Ever wonder why so many thrillers top the best-seller lists? It’s no secret — the best are not only pulse-pounding page-turners, they’re vested with the excitement of characters who are alive and intriguing. If there are any rules, that is the first one.

At the same time, whether you’re writing about spies, as I do, or lawyers or scientists, the second rule is to be captivated by your subject. If you’re not, how can you expect your reader to be? There’s nothing duller than a novel about espionage when the author has no real interest in intelligence, or about art thieves when the writer has no emotional connection to art.

But if you’re curious about how a spymaster convinces an “asset” to work for him even though it’s against the asset’s best interests, or how a thief can identify a real Georgia O’Keeffe from a fake one, then you’re embarking on an adventure — and readers will be excited to join you on the ride.

Ever wonder why so many thrillers top the best-seller lists? It’s no secret — the best are not only pulse-pounding page-turners, they’re vested with the excitement of characters who are alive and intriguing. If there are any rules, that is the first one.

At the same time, whether you’re writing about spies, as I do, or lawyers or scientists, the second rule is to be captivated by your subject. If you’re not, how can you expect your reader to be? There’s nothing duller than a novel about espionage when the author has no real interest in intelligence, or about art thieves when the writer has no emotional connection to art.

But if you’re curious about how a spymaster convinces an “asset” to work for him even though it’s against the asset’s best interests, or how a thief can identify a real Georgia O’Keeffe from a fake one, then you’re embarking on an adventure — and readers will be excited to join you on the ride.

Most thrillers share several common traits. One is a “high concept.” Unfortunately, that’s a term tarnished by Hollywood’s misunderstanding of it. A high concept is simply a wonderful, catchy idea that immediately appeals to the imagination. For example: A young man returns home from college to find his uncle has killed his father and married his mother.

I’m sure you recognize that famous story — Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Shakespeare was the king of high concept. Here’s mine for my most recent novel, The Last Spymaster: America’s most honored and famous spymaster is arrested for treason, sentenced to life at a fortresslike maximum security prison — and escapes.

Another commonality you’ll want to consider is high stakes. If you’ve attended novel-writing classes, you’ve no doubt heard endlessly the admonition, “You must have conflict!” Indeed. But not just any conflict. Thrillers are writ large, with big ideas, and ultimately big characters. So the conflict must be large, too — for a group.

In The Last Spymaster, I write about a dangerous arms shipment that could shift the balance in favor of terrorists. That’s a frightening thought, isn’t it? Ah-ha — then it’s worth writing about. In a thriller about art thieves, it could be a shipment of paintings that will bring down a government once it’s revealed the leaders have been participating in illegal trafficking of all sorts.

But high stakes are meaningless if they’re not also attached to characters we care about. The idea that thrillers are empty-headed chase books is antiquated. Yes, there are always weak and even bad books in all fields, and the thriller genre is no exception. But at the same time there are highly literary and important novels in all fields, too. I’m sure that’s what you want to create.

As you develop a main character and a few subsidiary characters that your reader will care about, remember they must also have a personal stake in the story. In my novel, Elaine Cunningham is a CIA hunter who is assigned to secretly find and bring back the spymaster. Her involvement becomes personal quickly, because it seems the spymaster has reversed the game and is hunting her. In our art thief’s book, the heroine could be a museum curator who’s about to be charged for stealing two multimillion-dollar Georgia O’Keeffe paintings.

Heroes and heroines come in all sizes and shapes, and they don’t have to be superhuman — not even in thrillers. They can start as ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. As the story unfolds, they find unknown courage and strength and ultimately risk their lives to act extraordinarily. Many of us do not see those qualities in ourselves, but the truth is that for some people, just rising out of bed every day to face what seems to them a cold and unfriendly world is a large act of bravery.

Thrillers also tend to be written in multiple viewpoint. In other words, through the eyes of each major character, almost as if you’re creating a separate novel about each character. Then the stories intersect at dramatic moments. Multiple viewpoint gives a sense of sprawl, of momentousness, and it’s a tool to involve the reader deeply, because readers make an emotional commitment to characters when they’re inside the character’s mind, thinking and feeling along with the character. Once you become skilled at this, you’ll discover that when two characters have a confrontation, the reader will be invested in both. When that happens, the reader is riveted, unconsciously rooting for both — even if one is the villain.

In all books, from so-called literary to the lowest of pulp novels, the villain drives the plot. In multiple-viewpoint thrillers, the villain’s role is particularly crucial. If you don’t respect your villain, if you don’t fear him or her, neither will your reader. Too often I see manuscripts in which the author has unwittingly used details that weaken the villain or even poke fun at him or her. Don’t give your villain a toupee. Don’t let him or her act like a fool or be stupid. Make your villain smart, a more-than-worthy opponent, because without your villain — you have no story.

Thrillers are known for their exotic settings. All of us like to travel in our minds to other worlds, other experiences, and have an adventure. Thrillers by their nature guarantee that, and it’s one of the reasons readers love them.

Still, you don’t have to place your novel in Timbuktu or Paris, although you certainly can. An exotic atmosphere can arise from what appears to be an ordinary setting — a zoo, a newspaper city room, a morgue, an abandoned ghost town, a barrio, a palace. Part of your job is to make that environment fresh, to give details that open your readers’ eyes so they feel the spine-tingling excitement of being on a journey of discovery.

Perhaps the most critical tool in your thriller arsenal is suspense. I keep two words clipped to my bulletin board — “jeopardy” and “menace.” Simply put, your hero and heroine must be in jeopardy, and your villain must provide menace. Never use heavy-handed techniques such as “Had I but known....” Readers are far too sophisticated — and you are, too — for that.

One way to build suspense is through detail. For instance, in The Last Spymaster, the spymaster goes into a beautiful forest to escape a “janitor” — a hired killer. Still, I never refer to the forest as beautiful. In the spymaster’s frame of mind, as he’s being shot at and chased, he’s not going to see the loveliness of it. Instead, he’ll see the shadows as dark and forbidding, and the sound of a squirrel rustling away as a warning that his hunter is closing in.

We can analyze and dissect endlessly, trying to understand each individual trait, but in the end, a book is a single piece. As you grow as a writer, the bits weave together more easily, and the tools I’ve discussed become so natural that you must think less and less about them. That’s not to say that writing thrillers — or writing any book — is undemanding. We write because we love to read, and a fine thriller, for me and millions of others, gives me many hours of reading joy.

© 2006 Gayle Lynds

Gayle Lynds’s latest international thriller is THE LAST SPYMASTER. A member of the Association for Intelligence Officers, she is cofounder and copresident (with David Morrell) of International Thriller Writers, Inc. Please visit her World of Espionage at www.GayleLynds.com, where you’ll also find drawings and free stuff.