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A good thriller will rupture the reality of your everyday world. It will put you on guard. Make you aware. That is the disquieting objective — successfully achieved — of this book as well.
Writing the Thriller Film concentrates on the ‘Cosmos of Credibility’, those not-so-obvious elements of screenwriting that contribute the essential meaning to a script. To do so, this book traces the thematic commonalities that actually define the genre and offers corroboration from a number of screenplays, including such classics as North by Northwest, Marathon Man and 3 Days of the Condor.
You will discover:
- The effect of the practical rules and physical expectations of the real world on the story
- The timescape of the genre
- How both the protagonist and the antagonist must react to make a thriller effective
- The need for your characters to make difficult choices with unexpected results
What people say
“Why hasn’t this book been written till now? A lively, knowledgeable, user-friendly guide to how not to be alone in what can seem the loneliest profession on the planet. Claudia Johnson & Matt Stevens know the collaborative process from the inside; and they have gathered insight, encouragement, wisdom and wisecracks from some of the great writing teams of film and television.”
Janet Burroway,
Novelist, playwright and author: Writing Fiction
“While other books give you the nuts and bolts on how to write, Hicks’ lessons give you the engine, the driving force behind what makes the genre go. An excellent follow up in the series, Writing the Thriller Film: The Terror Within is not only worth the cover price, but for the newbies to the series, is so good that it makes you want to run out and get the other two.”
Alejandro Ferreyra,
Screenwriter Magazine
“This is NOT a book just for writers. ...Thriller is a book for people who have an interest in, and want to know more about, the thriller genre. And by “more” I don’t mean plot points, formulas and examples calculated to stress those points. This book takes an almost physical grasp of the thread between the audience and the story and gives it a good, hard yank.”
Sable Jak,
Scr(I)pt Magazine