6 Moody Tips to Write an Atmospheric Thriller

Writing an atmospheric thriller can be a thrill all by itself. I personally love to create an atmosphere that draws readers in and doesn’t let them go. In my latest novel, The Whisper, I bring a group of estranged friends back to their small hometown deep in the mountains to investigate a friend’s death.

(How to Cozy-fy Your Murder Mystery.)

Like all things writing, creating an atmospheric thriller isn’t simple. It means treating your setting like a character. It means using your setting to help build tension. If you get it right, your setting can work in your favor. Here are my best tips for trying to strike the perfect balance between atmosphere and thrills.

Your job as a thriller writer is to grip a reader and keep them gripped. If you want to use atmosphere to help with this, it’s all in the details. Set the scene. Be sparing and specific with the details that you choose to include. What is it about the setting that you want the reader to notice without knowing they’re noticing it?

Try this: Pause a movie at a particularly tense point and take a look at the objects positioned around the characters in that scene. Maybe there’s a picture frame with old peeling paint, a stuffed animal that's looking a little ragged and worn, with one of the eyes bulging with fluff. Is the room dusty? Are the curtains open or closed? Is it clean or dirty? Is the furniture sparse or cluttered?

You don't want your setting to be the center of the scene. You want to be choosy about what to bring the reader’s attention to. But be specific. Specifics make a place come alive on the page.

You're a fiction writer, which means making things up is your bread and butter. And yet, details matter, so how do you access the details that can help make your thriller so compelling? Visiting your setting in the real world is not always possible, but if you can do it, it can be helpful.

I tend to bring my phone and either dictate notes or type them out as I walk down the street or through the trail or inside the building and turn on all my senses. What does it sound like when my feet touch the ground? What do the clouds look like? Do you smell fresh coffee or pine or bleach or home-cooked food? Details bring your setting to life, and in my experience, they work best when you know exactly what those details are.

Caveat: In early drafts, you can use filler language where you want to insert atmosphere in later drafts. This allows you to move more swiftly through a rough draft and then come back later to enrich the draft with details.

It’s not always possible to visit the place where you have set your story. Even if you can visit some of the places that you’ll feature, you may not be able to (or want or need to) go to all the settings in all your scenes. So, you’ll need to turn to research to get those details because to skimp on details is to skimp on atmosphere.

How to research? Nonfiction books, YouTube videos, and real-world interviews are all fantastic. Ask someone in the movie business what’s behind the scenes when filming on location. Watch trail running videos to see what it’s like to run through the woods at night. First-hand descriptive accounts are powerful tools. Obviously, you don’t want to lift descriptions from someone else, but you can spin facts into vibes.

And research is the best way to avoid one of the worst crimes in writing: relying on cliches. If you use cliches to describe your setting, you risk drawing the reader out of your story and giving them a reason to put your book down.

Be sparing and subtle with your descriptions. Let the details of the setting work in your favor, not against it. Be concise without too much flourish. You’re writing a thriller here, and so pacing is key. You can absolutely use setting as a sort of character, but it works best if it reflects the tension of the narrative and builds parallel to your story arc.

For example, in my recent book, The Whisper, there is a day late in the story that starts out sort of dreary and cloudy. By the end, there's pelting rain and it’s nighttime, adding to the tension at what I hope is the right moment. The details you choose should depend on what you need at a particular point in your story.

The bottom line: Use your writing to make your setting drive the story forward.

Whose perspective are you writing from, and how are they feeling right now? Are they afraid? Anxious? Perfectly (worryingly) content? Think about who is experiencing the scene and how they would see the world. You absolutely must stay true to the character and how they are experiencing the world around them. If not, your story can start to feel inauthentic, contrived, or just downright confusing.

Your descriptions have to pull triple duty. First, they have to be concise and specific. Second, they have to match the tone and pace of the exact moment in your story, and third, they have to stay true to the character who is experiencing them. For example, a corporate lawyer who grew up in New York City would see the world differently than, say, a stay-at-home mom from a small town in Maine. Our NYC attorney might use metaphors that conjure loud city streets or jet lag or expensive clothing brands. Our SAHM might compare things to the way a baby’s hair smells or the feel of wet laundry or the sound of the ocean on a quiet morning.

And, as your characters move through your story, their perspective will likely change based on what is happening and what is driving them. If the big-city lawyer is being investigated for a crime, she might use language that reflects her paranoia. Shadows might start to look angular, buildings sharp or imposing. Subway wheels might start to sound like a terrifying screech. Or let’s say our Maine mom is looking into a neighbor who has gone missing. She might start to notice danger everywhere: cameras on front doors or facial expressions of people she sees around town. The sound of children playing might now be grating to her ears.

Lots of things color the way humans see the world, and these things can (and probably should) change as your story progresses. Make your setting reflect your character.

Finally, if you want to write atmospheric thrillers, read atmospheric thrillers. Learn the rhythm and the method that other authors use to portray setting as a living, breathing character in their story. The more you read, the more you can choose for yourself what kinds of things you like (and don't like) and develop a style for writing that atmospheric thriller that feels natural to you.

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links.)