Back in February, I wanted to discuss romantic thrillers and romance in thrillers in an IG live. Unfortunately, covid knocked on my door and the live was cancelled. Since then I hadn't had the chance to come back to this topic.
Romantic Thrillers
A romantic thriller or a romance thriller is a narrative that involves elements of the romance and thriller genres. A good thriller provides entertainment by making viewers uncomfortable with moments of suspense, anxiety and fright.
Douglas E. Winter once wrote about horror, how it “is not a genre, it is an emotion. It is a progressive form of fiction, one that evolves to meet the fears and anxieties of its times.” The same can be said about thrillers, too. It is an emotion evoked by the content of the book, rather than a genre. But for the sake of this discussion and the sake of all the books out there labeled as thriller, we are going to refer to it as a genre.
So we’ve established that what makes a thriller a romantic thriller is the element of romance, usually in the main plot. But what is it that makes it successful?
A good story. LOL
The protagonist is the person in the story with the most to lose. They have baggage and emotional complexity which is slowly revealed throughout the book. And all characters (not only the protagonist) are usually also super miserable.
Multiple points of view. In Gone Girl and The Neighbors for instance, the POV alternates between two or more characters. Multiple POVs help, in my opinion, since the reader is familiar with all the truths. If a character is hiding something from another character, the readers knows that, and that amplifies the emotional investment in the book.
The book starts in one of three ways, according to my reading experience. If you’ve noticed a different kind of romantic thriller beginning let me know.
It begins with action, and the characters’ back story follows in later chapters. This is the case with The Neighbors, where the story begins with a car crash. Also, in Gone Girl, Nick goes home only to find his wife, Amy, missing, and signs of struggle are visible all over the place.
Alternatively, we have an introduction to a lonely protagonist like in The Girl On The Train, where we see Rachel ride a train every day and watch a stranger, thinking about her past life with her husband.
And finally, we have a happy beginning. In the case of The Wife, the protagonist is perfectly happy and content with her life.
The main characters evolve throughout the book. Usually, they become stronger, like in The Girl On The Train, or they deteriorate due to mental health issues, like in The Wives, or they find out about something that has been kept from them for so long that has now changed their lives forever, like in The Wife, The Neighbors and more.
Show, don’t tell. I don’t think it is necessary to go into detail about this last one. "Show, don’t tell" is important in all genres. But when there are emotions of thrill and horror in the mix (spicing it up with a little bit of horror here, because y’all know I’m a huge fan), showing instead of telling is critical.
Romance in thrillers
So, let’s talk about Romance in thrillers in general. Romance isn’t always an element in a thriller’s subplot, like in the case of The Summer House, Misery, Lord of the flies.
When present, though, it is convoluted, and in all cases the couple ends up apart, like in the case of The Widow, His Bloody Project, In The Woods, The Dead Zone, The Shining (although the last two are technically horror, I still feel like they deserve a mention here). In romantic thrillers, the couple doesn’t end up together, either, which is quite interesting. I understand a romantic thriller having this conclusion, but why does the rest of the genre follow this norm? We don’t have the time to dive deeper, but it’s a very interesting question that we could discuss another time. If you have any theories, feel free to write them below.
I suppose no one is looking for a happy ending in a thriller, otherwise, it wouldn’t be a thriller now, would it? In most romantic interests, at least one of the two ends up dead, in jail, in an institution or with a restraining order (and I'm not even considering the whole cheating aspect in almost every book I mentioned earlier). It’s fascinating to me, because, as I'm writing this, I realize that I have done the same thing with my own novel The Shadows We Live In.
My First Novel
In The Shadows We Live In, Alice starts dating Mark. I have never been good at handling romance in my stories, so these chapters with Alice and Mark made me a little uncomfortable (and I also didn’t quite like Mark - it’s complicated). By the end, at least one of them ended up dead, in jail, in an institution or with a restraining order - I won’t say. I always thought that was because I didn’t like them together. I suppose I could have also been influenced by all the books I have read and the movies I have watched.
I promise you, though, that the chapters meant to be romantic, are actually romantic. So you’ll get to see that sweet valentine story unfold before your eyes. Or maybe you won’t. Who’s to say? If you’ve read my book, feel free to message me and we can discuss this further. Let’s keep the comment section spoiler free. (:
I recommend all the books listed above and their movie/series adaptations. And I also recommend The Skin I Live In, a creepy movie I only found out about last year. Do you have any film or book recommendations? I'd be glad to hear them.
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