How to create a dynamite story: start with this killer question

There’s a secret to creating plots that stand out in a world of high-octane drama and competing streaming services. It comes down to one key question, reveals Linwood Barclay.

‘Set off alarm bells’ ... the popularity of TV hits like The Last Of Us, starring Pedro Pascal, is a backdrop issue in Linwood Barclay’s I Will Ruin You.

What if you were a high school English teacher and, while leading a discussion with your students about Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, glanced out the window and saw a former student, with dynamite strapped to his chest, heading for the door?

What would you do?

That’s how my new novel, I Will Ruin You, opens. As a thriller writer, I’m always looking for a dynamite (forgive me) opening, something that will grab the reader right away. (When you’re competing against so many great TV series to binge-watch, you can’t afford to take your time.)

In the acknowledgments from his novel The Fourth Hand, John Irving says this: “Every novel I’ve written has begun with a ‘What if...’”

‘What would you do?’ ... Kodi Smit-McPhee and Viggo Mortensen star in the film adaptation of award-winning novel The Road.

I get it.

Take my 2008 novel No Time for Goodbye. One day before the sun was up this idea came into my head. What if a 14-year-old girl wakes up one morning and everyone in her house is gone? Her mother, her father and her brother disappear overnight and twenty-five years will pass before she learns what happened to them. (You’ll have to read that one to find out what happened.)

It’s been like that with every book since, including I Will Ruin You, my twenty-fourth thriller, but what’s curious is that initial “what if” spark had nothing to do with a bomb. You could do a lot worse than that, to be sure, but I’d been thinking about the true story of a US politician and former high school coach, who was blackmailed by an ex-student over allegations of abuse. That got me thinking. Suppose the blackmail victim tells his wife, swears it isn’t true, and soon after, the extortionist turns up dead? The husband has a motive, but so does the wife.

‘If you’ve got an axe to grind, throw it into the mix’ ... so says Linwood Barclay.

And what if each of them thinks the other did it?

I could get deeper into the weeds about how that story morphed into the incident that leads off this article, but suffice it to say I had something to work with. And as I got further into writing this book, that early premise was overtaken by other plot points. That’s the way it goes sometimes. You had one idea, but the book had another.

Not all my novels have been inspired by news stories, although it should be no surprise that some have, given that I spent three decades working in the newspaper business in Canada. But current events almost always find a way into my books, at least as side issues or subplots. I always say, even in the context of a thriller, if you’ve got an axe to grind, if there’s something going on that upsets you, throw it into the mix.

Given my background, I’ve lamented the decline of local newspapers, and that issue found its way into Never Look Away. Polarizing politics simmered below the surface of Elevator Pitch.

‘Draw in young fans of The Walking Dead’ ... Andrew Lincoln and Lauren Cohan in the AMC show, available on Binge.

And in I Will Ruin You, I wanted to take a run at, among other things, how demanding it is to be a teacher these days, when your every move is under scrutiny, all the kids are on their phones instead of paying attention and how, in some countries, you never know if today is the day someone’s going to come into your classroom and start shooting.

I also wanted to tackle efforts by some to ban books in schools. Richard, our English teacher, figures the post-apocalyptic setting of The Road will draw in young fans of The Walking Dead and The Last of Us, be a gateway into discussing larger moral issues. But some of the book’s graphic passages – particularly those involving cannibalism – set off alarm bells with some parents, and Richard finds himself under attack. Why, one parent wonders, would the school force students to read a book that celebrates people devouring one another?

It’s pretty clear to anyone who has read The Road that celebration was not McCarthy’s intention. Here’s part of what Richard tells parents at a hastily called meeting:

‘It’s dynamite if you ask me’ ... I Will Ruin You.

“I would be doing your children a disservice if I made every effort to protect them from things that might challenge or upset them. I could cocoon them, avoid anything that might spark debate, that would raise questions of right and wrong. Of course, that would mean not reading any great works of fiction at all, because that’s what we hope good fiction will do. Get the kids talking, thinking. Good fiction provokes and bridges gaps, can bring people together by exposing them to all sides of an issue.”

So, what if you’re a writer with something on your mind, but don’t want to crank out a preachy polemic? Sneak those concerns into a thriller. It’s a dynamite idea if you ask me.

I Will Ruin You by Linwood Barclay is out now, published by HQ Fiction.

What do you think makes the perfect beginning to a novel? Tell us and debate the topic at The Sunday Book Club group on Facebook.

Originally published as How to create a dynamite story: start with this killer question