reached the end… On the contrary, narratively speaking, both sides of the ‘seeking coin’ are valid ends.

But when combined with the last point, of the farthest point (or change). We realize that it’s not just the goal alone (destination), but the process or journey of trying to accomplish that goal.

‘How changed things become’ because of a goal, is the essence of an arc.

Recap, the end of our story:

Brings all arcs to a point where no further progression is needed.

Brings core narrative elements to the furthest point from whence they started revealing the greatest change possible.

Reveals the results of primary goals, which are validated or invalidated by change.

That’s some sauce right there, make sure you remember those.

For people complaining, narrowing their eyes, recognize that messing with these core ending mechanics in any way, alters the “nature” of the ending. When done accidentally, you’re story is buggered… but when done deliberately, this is the foundation for a number of genre traits and tropes.

For example, off the top of my head, some sort of unexplained major element as a final twist in Mystery or as a direct cliffhanger for further installment considerations.

A’ight, we got a solid understanding of what the ending actually is.

Now let’s break down a “Jolly good form” to get it done. Put up the coffee… there’s a bit to discuss here.

My go to story structure, the one I use and teach, has 4 core beats in the third act. In order of progression they are;

• the Final Plan in action
• Climax
• Denouement
• Last Call

Most newer writers think of the Climax as “the ending” of a story. And in most cases, it IS the meat of the ending. But the reality is, all 4 of these elements combine to form the end of a narrative.

While the Climax is the defacto culmination of everything the story has built to, you can’t actually separate the climax, from the final plan in action, denouement, and last call.

I mean you can, but if you do, your narrative will most assuredly feel broken.

So make note that all 4 of these beats come together for the “ending” of your narrative.

Let’s break down some tips on making all 4 of these bits sing:

SCREEEEEEECCCCHHHHHHH!!!

Brake Check!

Hang on, hang on. 

I wasn’t trying to be all Mystical Mike up in this joint when I said above, you’ve already got the tools. So before we jump into the meat of the article let me back up and explain a bit.

If you execute your opening scene well (using all the bits and pieces in those two free articles), then apply the three vantage points of ending we just discussed: No further progression needed, elements to their furthest point revealing the greatest change possible, showcase results of primary goals, validated or invalidated by change.

Focusing on these fundamentals actually defines your ending.

They literally are, the tools you need to shape the specifics of your content. 

When Rocky opens up in a sweaty small-time gym, sloppily brawling some unknown boxer in front of a small, two-bit crowd… What’s the furthest possible point you can get from that? How about fighting for the world championship, in a sold out crowd at the Philadelphia Spectrum on New Year’s Day, at his peak performance? 

When the bright-eyed Keanu Reeves trains at the Fed Academy as Patrick Swayze trains in the surf in the opening of Point Break. What’s the furthest possible point you can get from that? How about an intimate confrontation between the two, where a now disillusioned Keanu Reeves quits the bureau, while his nemesis crashes and burns for the last time.  

Throw in Master Theme and the other story fundamentals discussed in the other articles and you’ve only got even MORE parameters to narrow down what the end NEEDS TO BE.

Of course, you might open your story with some writer trick.

Like opening on the end (and running the narrative backwards) in Memento or Fight Club. But in these cases, everything we discuss here still remains in effect.

The writer tricks, like a magician, merely jumble up the presentation, misdirecting and manipulating what the audience sees… but the bones of the story never change. The fundamentals always remain.

// As usual, we're only 25% through narrative endings. We're gonna cover 9 practical tips to make sure your endings stand as the best part of the story: Promises, the Emotional Wheel, Uniting Arcs, Powering Up, Final Statements, High Notes, Verifying Change, the Key Final Promise, and the End Scene. With these tips in hand, you'll never doubt another ending again. Sign up to get the rest of the article. //

Article length: 10,135 words (preview 2535/wds)

UPDATE:: 10-01-23 ::
Happy October, folks. As promised, for the non-members here, I’ve compiled all the genre writing articles into a PDF. It’s available for download right here, right now.
::: :::

Most sources on the internet sum up the Thriller genre something like…

“Stories that elicit strong feelings of excitement, in essence, thrilling the audience.”

(Funny, isn’t that what they say about the Action genre?)

Sure they mention tension, suspense and other elements, but the focus of the definition always lands on excitement and thrills.

For the average Joe, this may be adequate, but if you’re intent on writing successful Thriller fiction, such a simplistic definition isn’t helpful. In fact, it could even be harmful, misdirecting you from the first fundamental pillar of the genre.

Let me hit you with a little secret;

Thrillers are really Horror stories for folks who don’t like Horror.

While Thrillers generally make greater use of the emotional wheel throughout their narratives, ultimately, like horror fiction, Thrillers are all about FEAR (we’ll unpack this in one second).

Interestingly, Thrillers rarely stand on their own as a genre work.

If you look at the top Thrillers of all time, those pieces of fiction ALL cross over into other genres, whether it’s a Crime Thriller, Horror Thriller, Action Thriller, or even more, like the Action/Crime/Mystery/Sci-fi/Thriller, Minority Report.

Phew, that was a mouthful.

It’s extremely rare to find a top piece of Thriller fiction that moves into no other genre pool.

The reason for this is pretty simple; most thrillers are complex narratives with significant depth. Especially when it comes to the main character and MAF. At their essence they pull from the intensity of Action, the fear of Horror, and the engagement of Drama.

By their very nature it’s difficult NOT to cross genres.

The purpose of this article is to focus in on what makes the thriller a thriller.

I’m going to cover the three core pillars of Thriller fiction as well as another ten or so elements of significant importance. Every thriller needs the three pillars to be considered a thriller. The more you implement the other elements, the closer you’ll get to reaching your maximum story potential.

In breaking down the Thriller, I’ll showcase examples that cross various thriller genre boundaries. At the conclusion of this article, you’ll completely comprehend the core substance of Thriller fiction.

It’s worth noting here, that Thriller fiction is one of the only genres commonly referred to by two other names:

Suspense and Mystery.

Wait, what?

Clearly, Thrillers, Suspense, and Mystery are different genres.

I mean for fuck’s sake, grouping Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Jaws together…. Really?

Obviously these two works of fiction are about as different as different can be.

Aren’t they?

Wellllllll… yes and no.

Reality is, Thriller, Mystery, and Suspense fiction all utilize and play with the same core mechanics (to their own degrees and ends).

While Mystery definitely shares the bed with Thriller and Suspense, I argue it has enough specific points in execution, that it breaks away from the Thriller (and suspense) and earns it’s own classification… at least enough so for this article.

So let’s throw that baby right out the window with the bath water and focus on the other two.

When it comes to Thriller and Suspense in defining material… the two should not be viewed as equivalents, BUT instead as opposite ends of the same sliding scale.

• If you have faster pacing with more action oriented narrative, you’re in Thriller territory.
• Where you have slower pacing with more dramatic oriented narrative, you’re in Suspense territory (or Mystery, or even Psychological Thriller territory for the record).

There’s another key pillar element in defining this scale, the most important of the three, but I’m not going to lead off with that fella. We’ll save him for later… for our second cup of coffee.

Truth is, Thrillers make a few big moves and if you want to nail the genre, you need to know them all.

Alright lads, roll up those sleeves.

Break out that new set of colored pens and pad.

* If you haven’t read my article on Horror, you’d probably do well to read that one first. I guess you don’t need to understand horror to write a solid Thriller, but seeing as the two are so closely tied together, if nothing else just the ability to compare and contrast with the material covered in the horror article will help give complete context.

 

FEAR. The first Pillar.

If you remember, we define Horror as the “Expectation of an unimaginable worst case scenario.”

For the Thriller, the fear is grounded in reality and is thus, not unimaginable. And therefore defined as;

Expectation of a worst case scenario. 

In horror, you introduce Fear that the reader doesn’t know. Most folks haven’t been to Hell, had to fight a legion of undead, or outwit a blood sucking vampire lord.

Horror is driven by the imagination’s ability to create completely new terror.

Thrillers are driven by the imagination’s ability to explore a predefined area to its outer most ends.

Without the unimaginable element… without the unknown… we can hone in and say the fear driving the Thriller is not terror, but instead, HIGH ANXIETY from a known and expected threat.

In Jaws we’ve got three guys in a boat, a big shark, and the ocean. The shark isn’t growing legs and chasing them onto land. The chief isn’t pulling out a jetpack and flying to safety. The stage is quite limited… but our imaginations aren’t… and readers get to stew in all the practical possibilities.

Are they going to drown… or get eaten?

Will they die horribly slow, or quickly in a single chomp?

Will they take the shark with them?

Will anyone possibly come to the rescue?

The stage has been set… but our imaginations are still incredibly powerful and effective. Even when the fear is imaginable, the levels of High Anxiety stress we can manifest on ourselves is impressive.

Fear of an imaginable worst case scenario while different, can be just as potent as Horror based fear. In some cases, for some folks, it might even be more so.

These are the folks who laugh at Freddy Krueger or Pumpkinhead, but get goosebumps at the thought of a serial killer next door.

In some sense, despite being grounded in reality, Fear of a worst case scenario is more liberating than the Fear driving horror.

In horror, to reach “unimaginable” territory, most of the time you’re working with just a few primal fears. You often have to sort of “stretch” working with those fears to get more specific.

For example,  it would be challenging, if nothing else, to create a horror fiction based solely on one’s fear of “relationships.”

< It’s easy to incorporate a relationship fear or relationship theme of some sort into horror, BUT, basing the whole narrative around it… not so much. >

Thrillers have much more flexibility in this regard.

The Thriller’s realm encompasses the human condition in its entirety. They focus on the psychological by nature.

It would be far easier to write a thriller based primarily on one’s fear of relationships, heck a bunch come to mind: The Hand the Rocks the Cradle, Sleeping with the Enemy, Single White Female…

The fears one can work with as the engine to a thriller are anything within the human condition.

Fear of failure. Fear of being exposed as a fraud. Fear of being Abandoned. Fear of personal intimacy. Fear of judgement.

If we turn back to Jaws for a moment, besides the obvious (primal horror) fear of being eaten alive by a monster shark, there’s a very distinct High Anxiety fear of being helpless. (Humans lose most of their capability when forced to try not to die in deep water.) How many times in Jaws does Chief Brody struggle with his fear of the water, not the shark itself? Answer: Quite a few.

The real-world worst case scenarios readers can imagine through the lens of these fears are quite effective.

And quite relatable, instantly giving credibility to the narrative.

We’re going to discuss Worst Imaginable Case Scenarios and the Underlying Fear Anxiety a bit more later… for now, just recognize the fears that generate the Anxiety of the narrative are key, especially the main one your hero carries around.

 

Here comes the second major pillar of Thriller fiction.

Top off the coffee, we’re going to sit with this one for a bit.

 

It’s All about the MAF. (Not the bass or the treble.)

Where in horror, the MAF (Main Antagonistic Force—villain for the most part) is almost always Super Normal, in Thrillers, the MAF is almost always…

normal.

However, this doesn’t slow down the MAF at all, in fact…

One of the elements that makes Thriller so alluring is the dominant role of the MAF. Thriller fiction borrows this from the Action genre and further expands on it.

Of course in all fiction, you need a capable, active MAF… but perhaps nowhere else but in the Thriller does the MAF get to practically take over the show.

I haven’t timed it myself, but google tells me Darth Vader appears only 8 minutes in the original Star Wars run time, 121 minutes. (Star Wars, not classified as a Thriller…)

Contrast that to Hans Gruber, in the Action Thriller, Die Hard, who clocks in at 18 and a half minutes of the 127 minute runtime. Or Hannibal Lecter of Silence of the Lambs, who comes in and 17 and a half minutes of the 118 minute Crime Thriller.

Ok look, I didn’t breakdown villain screen time in a million movies and I wasn’t trying to cherry pick villains here,  but hopefully the above examples point to a pattern;

the MAF drives the action.

Where a story can be plot driven, or character driven, the Thriller for all intents and purposes, puts forward the MAF driven story.

You may be thinking, “Hey, wait a second, 18 minutes out of 127 isn’t taking over the show!”
(Shit, now I have to watch Die Hard again and jot down the total run time of any scene with Hansy or his boys. I will do this and report back here when I have a free 3 hours.)

UPDATE: OK, I went back and logged ALL of Die Hard’s MAF driven scenes. It clocks in at a total of 37 minutes! That’s 30% of the movie and my calculations were on the conservative side.

Anyway, the screen time itself isn’t the point…

In every serial killer crime Thriller story, if the killer isn’t killing… where’s the story?

In Die Hard, if Hans isn’t robbing the vault, if he’s not shooting the corporate president, wiring the building with explosives, manipulating the FBI… where’s the story?

Nowhere… if the story is a Thriller.

// Sidenote: If you highlight the MAF without actually having the MAF do anything. You’re moving the Thriller intro psychological thriller or drama territory.

But be warned, if your MAF does not drive the action AND you don’t double down on tension (discussed later), your story is completely leaving thriller territory… and will likely be DOA in whatever genre label it wears.

Sadly, so many wannabe thrillers drop the ball big time here.

Example:
I can’t even remember the movie I watched recently, but some guy was in a country house and he kept seeing visions of a ghost. The ghost didn’t do shit. It just appeared and growled. The protagonist started taking all these actions to try and figure out what was going on.

Ultimately nothing happened. The movie tried to rely on jump scares and a complicated, ineffective backstory. It tried to make the hero the driving force of the Thriller.

BIG MISTAKE.

The movie was totally boring and a waste of time. //

After you read this article, you’ll spot “thriller” fiction where the MAF doesn’t drive the story a mile away. These will be the movies and books you walk away from after 20 minutes.

To develop solid thriller fiction, push the active MAF as hard as you can. The more the MAF oozes conflict, jeopardy, and narrative drive, the more engaging the story. 

This point can not be stressed enough.

 

MAF PINCH POINTS

If you love writing villains, you probably have an affinity for Thriller fiction (and maybe before this article, weren’t really sure why).

In most fiction, you work in what’s commonly referred to as Pinch Points.

Moments, usually driven by the MAF, outside of the protagonists perception, that inject narrative drive and  raise the stakes. A typical narrative only requires a couple of these.

Again, we can see in Star Wars, Vader only had 8 minutes and at least some of that time was fighting with the protagonist. So Vader’s Pinch Point moments were quite limited.

We don’t need Vader’s backstory to understand his role in the adventure unfolding before us. We don’t need to know the why’s or how’s when he appears in a pinch point. Big dude with electronic voice who force chokes underlings who fuck up—check.

This is acceptable in the adventure movie and in most fiction. In fact, it’s necessary in most fiction where limited time and space are better served supporting some other elements of genre.

But the Thriller isn’t most fiction…

Thriller fiction opens the way for a far greater number of pinch points, approves greater development of the MAF in general, and even goes as far as to showcase the MAF in a split narrative fashion (giving the MAF their own separate parallel running story).

Don’t lose your narrative drive when handing over the show to your MAF… If you pursue highlighting your MAF, make sure all that narrative content is relative to the active story…

but that said, in Thriller fiction you get the green light to explore the why’s and how’s of the villain. USE THE MAF to take advantage of and foreshadow the other elements we’re discussing in this article.

This type of layering of the MAF makes the Thriller.

// Side note: It’s interesting to see in Star Wars how although Vader got such little screen time, he was so thoroughly developed throughout the rest of the movies. Think how your impression of the original Star Wars would have changed, had you been shown all the aspects of Vader’s character arc (particularly the negative side of his arc)? //

 

HYPER CAPABLE.

Allow an impotent character to steal the show and you’re sunk.

MAFs in Thriller fiction are always hyper capable.

In horror we said the MAFs were “Far more powerful and capable than the hero, making their defeat a clear and exceptional accomplishment for the hero.”

This rule holds TRUE for the thriller as well…

The difference here, as we’ve already mentioned, is that the thriller MAF is normal, not a super normal monster. A lot of writers struggle here, because they don’t push their MAF into the hyper capable realm and instead leave them in a merely capable realm.

They make the mistake of thinking a well executed capable MAF is “good enough” to carry the narrative.

Imagine Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal was just an average criminal, with an average intellect. The entire narrative falls apart.

Or Luc Besson’s Professional, where Gary Oldman’s Norman Stansfield isn’t a psychotic, drug addicted, DEA agent with his own crew and a lot of pull on the police force, but instead a run of the mill beat cop. Again the narrative unravels.

Frank talk here y’all, in the real world you rarely have the time to detail out all the characters as extensively as you’d like.

For the MAF in thriller it pays to make sure you at least have his major flaw and hyper capabilities. You will need these.

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The most forgettable people you meet in the real world are people without any real prominent character.

Usually quieter folks, with nothing physically remarkable about them or their manner. (The senses open the door, substance gets you to enter and stick around.)

Folks who have no outward expression of passion. Folks who simply go along with the crowd and thus blend in with the crowd.

I spent a lot of time in my life going to parties, art openings, and other social gatherings where I had totally nothing in common with the folks at these events… folks all from the same clique. Jocks at the sports bar, trust fund kids at the wall street house parties, wana be culture snobs at the art openings… scores of people all cut from the same mold.

While these people in the real world most certainly had at least some level of complexity to them, in a brief passing at a party, such complexity is rarely revealed.

This is how much of  Fiction works.

Many characters never get the page time to reveal any real complexity.

These one dimensional characters find their effectiveness in exaggerated characterization, schticks, their context in the narrative (action guys fighting, detectives detecting, etc.), or otherwise rely on a trope to fill a narratively fast and superficial role.

Sometimes, one dimensional characters even get a pass as the protagonist!

But when you need to write an important character like the protagonist, with particular depth and complexity, how exactly do you do it?

If your mind immediately jumps to the Character Arc, good for you. I like the way you’re thinking, bub.

The Character Arc certainly adds depth and color to a character. It’s a topic I’ve touched on many times in length elsewhere… but here’s the thing, character arc’s don’t create complexity by themselves. Character arcs create engagement and most importantly, carry the purpose of the narrative through realization of the Master Theme.

Fundamentally, Character Arcs push characters toward complexity.

They get them out of the realm of being one dimensional, moving toward well-rounded and multi-faceted, but complexity is not achieved until something very specific enters the equation.

I could tell you about my days working special effects for movies and television, I could tell you about my coffee shop in brooklyn, or the custom hive I built for my bees this year. I have a lot of layers, a lot of different facets… but I hate to tell you, none of that makes me a complex person.

In fact, despite a well-rounded colorful life so far, and being a multifaceted character, I deliberately take a note from Lynyrd Skynyrd, and try to be a Simple Man.

Ok, you’re not a member of the site and are about to bail.

Well, before you go, here’s the free take away. The meat and potatoes of this article. Write this on your board above your computer.

Complex characters are ALWAYS highly conflicted characters.

Seven simple words, but the execution is far from simple.

And this is why Character Arcs alone don’t create complex characters.

A character can overcome a flaw and come to a new way of seeing the world (the basis of the character arc), without a high level of internal conflict.

There’s a ton to unpack here.

Now might be a good time for non-members to hit the membership page and join the rest us as we dig into this topic essential to higher level writing.

Let’s get to it.

Character Nature

When we speak of complexity of character, what we’re really talking about is the nature of that character.

At a fundamental level, we express the nature of a character by what we reveal about them (what the reader knows about them), Discovery… and how they act, Behavior.

Discovery is the actual moment the reader learns of a facet to the character they didn’t know existed.

This latter part is important.

Discovery of a character is ALWAYS something already established in the character outside of the reader’s perception. This is the character’s emotional/psychological baggage, their history before the story started, etc.

These discoveries have high narrative relevance because they create the context (or expectations) for the character’s behavior.

The hero samurai is killing everyone left and right. Killing is a bad thing, but can be justified. The reader is left uncertain, until the discovery that all the guys the hero is killing, murdered his family.

The discovery, gives context (and justification–or not) to the behavior.

Of course, a discovery may not be a direct as the example above.

None the less, every discovery, is a clue to the reader that helps them establish context and expectations. Every discovery helps the reader attempt to create order of the narrative unfolding before them.

It’s worth noting here, if the reader discover something about the character AT THE SAME TIME, the character discovers it, this discovery does not give context or expectations. Instead, it moves right into the second way we define a character’s nature, by their behavior.

Behavior are the actions a character takes, or the way they conduct themselves.

More specifically in fiction, character behaviors are the results of reader expectations. Behavior tracks ON or OFF expectations, reinforcing them, or creating uncertainty.

Back to our example, the hero samurai is killing everyone because his family was slaughtered. We see that the character has no qualms about breaking the law and no moral hesitation when it comes to avenging his family. Now the reader expects that the hero will do anything to kill the men responsible. The discovery and behavior come together to create reader expectations.

If the hero samurai reaches the boss responsible for giving the order to kill his family, and then compassionately spares the man’s life… this would certainly be a subversion of the reader’s expectations.

Discovery and Behavior are cumulative, building upon each other as the narrative unfolds.

The more a behavior is enforced, the more it is expected.

Newer writers sometimes have trouble keeping character discovery and behavior consistent, or more accurately, deliberate, through a narrative. When character discovery and behavior contradict, without significant narrative support and purpose, a character rings false in a story.

 

Before we continue, let’s define the four basic complexity types of characters.

The four basic types of characters, characters' true faces, inner awareness, secondary goals, and the difficulty of choice. I cover it all in the remainder of the article, so what are you waiting for, Sunshine? Go check out the full access page and let's get writing.