[HN Gopher] Ian Fleming explains how to write a thriller (2019)
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Ian Fleming explains how to write a thriller (2019)
Author : antiviral
Score : 119 points
Date : 2022-12-07 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| 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.)
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