Thriller/suspense - pacing

[Adam Isaac Member Find all posts View Profile Close Adam Isaac]

Re: Thriller/suspense - pacing

I'm not a big Hitchcock fan for various reasons. One: His movies always seemed sluggish to me. He worked mostly pre-1970s. You have to keep that in mind.

I would study the more recent Suspense/Thrillers for hints on pacing. Stick to the thrillers from the 80s thru the present.

When a thriller doesn’t work for me, it’s usually b/c they try & substitute creepiness and atmosphere for actual story & char dev.

I can listen to that ubiquitous, “creepy, something’s gonna happen soon” music for only so long before I get bored.

Something interesting/surprising should be happening right from the beginning… & then keep happening at regular intervals.

And when i say "interesting", i mean interesting character stuff too!-- not just blood or gore or whatever.

~Laura

If you think ROPE is sluggish pacing, my dear how can you expect people to take you seriously?

[Adam Isaac Member Find all posts View Profile Close Adam Isaac]

Re: Thriller/suspense - pacing

I can't think of a character driven thriller for the life of me. It always depends on plot. Any movies/scripts you can think of that is character driven?

Absolutely correct.

Character driven and Thriller/Suspense do not sleep in the same bed together.

That advice is out of place in this thread.

[Laura Reyna Member Find all posts View Profile Close Laura Reyna]

Re: Thriller/suspense - pacing

I can't think of a character driven thriller for the life of me. It always depends on plot. Any movies/scripts you can think of that is character driven?

1st off, i didn't say "character driven". That expression doesn't appear in my post.

In my post i was separating char & plot (story) from other stuff such as mere atmosphere & blood/gore.

When i wrote blood&gore I was thinking of SEVEN-type movies .... BASIC INSTINCT- type thrillers have only a bit of murder/blood/gore in them. As a substitute, they use sex.

One of the points i was trying to make was that as writers we shouldn't sacrifice character dev for "pyrotechnics".... like bood, over-the-top killings, action etc...

Like i said, i never used the expression "Char driven", but...

ALL good thrillers have well developed, interesting char's. And to me, story & char are tied together.

Why is STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (one of my fav Hitch movies) so fascinating? b/c of the "plot"? I don't think so.

I find it fascinating b/c of the 2 char's. The relationship is what drives the story.

Why is BASIC INSTINCT interesting???

B/c of the interplay btwn Stone's char & Douglas' char.

Why does SEVEN work???

B/c of the relationship btwn Freeman & Pitt, and Pitt & his wife. The end gets its power from the characters, not from of all the gore that came before. You could tone down the gore & still get a v. good film.

My main point is, as writers we have to develop the char's, and not just rely on creepy music, cool ways to kill/torture people, or the TWIST ending.

Whatever the genre, good scripts still have to have well written char's & solid dramatic underpinnings.

~Laura

[Angeloworx Member Find all posts View Profile Close Angeloworx]

Re: Thriller/suspense - pacing

Like i said, i never used the expression "Char driven", but...

ALL good thrillers have well developed, interesting char's. And to me, story & char are tied together.

~Laura

I was genuinely asking if there is a Charater driven thriller and didn't ask it as a counterpoint. I guess there isn't a movie out there...

[Biohazard Member Find all posts View Profile Close Biohazard]

Re: Thriller/suspense - pacing

I was genuinely asking if there is a Charater driven thriller and didn't ask it as a counterpoint. I guess there isn't a movie out there...

Rope?

[Laura Reyna Member Find all posts View Profile Close Laura Reyna]

Re: Thriller/suspense - pacing

I was genuinely asking if there is a Charater driven thriller and didn't ask it as a counterpoint. I guess there isn't a movie out there...

Okay... I thought b/c you quoted me in your post that you were misunderstanding what i was saying, or misquoting me.

If you're asking a sincere question for discussion, that's fine.

Are there any "character driven" thrillers?

How do you want to define char driven?

Strictly speaking, all mainsteam thrillers are char driven b/c the through line-- the thing that propels the story forward-- is the goal of the protagonist. The plot itself depends on the protag & the various relationships s/he has w/ the other char's.

But some Thrillers have simple plots, & others have more complex plots.

The ones w/ complex plots have lots of characters, with various motives, & lots of twists/reversals & surprises. And possibly a big surprise ending.

The ones with simple plots-- i guess you could call them "char driven"-- have few characters, few twists/reversals. Their plots are pretty straightforward.

I think a few Hitchcock movies have simple plots & are mostly character pieces:

PSYCHO, SHADOW OF A DOUBT, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN..... & ROPE

Movies that have one char holding another hostage:

DEATH & THE MAIDEN, CLOSETLAND, DESPERATE HOURS, HARD CANDY, etc...

The various "stalker" movies:

PLAY MISTY FOR ME, THE CRUSH, etc... Even FATAL ATTRACTION is basically just a domestic drama & has a fairly straighforward plot.

So yeah, someone could make the argument there are character driven Thrillers. I guess it depends on the definition.

~Laura

[Charli Member Find all posts View Profile Close Charli]

Re: Thriller/suspense - pacing

When it comes to pacing, I don't think there's a formula, I do think however that
your gut is a good guide, and if it feels long, it probably is too long, so how do you
trim and get the pace going just right? I dunno, but I do know that Joel Silver's
"punch-it-every-ten-minutes" is a good format to follow. It's got to get worse
before it gets better mentality, that keeps up glued.