[HN Gopher] Ian Fleming explains how to write a thriller (2019) ___________________________________________________________________ Ian Fleming explains how to write a thriller (2019) Author : antiviral Score : 119 points Date : 2022-12-07 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (lithub.com) (TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com) | antiviral wrote: | "I am excited by the poetry of things and places, and the pace of | my stories sometimes suffers while I take the reader by the | throat and stuff him with great gobbets of what I consider should | interest him, at the same time shaking him and shouting "Like | this, damn you!" about something that has caught my particular | fancy. But this is a sad lapse, and I must confess that in one of | my books, Goldfinger, three whole chapters were devoted to a | single game of golf." | ajkjk wrote: | Good read, and as engaging as any novel, but I have to remind | myself that by "heroes who are white, villains who are black" he | means as in black-and-white contrast... | RajT88 wrote: | That tripped me up too. Ethnicity makes less sense in that | sentence than moral alignment. | [deleted] | goto11 wrote: | But when he says he writes for heterosexuals he is being | literal! | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Fun fact: Ian Fleming wrote more than James Bond books. He also | wrote "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". | pdonis wrote: | Not only that, but the film of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had Gert | Frobe, who played Goldfinger, as Baron Bomburst of Vulgaria. | withinboredom wrote: | The mechanic who worked on Ian Fleming's yacht once worked on my | boat in a small coastal town after I got caught up in a nasty | storm -- bear hugging a mast in pouring rain and lightning is | generally when you realize how fragile your life can be. | | We had a few beers after he was finished and he told me some | crazy stories... I still need to blog about that adventure; that | was a highlight of my early 20's. | adamc wrote: | Nothing against his piece but Fleming was a dreadful writer. Aim | higher, at Eric Ambler or John le Carre. | gumby wrote: | Interesting perspective to think that the point of each page is | to get the reader to turn to the following page. | | It's like a pitch deck: the point is to keep it simple but show | enough ankle that the reader asks for a meeting. But really I | should look at each page to see: how do I keep the reader from | stopping here? | legitster wrote: | What an amazing read. It feels like it could have been written | yesterday. | | Throughout I am impressed with the value of professionalism. The | most consistent artists seem to see themselves with no more | sanctimony than an experienced plumber would. | nick4780167 wrote: | Oh, experienced plumbers get pretty sanctimonious, at least in | online forums! | nemo44x wrote: | I think it's precisely because he sees himself as more of a | craftsman that creates entertainment rather than an artist who | is trying to express the nuance of the human condition. He is | secure in his work and purpose and understands just what he is | doing. | | I believe it's important to make distinct the difference | between "art" and "entertainment". Art is inward looking and | for the individual to experience uniquely theirs, whereas | entertainment is for the masses and outwardly. | angst_ridden wrote: | Interesting contrasting Fleming's work to that of Le Carre. | | A lot of Le Carre's work contains the kinds of details Fleming | talks about, but the plots are more complex and the pace is | slower. | | I also personally find that there's an emotional impact from Le | Carre that's lacking in Fleming, but perhaps that's just me. | thomascgalvin wrote: | Counterpoint: I know who Ian Fleming is, but I had to Google Le | Carre. I am aware of _Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy_ and some of | his other works, but they aren 't lodged in my head the way | James Bond is. | | And I think that's the point of Fleming's essay. He wasn't | writing to be high art, he was writing to make money. Fleming | avoided deep plots and emotional exploration, because those | detracted from the guttural response he wanted out of his | readers. | angst_ridden wrote: | I don't think Le Carre was trying to write high art either, | but I think they were interested in different things. Fleming | wanted a fast-paced popular thriller, while Le Carre wanted a | realistic depiction of spycraft. | yodon wrote: | If you enjoy Le Carre and haven't checked out the Slough House | series (novels and mini series on Apple TV) you're in for a | treat. It's not exactly Le Carre, but it's definitely Cold War | caliber spy fiction set in the present day with a very Smiley- | esque old spy master and a budding young spy who is learning to | think like a Smiley rather than act like the Bond he's been | trained to be. | GavinMcG wrote: | Slow Horses? | astro-codes wrote: | Slow Horses contains absolutely none of the complexity of Le | Carre. They're in the same genre, but are not comparable. | LgWoodenBadger wrote: | It also stars an actor who played George Smiley in another | film. | Archelaos wrote: | "But the point I wish to make is that if you decide to become a | professional writer, you must, broadly speaking, decide whether | you wish to write for fame, for pleasure or for money." | | Is that the same for devs? | szundi wrote: | Counter-example: Harry Potter | gamegoblin wrote: | I think authors like JK Rowling, Stephen King, etc are the | exception that prove the rule. The vast, vast, VAST majority | of authors are ones you have never heard of, eking out a | living. | kevinh wrote: | Those exceptions don't prove the rule. They prove that | there _isn't_ a rule, but merely a high likelihood. | | An exception that proves the rule would be a statement like | "Parking permitted between 3-5 PM." | caminante wrote: | Seems like a false tri(?)lemma. Ian said pleasure/money. | | Why not ALL three? | Archelaos wrote: | Actually Fleming became famous too, but most of it was | posthumously. Maybe one should ask oneself what one wants to | achieve first. | runevault wrote: | Because, often (though not always) you have to write in a | different way to get them. It is hard to write well enough to | make money purely for pleasure, as the editing/etc process | can be a grind trying to make everything smooth and pleasant | to read. And with caveats the writers that are most famous | tend to be ones who write big L Literature, which rarely | makes significant money but is the stuff you hear about on TV | in the news etc. | | There are exceptions but it tends to require more than a | little bit of luck to hit the zeitgeist in a way to work out. | Take for example Brandon Sanderson. Outside SFF I doubt | almost anyone has heard of him but dude makes millions. | pessimizer wrote: | Because without a priority, you have no means to make a | decision when the goals conflict. If what's most important to | you is having cake, you might have to limit how much of it | you eat. If you instead value eating cake more, you might | have to give up on the idea of keeping it. | dang wrote: | Related: | | _Ian Fleming Explains How to Write a Thriller (2018)_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25181256 - Nov 2020 (18 | comments) | | and for that matter, here's Raymond Chandler explaining how to | write a murder - from yesterday: | | _The Simple Art of Murder (1944)_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33888453 - Dec 2022 (3 | comments) | adamc wrote: | Nice references. Chandler was a pretty good writer. | pdntspa wrote: | > [I] lost my virginity like so many of us used to do in the old | days | | What's he referring to here? | jgrahamc wrote: | I would assume with a prostitute. | tezza wrote: | I read it as a swipe at the non-consensual buggery that was | de rigueur at top English schools. | | I looked at Wikipedia about Fleming's schools and Eton and | Sandhurst werelisted there... archetypical venues for that | ingrained behaviour. | | Fleming in that section of the article was highlighting that | he personally had some axes to grind but kept them firmly out | of his novels. | | I don't think paying for sex quite has the sting | nemo44x wrote: | He was in the war though. The majority of guys who fought | probably lost their virginity during the war to a | prostitute. You're facing death every day, you might as | well. | RajT88 wrote: | In period fiction, I have seen a few times a father or | other older male taking someone to a prostitute to lose | their virginity. Common enough that it can't come from | nowhere. Sometimes they watch. It is almost always shown as | traumatic. | | The buggery angle is also viable. | [deleted] | jgrahamc wrote: | This is Fleming writing not Le Carre. | 5tefan wrote: | Imho after Casino Royale the book series went south rather | quickly. | photochemsyn wrote: | I vastly prefer George Smiley to James Bond when it comes to spy- | vs-spy fiction (though perhaps Mad Magazine's take on that genre | is the best of all). Bond stories consist mostly of one- | dimensional heroes and villains and their empty-headed sidekicks, | predictably shoehorned into some Disney-style morality play, all | designed to improve the public image of the CIA and the MI5/6 | (both of whom were very upset about Le Carre's take on the Cold | War, and basically seem to have promoted Fleming as an antidote). | | Usually, when people these days want an unambigous good-guys-vs- | bad-guys storyline, they have to go back to WWII and the almost- | universally despised Nazi regime. This is because there's a lot | of uncertainly about who the 'good guys' were in the Cold War, or | even if there were any. The Berlin airlift looks good for the | West, but the effort to perpetuate French colonialism in Vietnam, | not so much. There are at least a dozen similar examples on both | sides, from eastern Europe (USSR not looking so good) to Africa | and South/Central America (lots of bad behavior by the 'pro- | democracy West'). | | John Le Carre famously portrayed the conflict as two giant gear | wheels grinding against each other and destroying the lives of | people unfortunate enough to get caught in the middle, and his | doubtful self-questioning protagonist, George Smiley, though | obviously devoted to the West, carries that theme well. Le | Carre's "A Perfect Spy" and "The Russia House" are also some of | his best works, with similar themes and central characters. | mongol wrote: | I can admit I have not read Le Carre. But I have seen some | movies and series, and I find them strange. It is implied the | stakes are very, very high, but never is explained what exactly | is at stake. Very puzzling. | yodon wrote: | >It is implied the stakes are very, very high, but never is | explained what exactly is at stake. Very puzzling. | | Is it rude of me to ask if you were born after about 1972 (so | less than about 17 at the time the wall came down and the | Cold War ended)? | | Le Carre's books, even the newer ones, are deeply embedded in | a grand battle to the death between superpowers. He didn't | bother to explain that in his books because at the time he | was writing them his readers (and most of his original film | audiences) understood and took that context for granted. By | about the age of 17, most people in those days had a very | clear understanding of the stakes involved in conflict or war | between super powers, including for example the Cuban Missile | crisis when everyone in the world understood that tens of | millions of people could be killed in the next 12 hours or so | (if you're not personally familiar with the era, the movie | Thirteen Days starring Kevin Costner is a powerful and | engaging view into what was perhaps the height of the Cold | War experience). | bell-cot wrote: | > Bond stories consist mostly of one-dimensional heroes and | villains and their empty-headed sidekicks, predictably | shoehorned into some Disney-style morality play... | | Sounds like you've seen the Bond movies. Ian Fleming wrote the | books. The relationship between those often amounts to "the | movie used the book's title, and the name of the book's | protagonist". | adamc wrote: | Well, I haven't read all the books, but I read several in my | youth (because they were around), and they were much, much | worse than the movies. | logical_proof wrote: | You're the first person I have heard that from. We're there | any plots in particular that you thought were worse | (barring man with the golden gun as that was contrived and | I am not sure if Fleming even truly finished it before his | death)? | kaveh808 wrote: | Also an excellent spy series: Sandbaggers | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9c6MTFimTk | spitfire wrote: | The sandbaggers was /fantastic/. | | For those who don't know, it's basically accountancy with | violence. | mistrial9 wrote: | I read every James Bond book as a school kid (eight of them, | ten?).. they were fun! the Cold War themes and international | mobster stereotypes were not a big deal for me at that time of | life. | more_corn wrote: | When I encounter the phrase "full stop" I'm inclined to | immediately stop reading. It ranks up there with misusing | literally. | recuter wrote: | Literally full stop. | burkaman wrote: | Same, I stopped reading at "I recently stumbled across an | essay". Really, did they trip over the essay on the floor? | Ludicrous, all word definitions should be frozen in time to | whatever they meant when I was in school, and let's get rid of | all these confusing "idioms". | cafard wrote: | Do you have the same reaction to the American equivalent, | "period"? | nemo44x wrote: | It's annoying when Americans say "full stop" after something | they think was powerful or something. It's like dude, just | say "period", please. | BeetleB wrote: | You literally don't know what literally means. Literally! | dang wrote: | " _Please don 't pick the most provocative thing in an article | or post to complain about in the thread. Find something | interesting to respond to instead._" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | ajkjk wrote: | Maybe work on that. Stopping reading something over a phrase | would be petty. | nyc111 wrote: | "I never correct anything and I never go back to what I have | written, except to the foot of the last page to see where I have | got to." | | I think this is tough to do, but a good idea. | | And everyone says how important is the routine. | progre wrote: | I'm sure I saw a text "editor" a few years back where it was | impossible to actually edit the text. Adding text was the only | function. It was meant to help with this style of writing. | t43562 wrote: | I was disappointed when I read the Bond books - they seemed to | have no charm at all. I think it was the Italian producer (Albert | Broccoli) who must have made the initial films worth bothering | with. | | My spy hero is Bernard Sampson from the Len Deighton Trilogies - | starting with Berlin Game, Mexico Set, London Match. He talks | about how experienced spies are like frightened old women and | avoid risks and it's only the noobs who charge into things | bravely. Sampson is the believable opposite of Bond who would | obviously not have a long life in reality. Sampson is still | extremely brave - just not idiotic - and he's very clever but | human so it takes time for him to work out what's going on. | Animats wrote: | Hm. | | _" My plots are fantastic, while being often based upon truth. | They go wildly beyond the probable but not, I think, beyond the | possible. . . . Even so, they would stick in the gullet of the | reader and make him throw the book angrily aside--for a reader | particularly hates feeling he is being hoaxed--but for two | further technical devices, if you like to call them that. First | of all, the aforesaid speed of the narrative, which hustles the | reader quickly beyond each danger point of mockery and, secondly, | the constant use of familiar household names and objects which | reassure him that he and the writer have still got their feet on | the ground."_ | | That's what makes action-adventure movies work. It keeps people | from realizing that all someone needed to do was some simple | thing, instead of the adventurous thing. That Fleming did this in | his writing made the move to the screen easier. | | _" Above all there must never be those maddening recaps where | the hero maunders about his unhappy fate, goes over in his mind a | list of suspects, or reflects what he might have done or what he | proposes to do next."_ | | Much "great literature", and wannabe great literature, is full of | such introspection. Ayn Rand takes it to an extreme. The other | big vice for writers is the info-dump, where there's a long | description of the setting. Read anything self-published, and | you'll probably find both of these problems. "Show, don't tell". | | There are major action movies with voice-overs or explicit scene- | setting at the very beginning, from Star Wars to Kick-Ass. But if | it's in the middle, you're doing it wrong. | yamtaddle wrote: | > Much "great literature", and wannabe great literature, is | full of such introspection. Ayn Rand takes it to an extreme. | The other big vice for writers is the info-dump, where there's | a long description of the setting. Read anything self- | published, and you'll probably find both of these problems. | "Show, don't tell". | | As usual, the rules can be thrown out _if you 're good at it_. | A master writes whole chapters of introspection and makes them | sublime and compelling. Woolf filled the entire middle of a | book with description of an unoccupied house passing the years, | featuring very little that could even generously be called | action and hardly even any characters to properly introspect | despite the whole affair _feeling_ introspective, and it 's | excellent. An author even slightly below that level of skill | and talent creates only trash of one variety or another, should | they attempt anything similar. | | But the point definitely holds for most writers, and you're | exactly right that you can dig through (especially, but not | only) self-published works and easily improve most of them | several times per chapter by swapping a _tell_ for a _show_. I | suppose one hallmark of what might be called literature--at | least, the kind that truly deserves that label, not just any | work that aspires to it--is that if you were to edit it in that | fashion, instead of getting better, it would get worse. | | > There are major action movies with voice-overs or explicit | scene-setting at the very beginning, from Star Wars to Kick- | Ass. But if it's in the middle, you're doing it wrong. | | Same here. See: Tarantino. He interrupted a thrilling, tense | narrative to have a distractingly-famous actor who wasn't | otherwise in the movie explain, directly to the audience, a bit | about the chemistry of film, and somehow it worked. And that's | not the only time he's done something like that. Don't do it... | except if you can. | Octokiddie wrote: | I'd consider James Bond to lie more toward the genre of "action" | rather than "thriller." | | An action story has three obligatory elements: | | - a hero (James Bond) | | - a victim (humanity, or maybe a damsel) | | - a villain (rotating) | | This sounds childishly simple, and it is. But it's also very easy | for authors of thrillers to forget the triangle because it's not | something you even notice in a well-crafted action story. But all | three need to be fleshed out to the extent that the audience | cares about them. | | The difference between an action story and a thriller is that in | a thriller, the victim and hero are the same character. For | example, Stephen King's _Misery_ is a thriller because the hero | is the victim. Action stories often involve the hero 's facing | death, but it's done to save the victim. | | Something else that's easy to forget is the human value at stake | in an action story: life and death. James Bond is always on the | edge of being killed, even when in extracurricular persuits. If | Bond doesn't succeed, the victim is toast, and the stranger that | death is, the better. At the end of the story, there's no doubt | which way it went. | | This is why good action stories are page-turners, or as Fleming | writes: | | > "You have to get the reader to turn over the page." | | Humans are hardwired to pay attention when death is a possible | outcome. That's why rubbernecking is a thing even though people | complain about it. It's also one reason cited for the popularity | of NASCAR. Death can come at any time even though the action is | quite repetitive. | | More than that, the scenes in an action story tend to turn on | life and death. That's one place where action story authors can | get into trouble: writing too many scenes that turn on a value | other than life-death, or don't turn on anything. It's shockingly | easy to write scenes that offer nothing more than information. | One or two of them is all it takes for the reader to yawn and | quit. | jameshart wrote: | Not sure I agree with this taxonomy. Remember, the genre | 'thriller' has a different meaning when applied to written | fiction, as opposed to movies. | | As Eddie Izzard once memorably pointed out, you get a lot of | car chases in movies; very few car chases in books though. | | So in movies we see 'action' emerge as a distinct genre, with | 'thriller' left for more Hitchcockian psychological excitement | (and then Michael Jackson comes along and confuses everyone by | writing a song about horror movies and calling it 'Thriller'). | | But meanwhile in novel-land, spy stories (and detective | stories) were _always_ 'thrillers' - although maybe that does | conjure more Len Deighton or Le Carre than Fleming... Still, | from 'thrillers' we also get 'techno thrillers' which in some | ways also build off Bond-like action elements. | | I suppose there is the other pulp-ish fiction category of | 'adventure', which you could also shelve Bond under, alongside | war stories and explorers and space captains. | thaumasiotes wrote: | > As Eddie Izzard once memorably pointed out, you get a lot | of car chases in movies; very few car chases in books though. | | > So in movies we see 'action' emerge as a distinct genre, | with 'thriller' left for more Hitchcockian psychological | excitement | | I would say that e.g. _The Da Vinci Code_ is written with | pacing that would make me characterize it as a "thriller". | There's no psychological excitement going on there. | | I don't think it's true that you don't see car chases, or | their equivalent, in books. | jameshart wrote: | Well no, the Da Vinci Code can not be accused of embodying | any form of excitement - psychological or otherwise. | | And are you characterizing the multi chapter long taxi ride | of exposition from the Da Vinci code as a _car chase_? | Archelaos wrote: | > in novel-land, spy stories (and detective stories) were | _always_ 'thrillers' | | I do not agree with regard to detective stories, because the | thriller aspect varies a lot from story to story. There are | many examples where the focus is primarily on the who-done-it | aspect: the detective arrives at a crime scene and | demonstrates his superior ability of deduction. | jameshart wrote: | Oh, naturally, there's a world of difference between a | whodunnit and a detective thriller. I'm thinking Dashiell | Hammett, not Agatha Christie. | Archelaos wrote: | My remark was targeting the "always" with regard to | detective stories. Of course, I would have no objections | if you only claim that detective thrillers are always | thrillers. | | A more interesting question is what narrative principles | are at work when a detective thrillers leans more towards | the "whodunnit" side in contrast to when it leans more | towards the thriller side of the spectrum. For example, a | classic narrative strategy of the "whodunnit" story is | further murders during an ongoing investigation, with the | victim being the respective current prime suspect. This | thriller element increases the urgency of the | investigation (thriller aspect) and it at the same time | is meant to impress and confront the reader with the | challange that the hitherto closest explanation of the | murders needs to be replaced by something more | sophisticated ("whodunnit" aspect). | parenthesis wrote: | (The song 'Thriller' was written by Rod Temperton, by the | way.) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-07 23:00 UTC)