What part does character play in the modern thriller? How does Lee Child make his character Jack Reacher so compelling? ITW member Scott Mariani explores the subject in this extract from his new book, HOW TO WRITE A THRILLER, published by How To Books.



In real life, people mature as they gain experience. They make  mistakes, and sometimes have to pay the penalty for them emotionally and in other ways. But through that suffering they’re often able to learn important life lessons, and hopefully become better people as a result. Perhaps our quest for self-betterment is the only thing that really gives meaning to our lives.



For a fictitious character to come across as real, their life should have something of the same learning curve or ‘journey’. From the point where we first meet them to the point where we leave them, they should have changed in some way. Maybe they’ve learned something about themselves, overcome their weaknesses, stood up and triumphed over adversity, found it in themselves to love. Whatever their development arc, the person we find on page 1 shouldn’t be the same person we wave goodbye to at the end of the book.  



Any time you come across a book or film character who lacks depth or seems wooden, you’ll find it’s at least partly because the writer didn’t take them on that journey. They stay the same throughout the story, learn nothing, and fail to engage us emotionally.



Thriller characters can come in all shapes and sizes, but all the main characters in successful thrillers have one thing in common: their ability to make the reader relate to them in some way.

The loser who transcends himself

The ‘loser’ is the character whose life hasn’t gone according to plan. Often without any prospects or money, they may have been abandoned by their spouse and / or be facing eviction from their apartment, had their car repossessed, etc. That doesn’t mean they’re completely useless as people – they might often be well educated and well qualified for something, such as Martin Radford the out-of-work historian in Robert Goddard’s Past Caring, or the struggling artist Danny Cray in John Case’s The Eighth Day. It’s just that they’ve never got their act together or made much of themselves. Until, that is, they become embroiled in the intrigue of the thriller! Through whatever unexpected challenges that come their way, these characters discover or rediscover qualities in themselves that have lain dormant; they come alive again, transcend themselves and win the day against the odds. The story ends with them looking at a brighter new future, even though they may have suffered to get there.



Why do readers identify with this character? Well, don’t we see part of that character in ourselves? We all feel that we could better ourselves, seize the day a bit more, take a chance to prove to ourselves and others that we can win. Yes, dammit! The loser who throws off his self-imposed shackles is a powerful archetype.

The hero who is talented but must overcome his demons to succeed

The flawed hero, like the loser, has negative inner qualities that drag him down. Where he differs from the loser is that he’s excellent at what he does. He may be a very driven person, but what drives him to be great may also be what haunts him and weakens him. This character often has a bad past, perhaps a traumatic incident that happened long ago, perhaps a source of terrible guilt, some secret that is to be revealed in the course of the story. One such character is Ben Hope in The Fulcanelli Manuscript: in his professional life he’s the best, but as a human being he’s a lost soul and a borderline alcoholic. This character, and his story arc, is the age-old tale of redemption.



Why will the reader empathise? Many of us feel guilty about things in the past, or have other demons and weaknesses that we would like to cleanse out. When we see these in our hero, we’ll understand him deeply on a human level, and as he strives to transcend his problems, we are with him all the way and feeling inspired by his example.



The hero who’s a little out of his depth

I can’t think of a better recent example than Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code. Langdon has many trappings of success: he’s a professor, an intellectual, a hit with his female students. There’s a touch of Indiana Jones about him in this respect: but while Indy is a superman outside the classroom, Langdon is slightly out of his element when being chased around by dark forces. He’s the innocent victim, the fugitive, who stumbles around a little and has an eccentric tendency to stop and admire the architecture when the police are right on his heels!



Why do readers find him appealing? Although talented and gifted in many ways that the reader may not share, he is the Everyman who has been thrown in at the deep end. We look up at him for his erudition and brilliant mind, but when he’s the innocent fugitive we feel equal to him, and we empathise.



The strong, silent type who is more than meets the eye

This is the character who sits smiling to himself in the corner of the bar-room while some big bully is strutting around intimidating people and showing everyone what a tough guy he is. The guy in the corner doesn’t do or say anything – he’s far too confident to need to prove himself – but we just know that if the bully should mess with him it’ll be the last time he does. These heroes don’t start fights… they just finish them. From Clint Eastwood to Steven Seagal, we’ve all seen this type of hero in a million movies. In the modern thriller, one of the best examples of him is Lee Child’s creation Jack Reacher: former war hero-turned drifter.



In lesser hands, Jack Reacher might have become a cardboard cut-out, an unbelievable, anachronistic and inaccessible ‘Mr Perfect’. But Lee Child cleverly avoids this by making Jack a very modest kind of guy. He has none of the smugness that has tended to affect James Bond, and he’s never condescending in the way that Steven Seagal movie characters can be. He’s a man of the people, happy to take modest jobs, never bragging too much about his abilities or his medals; a cool character who doesn’t go looking for trouble… but when trouble finds him, as it invariably does, he knows how to deal with it. We feel in safe hands with Reacher – we never doubt his ability to win, but because he’s a real person his adventures never become predictable.



Why do readers go for Reacher? According to the Daily Mail, ‘Reacher is the sort of hero that no woman could help falling for’. Well, there you have it. Women apparently love him, and it therefore follows that men want to be him.

Scott Mariani is a UK-based thriller writer. He was born and raised in Scotland, studied languages and literature at Oxford and went on to be a professional musician, translator and shooting instructor before becoming an author. His novel The Fulcanelli Manuscript was published in March 2007.



Scott has his own monthly Thriller page in Writing Magazine, Britain’s best-selling writers’ monthly. His book How To Write a Thriller is an upbeat and informative guide for aspiring authors in this exciting genre. It has been described as ‘the first step for any budding thriller writer’ and also features an interview with Lee Child. For more information on Scott’s writing, visit him at www.scottmariani.com.