Common Thriller Archetypes (Character Types)

hello everyone alexa dunn here and today i am going to be going over common thriller archetypes that might help you in plotting or revising your books i actually was inspired to make this by how to write a damn good thriller by james n frey which you might know i didn't really like at all and one of the things in it that i found very frustrating both as a big thriller reader but also as someone who writes them is he just said well a basic ingredient of a thriller is thriller type characters well what does that mean it means archetypes but what are common thriller archetypes types of characters that readers expect and delight to see in thrillers so i racked my brain to come up with as many as i could that might be helpful to you in terms of crafting main character supporting characters villains investigators antagonists all sorts of things you'd be amazed how often if you're feeling like for example your thriller just something is missing throwing in one of these archetypes can make a huge difference because as i mentioned they play in to popular and beloved thriller and mystery tropes i'm going to go through these in no particular order some of these are very specific to main characters though some of the ones you can use for a main character you can also use for a side character some are antagonist specific but my first few are definitely main character specific so the first just very basic thriller archetype is the anxious hero or heroine some authors lean way more into this than others and it really depends on your personal style as an author and i find most of the time people with anxiety will write characters with anxiety but a character with anxiety can add so much texture to a thriller story because they're going to be second guessing everything for better or for worse and it adds that kind of level of suspense to the story essentially this anxious hero or heroine is your layman character they're not a police detective or a journalist or what have you those are some of the archetypes i'm going to talk about they are a normal person who approaches the world managing social anxiety and then a horrible thing happens and they view the entire lens of the story through that anxiety one of my favorite authors who does this is ruth ware she is a master of the anxious heroine though occasionally they're not a lay person they are a journalist but they almost always approach the story with a layer of kind of anxiousness about the world in their situation i find these kind of characters super relatable and a thriller probably because i have social anxiety next is the investigator character with a secret and particularly when this is the main character you're in their pov so you do have to be a little bit crafty but it's the idea you're going through the narrative and there's some kind of secret usually it's in the deep past and the character they're keeping it from their self in a way they don't want to think about it they've pushed it really really far down and thus it becomes another suspense thread for the reader this one is a big given in small town secrets books inevitably your main character doesn't want to go home for reasons and part of the fun is that you don't find it out until later sometimes they do have repressed memories as well there are different kind of ways to play this but the idea is that the main character has some really really deep secret that they keep from everyone including the reader gillian flynn does this a lot to great effect especially in sharp objects actually speaking of sharp objects the next one also fits another very common archetype in modern thrillers is the ptsd investigator this is when your main character is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder whether they know it or not they might be diagnosed or not and this will often commingle with that they're keeping a secret from the reader but also possibly from themselves it's a character who suffered a great trauma in the past and kind of their mental state impacts how they approach the the story the investigation it's kind of a deep pathos that that character sits in that definitely kind of influences how they move through the story and i must introduce to say with some of these archetypes when they do involve aspects of trauma or mental health that you should be very very sensitive to kind of how you use them in the story it should be a very kind of big choice that you make not one that you make lightly but many writers who have themselves experienced trauma or i mentioned with anxiety do like to channel some of those things into their characters and thrillers and it could definitely make for a very layered and textured reading experience when it is done well the next very common archetype in thrillers is the aggressive or pushy suspicious bad cop these are going to be in books where your main character is more of a layman and you have that cop figure circling can also work in multi-pov they are a bog standard conflict character antagonist character they make things difficult for your main character generally having some kind of law enforcement is just a very standard accepted trope in thrillers you can have the bad cop or you can also do good cop usually when you have the archetype of good cop they're either the pov character or a sidekick character for the main character there are kind of different ways to approach that law enforcement archetype and it's kind of about what suits your story best but definitely if you have a thriller or a mystery and there's no law enforcement type character you'd be surprised with throwing one into the mix especially if you play them against type like maybe they're trying to be helpful but they're also a little like the character can't completely trust them that's always good or you just go with the full out kind of more aggressive suspicious type so the next common archetype in thrillers at least certainly nowadays is the alcoholic investigator and ultimately the alcoholic investigator is an unreliable narrator this was done to great effect in the girl on the train by paula hawkins but it's not the only book to have used this particular archetype and it does play again to the character who has trauma in their past it can be the secret that they're keeping from themselves and the reader and they self-medicate with alcohol and when you have a character who is drinking frequently throughout the course of the story who has a dependency issue well they're going to misinterpret things misremember things not remember things at all and it's just a very common like archetype that you'll find in a lot of thriller fiction the next archetype is pretty basic and it is the love interest very often the love interest is a sidekick character they're there so that there's a romance thread but also some conflicts thrown in very often a popular trope or archetype i suppose in through fiction is when the love interest character has a secret and they're keeping it from the main character and also often the reader and it is part again of not just suspense building because the best ones are when it the reader doesn't see it coming it's like a conflict stakes betrayal moment usually in the third act i mentioned it in my common beats in thrillers video now you don't have to have a love interest character in your thriller but it's just a very very common archetype the next very common archetype in a lot of thrillers is what i call the naughty teacher slash professor it's a really common one especially if they're set at a boarding school or in college or any of that kind of thing it's the grossness of the person in the position of power specifically teachers or professors but there are other kind of versions of this that you can use who are gross skeevy people usually dudes but not always who take advantage of young girls and that plays somehow into someone's secret or suspense or even your antagonist plotline it's just a very common i mean it's basically a trope but it's definitely one that you see a lot in different types of thrillers next is the cheating or toxic spouse this one's super popular and domestic suspense kind of anything where like you know it's about marriage and divorce and secrets and so on there's also the frenemy archetype very often found in kind of toxic friendship or toxic girl stories then there's the nosy journalist which is actually kind of a flip to the cop archetype i actually think it's great to have both but again if you're in a situation where you feel a little bit stuck with what you're doing throwing in a nosy journalist throwing in the component of the media can do wonders for a story they can be helpful or hurtful to the main character and the general investigation you can also make the nosey journalist your main character the next archetype is the small town girl or guy who doesn't want to go home again i mention this with the secrets one you'll often throw these two together it's gonna work best in a small town secrets book and it's one that a lot of readers expect to see in those kinds of stories whether it's the main character it's usually the main character but you can use that as an archetype for other characters as well love interest and so on the next one i really love in certain types of domestic suspense and it is the naive new wife which i call the rebecca archetype you know she meets this fabulous man and she marries him and wait what happened to his last wife i guess this could also be a jean air archetype but it's a really good one in gothic fiction domestic suspense and so on and the flip of that is the mrs danvers archetype it's the creepy maid the creepy housekeeper the creepy person in the domestic life or household of the new partner character could be it could be their kid i've seen it used that way as well like the the reluctant step child who is just kind of lurking deeply antagonistic but also kind of vague at the same time and ultimately this is a gothic fiction trope and archetype they're harboring secrets and protecting people the next archetype which kind of is also a gothic fiction thing but you can use it in lots of places since i mentioned kids it's the pre-naturally precocious child it's the child who is very unsettling for the adult character because there may be a little bit mrs danvery they're like they're in the background and you know that they're watching observing thinking maybe they're a little antagonistic they're a little too smart for their own good that's that's a good archetype particularly in domestic suspense or gothic fiction the next archer type is one of my favorites in in thrillers this might just be a trope and that is the rich this could be a girl or a guy maybe it's the frat bro whose dad owns a jet maybe it's the princess who has a trust fund whatever it is it is an archetype that can always add a nice level of kind of lifestyles of the rich and fabulous class conflict or also just like some good fun and games to a book it's almost its own kind of tropey subgenre and thriller but it's definitely it's an archetype that i definitely enjoy the next archetype is the messy or the distant parent this is often used to texturize some of these other archetype options that i did mention it kind of giving like pathos and background to a character whether that messy slash distant parent is on the page or not when they're on the page it's definitely a very particular kind of textural archetype but even if they're off the page you can have that archetype for deep background for a character the next archetype is who i call the bad person with a heart of gold they're usually a support character for the main character though sometimes they are the main character they're down on their luck they create kind of heartstring tugging conflict in the story it's it's a tragic figure in the story this is why often they're not the main character because often these archetypal characters can be victims they can be unwitting antagonists they can end up being the bad guy but the kind of bad guy you feel bad for but it's definitely an archetype that i've seen used before the next archetype is a good antagonist one and it is the antagonist who has a vendetta against the main character whether the main character knows it or not this isn't always the main villain so to speak of the story either these can be good kind of side like textural characters who just add obstacles for the main character like there can be a stalking subplot and it turns out to be not the person that you think it is like it's just definitely a common archetype where it's like the main character did something to wrong someone and it comes back to haunt them so the next archetype is also a trope and you know i love it and that is the sacred sociopath so this is the archetype of the person who's been existing in the story the whole time often an antagonist not always the main antagonist but sometimes the main antagonist but it's the person within the story actually sometimes it's the main character who is secretly essentially i use sociopathic as a shorthand but they are pathological on the anti-social personality disorder spectrum and because of the facets of that disorder it can cause a lot of kind of chaos in a story and when it kind of builds up subtly where things are feel like off or something feels wrong and you're not sure why then you get the archetype of ah this person the next archetype it's almost like a subtype well you can have a love interest in this archetype but you can also have the love interest be this archetype and that is the ex who complicates things this will happen again in kind of small town secrets books but it can happen in a lot of them the person who has their life together but then everything starts to crumble because their ex is here and they have complicated feelings about their ex or their ex is just causing problems for them but definitely an archetype who can be thrown into a story for extra conflict and last but certainly not least in just the place where i ran out of ideas i'm sure there are more archetypes that i didn't even think of but the last one is the sibling seeking justice the sibling or family member sometimes this is going to be your main character and that's actually the motivation but very often this is a side character it's a sidekick who comes in it could even be an antagonist character but it's definitely a common trope to have kind of that justice seeking family member or loved one type character in a thriller so as i mentioned this is not an exhaustive list i just was like what can i come up with so i'm sure i've missed some great archetypes that you can find in thrillers that thriller readers love so let me know down below in the comments what are some of your favorite thriller archetypes that you like to read that you like to write and give this video a thumbs up if you like it i will make more thriller writing content if you're not are subscribed to the channel go ahead and do that i post new videos two to three times a week as always guys thank you so much for watching and happy writing

Channel: Alexa Donne

Views: 6,954

Rating: 4.9762845 out of 5

Keywords: alexa donne, author tube, writing advice, how to write a book, publishing advice, thriller writing, writing a thriller, thriller characters, thriller archetypes, thriller advice

Id: Aci2qgHAkY4

Length: 15min 31sec (931 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020