The Thrill of “Rootable” Characters (and Three I’ll Never Forget)

In my humble opinion, the most important aspect of thriller writing is characterization—does a hero leap off the page? Is a villain memorable? And the big question—does the reader give a damn about either of them? Would I give a damn about either of them? As I see it, a great plot is nothing but a dry idea until it becomes suitably characterized.

The trick, I believe, is for the writer to gradually disclose the protagonists and antagonists in a strong narrative line. Without the narrative, no reader would have the patience to discover them. The narrative line becomes the thick thread that knits them together, inevitably locking foes in mortal thriller combat. But when those moments arrive, they’re not thrilling unless the reader roots for or against them.

If violence erupts in fiction—as it does in modern thrillers—it should be the outcome of tension. In my view, it should not come first (except, perhaps, in prologue), nor should it be accidental. Action stories in and of themselves are cinematically entertaining—but I believe quality stories distill action down to a psychological level. There is “action”—movement—that takes place in a character’s mind or in a conversation. If someone finally kills someone else, it should be the climax of a rhythmic building of tension that lasts long enough to be convincing but is short enough to be interesting.

For it to be truly thrilling, I believe, the reader must be emotionally rooting for an outcome—for a hero or against a villain. By understanding the way either character thinks, by understanding their backgrounds and motivations, the reader fully understands why they do what they do. If I’ve succeeded as a thriller writer—if I’ve created motivations and hardships and challenges that any reader could identify—then I’ve successfully brought them to life with good characterization where the reader is emotionally invested in the outcome. Id est, they’re rootable. And therein, I believe, lies the secret to the thrill.  

Novels are complex matters; the density of interest rises and falls over time. But rootable characters endure a series of rising challenges, which are, essentially, a collection of episodic short stories. I believe that a good chapter in a novel should be based on the same rhythmic structure as a short story. These short-story chapters are broken up by the varying perspectives of rootable characters whose psychology the reader understands. By throwing them into conflict with one another, I’ve hopefully created a novel in which a reader is also psychologically involved. The higher the stakes, the stronger the “root”—and the higher the thrill.

Three books that really hit the rootable aspect for me (both for and against) were Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle, Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal, and John LeCarre’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.  

In Eye of the Needle, the fate of World War Two rests in the hands of a master spy. It’s just weeks before D-Day, 1944, and the spy is gathering critical intelligence that could blow the whole thing. He glides through England with admirable skill and tradecraft—but ultimately succumbs to human weaknesses. By happenstance, one brave, damaged woman ends up in his way. The stakes are massive, the characters rootable, the thrill bodily.

Day of the Jackal is equally effective at the root. This time we’re rooting against a mercenary assassin who’s been hired to kill Charles De Gaulle. Watching the villain exhaustively prepare for the mission is a tick-tick-tick of building tension as we come to realize he’s a sociopath. He must be stopped—but he’s so damned good at what he does. We know it because we’ve watched him every step of the way. He’s so believable. The anti-root is palpable.

We see a mastery of psychological tension in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. This is at least partly due to its moral ambiguity, which makes one think about the way people are treated by heartless spymasters. We come to sympathize with Leamas, the wayward hero. We worry about him, fret for him. We share his confusion. The “action” in this one is mental. In the end, psychologically, we learn that Leamas has been tricked by his own people. We’ve shared in his emotional commitment. We too have been mind-raped right along with him. How dare they.

While plots and stakes vary with the headlines, I still think a good thriller is all about that single, hard-to-acquire thing—the root.

About Dead Drop by M.P. Woodward:

Nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran have reached a crisis point. The new American administration is determined to move ahead, but there are several stumbling blocks, not the least of which is Lieutenant Colonel Kasem Khalidi, the Iranian intelligence officer the CIA has hidden away in one of its safe houses.

As always, John and Meredith Dale are caught in the middle. Mossad—the Israeli intelligence agency—wants Meredith’s help to find the lead Iranian rocket scientist; while John is in a desperate race to keep Kasem one step ahead of an Iranian hit squad.

They are pawns in an international chess game, and any player knows you cannot capture the king without sacrificing some pawns.