Summary of Dan Brown’s Masterclass on Writing Thrillers

34 key takeaways from the author of The Da Vinci Code and Lost Symbols

1. When you write a book, you’re actually writing a million books. Each person who reads your book will read it differently and imagine different things. Your job as a writer is to create the framework, the points of interest, that would enable the reader’s imagination to connect all the dots in an interesting and enjoyable way. Give them just enough to bring them to the next point. This is how you build suspense.
2. Follow the 3 C’s — the contract, the crucible, the clock. The contract is your promise that by the end, all questions, however small, will be answered. The crucible is that the hero is in a high stakes situation with only one way out, a path filled with miserable obstacles. The clock is the element of time pressure. Bring the 3 C’s together in ways that the reader doesn’t see coming, and you’ve got a thriller.
3. Write what you WANT to know. The common advice is to write what you know, but writing what you want to know instead is more fun. Choosing topics and locations that you are personally interested to learn more about will fuel your passion to research it and think about it creatively.
4. Write in a moral grey area. Ambiguity makes conflict more textured and characters more interesting. Tradition versus future, science versus religion, any topic where you can argue both sides are areas of tension ripe for good stories.
5. You don’t need a big idea, you need big HOWs. Pretty much every idea has already been written about. The key to a good story then isn’t necessarily about the idea, it’s about the how. For example, the idea behind the James Bond stories are the same every time. We already know he’s going to defuse the bomb and get the girl, but we continue to love the series because each time he does it in a fascinatingly different way.
6. Write your villain first, it’s the villain that defines the hero. It’s the hardships and challenges created by the villain that makes the hero heroic when he overcomes them. Don’t make the villain’s motive just money, that’s boring. Make it something more nuanced, perhaps they’re doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Introduce your villain with a bang. Make it obvious that this is someone with shockingly evil intentions.
7. Give your hero flaws to make him more relatable. The hero should have some incredible unique strengths, but also some weaknesses we can all relate to. Maybe he feels irrationally insecure and anxious in certain situations, human vulnerabilities all of us have experienced.
8. The payoff must be difficult to achieve and believable. You can be easy on your villain but not your hero. You have to make things as difficult as possible for your hero and make him suffer for the eventual payoff to be believable and heroic.
9. Create secondary characters that complement your hero. They should have skills and qualities that are very different from the hero’s but ones necessary to achieve the end goal. Instant tension is created when a potential romantic interest appears. Right away throughout the whole story the reader will be wondering if they’ll get together.
10. Let plot dictate characters. As you write your story, needs will emerge such as a travel companions, gatekeepers, etc. You can create these characters as the need emerges, and go back and plant some clues about how they’ll be important later on.
11. Know what each character wants, and why they can’t have it. This will be the driving force behind every character that will make their actions believable. You don’t need to reveal it right away, but as you write you must always know and keep it in mind.
12. Limit the number of characters. Having to remember too many characters will distract from the plot. If one character can do two jobs, that’s great. Give each main character an important trait that’s easy to remember.
13. Create characters with strong opposing ideas. A good way to do this is to research well known people who are at opposite extremes of a spectrum on an idea.
14. Establish history between your characters. For example if your characters used to be lovers, that automatically triggers your reader’s imagination. Right away they’ll remember their own emotions and experiences with their old lovers, and it enriches your story.
15. Reveal character through internal monologue. Show who they are through how they see the world. This way you’re building character in a nuanced way. You’re not describing it, it comes across naturally.
16. The muscle and the puppet master. This is someone that puts the hero in actual physical danger. Again this should be someone who operates in a moral grey area. They may be one of the bad guys, but they have a sympathetic backstory. Behind the muscle is the puppet master, the top villain pulling all the strings. You can make the puppet master a faceless hidden identity, it’s a common suspense technique in thrillers.
17. The conspiracy theorist. Create this side character to showcase the wild alternative views. It provides entertainment without compromising the intellectual integrity of the hero.
18. The red herring. One of the most fun parts of reading and writing thrillers is misdirection. You make the reader think one guy did it but it turns out it’s someone else. Keep surprising your readers and keep being creative with how you surprise them.
19. Research can inspire you and make decisions for you. Take note of what intrigues and surprises you as you research your topic. Your initial research will help you decide what world to write about, and as you learn more while you write, you might get more ideas for locations and characters and plot twists.
20. Talk to people and visit places. Visit the actual places you’ll be writing about and absorb as much as you can on location. Talk to specialists in the topics you’re researching. They will be able to give you more intriguing information and might even inspire new characters. Read about their world beforehand so you’ll have a starting point for conversation and ask the right questions.
21. Research exhaustively to find connections. The more facts you look at, the more likely that you’ll be able to find connections amongst them. At the beginning, focus on gathering information rather than organizing it. Research just enough to start writing. Don’t let research turn into procrastination. File away what you don’t use for the future.
22. Build a story from the ground up. In the first chapter, introduce your world, the moral grey area, the villain, the hero, and the 3 C’s. Then write the finale, where we know the hero must win. Choose the locations that will go in the middle, and figure out what obstacles will be at each location and how the story will lead the hero from one place to the next. Then develop the supporting characters and turn up the tension by revealing some backstory on these characters. Go back and forth between the villain and the hero to remind the reader of the stakes. In the wrap up, make sure the punishment fits the crime, and that the outcome is fair.
23. Make many big promises early on, and hold suspense with parallel plotlines and tight timelines. Start scenes with a sense of urgency, raise multiple questions big and small, and answer them throughout the book through parallel plotlines. Consider how long you can reasonably withhold answering each question before the reader gets frustrated. Try ramping up the timeline to increase suspense.
24. Have a purpose for each chapter and find fresh ways to open. Decide what is the one thing that you want to accomplish in each chapter, and then just have fun figuring out the how. End chapters on a cliffhanger by withholding something. Experiment with different types of cliffhangers, for example showing flashbacks but not yet revealing what led to it, or having the character be shocked by seeing something but not yet revealing what they saw.
25. Create negative space. Pace the story slower and quieter at some parts to share the hero’s inner thoughts. This helps the reader to develop greater care for the character. It also maximizes the impact when something big and loud happens again afterwards.
26. Paint your character into a corner. Then, figure out how to get them out of it. Choose obstacles that are interesting to you. Whether it’s physical or creative or intellectual, it’ll make it more fun for you to write and your personal knowledge of this type of challenge will add to its credibility.
27. Control the POV. For each chapter, choose to tell the story from the point of view of the character that has the most to lose or learn. Let this character build tension by asking all the questions that you want the reader to have. If you’re not sure who to choose, try writing the scene in a few different POVs and see which one works best.
28. Create dialogue of conflict and revelation. These are far more interesting than dialogues of agreement. Each person speaking should have their own tone that just by reading how it’s written you can tell who said it. Dialogue should be driven by the character’s agenda.
29. Remember your job is to serve the reader. Hemingway once said that mysticism should not be confused with incompetence in writing. Use simple and clear language. Appeal to all the reader’s senses. Make the reading experience so smooth and immersive that they don’t even feel like they’re reading, they just feel like they’re part of the action.
30. Good writers know when they’re bad. Print out your manuscript, take it somewhere new, and read it in a way that a potential reader might read it. It will help change your perspective and be better able to identify what works and doesn’t. Admit when you’ve written something bad. Dare to be terrible. Dare to delete.
31. Protect the process, and the result will take care of itself. Writing a novel takes a long time and seems really complicated, but really all you have to do is keep writing. Keep writing and editing, and over time the pages will pile up and the results will show. Be tough on yourself with the process, but easy on yourself with the output.
32. The process itself needs to be the reward. No matter how hard you try, it is still possible that nobody will like it or buy it, but as long as you enjoyed the process, that in itself is the reward. Dan’s first book didn’t sell, neither did the second, or the third, or the fourth, but he kept going because he loved the writing process, so he kept writing and promoting, and that eventually he succeeded.
33. Surround yourself with people who can make it happen. Find a book in the genre that you’re writing that you love, and look in the acknowledgements to see who helped edit it, publish it, market it. You need to find people who believe in you and have the ability to help you. Look through agent lists to see what they represent, find ones that match you, write to them, be as concise and captivating as your novel would be.
34. Visualize your success. Dan had created a physical artifact of his book before it was even finished, so he could hold it in his hand, feel the weight of it, see the cover, and know that it is already real, he just has to write it out. He photoshopped the New York Times bestseller list with the name of his book in it, printed it out, and looked at it whenever he felt like giving up. Eventually all of it came true.

These are just the ideas I found most insightful. The full course, which is 3 hr 32 min, can be viewed at masterclass.com