One of the best things about thriller fiction is its comforting familiarity even with all the big thrills. Amidst the red herrings and unreliable narrators of the story, you know the author has something explosive in mind.
It doesn’t take long before you’re fully immersed in the narrative, trying to solve the mystery ahead of the main character. But when the story’s too familiar, it ends up being predictable. The tension and suspense are lost, leaving the story lacking in atmosphere.
Common Thriller Tropes
Thrillers come in a wide variety of types: detective, espionage, psychological, religious, political, and more. Because this genre overlaps with a wide range of other genres, it’s full of tropes that can make or break a story.
From the bad-tempered detective who quickly becomes obsessed with the mystery to the house with a thousand hidden passages, below are some of the most common thriller tropes you’ll find in literature.
1. The Intelligent Psychopath
There’s a terrifying quality to a functioning psychopath who not only evades capture, but actively plays mind games with the police.
Part of the mystique that makes the intelligent psychopath so horrific is the fact that they are monsters who look human. They’re capable of things that most of us could never imagine doing to another person.
Thomas Harris’s character, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is perhaps the reason why this trope is so popular. Charismatic and brilliant, he exudes the air of an unstoppable predator, even when he’s locked up.
2. The Irascible Detective and His Sidekick
Thrillers often feature a detective character who is brilliant and infallible, save for one flaw: their inability to relate with people. They’re always abrasive toward others and don’t abide by most social norms.
To balance out their antisocial tendencies out, they’re often paired with sensible companion who takes care of most social interactions.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are the progenitors of this particular trope. The famed detective is known to only live for a mystery’s sake, while Watson takes it upon himself to rein in Sherlock’s bohemian lifestyle.
3. The Femme Fatale
When we think of the femme fatale, it’s often in the form of a woman who uses destruction and seduction to achieve her goals. While she’s capable of fighting, espionage, and other skills, her sexuality is often her greatest weapon.
They can be complete villains or at least morally ambiguous. Because no one knows what they’re thinking, they are always followed by a sense of mystery and unease.
One of the earliest iterations of this character is Circe from Greek mythology. Turning his men into pigs, the sorceress slowly entices Odysseus to her bed.
4. There’s Only One Type of Broken
Whether they’re cops, private detectives, spies, or any other type, broken protagonists have seen the worst that humanity has to offer and are unable to recover from it.
Instead of turning to their friends and family for support, they turn to alcohol and other fleeting comforts. In the end, they become lonely, ill-tempered, and misanthropic.
It’s a common trope, especially in detective fiction. Over the course of the narrative, they either regain their hope for humanity or fall further into the depths of their cynicism.
A good example of this is Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander, an alcoholic detective with serious anger issues.
5. Isolated Locales
While in a secluded location, a group of characters are terrorized by a sudden death. There’s no one else for miles around, and the killer’s certainly still among them.
As time goes on, paranoia sets in. Someone goes crazy out of fear and becomes a danger. They lash out at the others or run away, which often leads to their death.
The location itself is a character in the narrative. Though it has walls, a fire, and companionship, it doesn’t offer the safety that it would normally provide. Rather, it works with the killer to trap the group in one place as they’re slowly killed off.
The best example of this trope is Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Ten people are invited to a remote mansion on an island where they begin dying one after the other.
6. Closed Circle of Suspects
Always accompanying the isolated locale trope is the closed circle of suspects. When a crime occurs, it’s only the ones present who could have possibly done the deed.
All of those present have credible motives, means, and opportunities. It is up to the detective to find out who among them is the actual culprit.
Each character in the group often has a distinctive motif, whether it’s a dominant color they wear or their profession. This makes them easier to track and distinguish between one another.
As the detective obtains clues, they learn more about the suspects. Consequently, the culprit becomes more and more desperate, killing off characters and laying false trails to confuse the case.
Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted is a notable example of this. In the book, the characters lock themselves inside a theatre and sabotage their supplies and utilities. They refuse to leave, each wanting to become the last person standing who reaps the benefits from their ordeal.
7. Oddly Placed Corpses
Bodies can be found in the strangest places in fiction. Inside the fridge, behind the cupboards, or torn to shreds and hidden inside various pieces of furniture.
When the location of the body is so bizarre, it becomes a prominent part of the plot. The detective must then deduce how the body got there or why it was left in that particular place.
In Dorothy L. Sayer’s Whose Body?, the titular body is found inside the bath of a man who has no connection whatsoever with it.
8. Deadlines
In many cases in thriller fiction, a villain’s plot will succeed at one particular time. The hero has up until that moment to find a way to prevent it.
Sometimes it’s not a race against time; the villain might be collecting parts for their doomsday machine or working through a list of victims.
Or the deadline may be willingly accepted by the hero themselves. In Around the World in 80 Days, Phileas Fogg accepts a wager to prove that it is now possible to traverse the world in only 80 days.
9. Axe Crazy
The opposite of the intelligent psychopath, an axe crazy character is someone who’s extremely unstable. They’re easily set off and are capable of sudden violence.
The terror comes from not knowing when and what sets them off. This makes them difficult to deal with, as their thought patterns don’t really follow any logical structure. They destroy on a whim are more than happy to deal agony at any time and place.
A good example is Stephen King’s Annie Wilkes, who imprisons her favorite author when she discovers that he has plans to kill off her favorite character. Throughout the author’s imprisonment, she starves him for days, forces him to write a new novel, and cuts bits of him off.
10. Unreliable Narrator
In most stories, the narrator is someone you can trust. They tell you how the story unfolds and you take what they say as the truth.
But there are narrators who take away that trust. They’re inconsistent, with details routinely being changed or omitted.
The reason for this unreliability varies from simple memory loss, insanity, guilt, and so on. The narrator themselves may be oblivious to the fact that they’re unreliable.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator starts the story by assuring the audience of his rationality and that the events he narrates are true. He eventually gives himself away when he keeps insisting that he hears the heartbeat of the person he murdered and buried beneath the floorboards.
Using Common Thriller Conventions
Great thrillers have excitement, suspense, and anticipation. They make the readers experience heightened feelings of anticipation and anxiety.
That atmosphere of suspense is largely created by the unpredictability of the story. Readers dig into thrillers expecting a certain experience but want it delivered in an unexpected way.
If readers can guess the identity of the culprit from miles away, or solve a mystery without going further into the narrative, then you’ve made a story that’s too predictable, and that’s what relying too much on tropes can do.
The best way to counter this is to set up the reader’s expectations and then turn them upside down. Lay down false narrative trails, subvert an obvious trope here and there, or give them what they want and suddenly go another direction.
While the readers think they’re onto something, you’re setting up the real story behind their backs. And when they finally reach the big reveal, they’re pleasantly surprised that everything they’ve thought of is wrong.
What thriller tropes do you love or hate the most? Share it in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
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Cole is a blog writer and aspiring novelist. He has a degree in Communications and is an advocate of media and information literacy and responsible media practices. Aside from his interest in technology, crafts, and food, he’s also your typical science fiction and fantasy junkie, spending most of his free time reading through an ever-growing to-be-read list. It’s either that or procrastinating over actually writing his book. Wish him luck!
