8 Tips for Developing a Thrilling Espionage Premise

My 27-year career as a diplomat in the U.S. State Department, and countries around the world, lent itself wonderfully to eventually writing a spy novel. I constantly dealt with foreign policy issues, which tutored me on the ins and outs of intelligence operations. In real life, diplomats in countries big and small, rich and poor, allies and adversaries, are often marked by intellect, skill, courage, and sometimes personal flaws. These officials face high risks and choices marked by moral ambiguity.

(How to Write a Thriller That Delivers)

Ultimately, this gave me both the tools and the liberty to write Night in Tehran. Fiction offers a superb platform to explore themes such as war, diplomacy, and corruption in a detailed way that is both creative and insightful. Though writing fiction was not necessarily easy. However, looking back I realized that I developed eight tips to construct a thrilling espionage novel; They follow below.

It’s important to involve the readers by grabbing them right in the beginning. The opening must be strong. This way the reader becomes emotionally attached, and they want to stay with the plot throughout.

Every good novel is reliant on credible, fully developed characters. Protagonists in espionage novels, however personally flawed, should be strong-willed and believable. They should be in pursuit of an important task that readers can identify with. But they should also be faced with dangerous enemies and obstacles to surmount.

Protagonists can also be evil. It’s compelling to watch your lead faced with the threat of capture. That can elicit sympathy even from readers who detest this protagonist’s values. For example, in The Statement by Brian Moore, a former Nazi collaborator is on the run from the French police with risks to his life coming closer and closer.

Compelling characters face choices that can threaten their careers, family, business success, or their lives. The struggle to survive must be vivid, thus convincing to readers who identify their fears to root for them. How the characters cope with such challenges will reveal their personal integrity.

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Much of life is marked by making hard choices, which are always framed by moral ambiguity. This is especially true in the grisly world of political intrigue, where choices are rarely black and white. There is always something that gives when a protagonist “takes.”

Readers need to feel the credibility of the place where events in the novel occur. To that end, details matter. They must be rendered accurately—even though the scene is wholly fictional. This is accomplished through research surrounding the places involved as well as the time and cultural environment when events occurred.

The key is to capture the readers’ eyes and place them in the experience. They should be turning every corner along the dark gray streets.

Spy novels are propelled forward with tension, risk, and danger. The most common properties are tainted promises, loyalty questioned, and betrayal. All this, however, must be rendered with subtlety, which is part of the spy’s craft. This keeps the reader guessing.

Sharp attention to detail is key for the espionage novelist. Familiarity with the details of the FBI or CIA can lend credibility, realism, and vitality to the novelist's plots. Spies and diplomats have their own form of basic training.

For CIA officers, the training is carried out on “The Farm,” a site not far from Dulles Airport in Virginia. Recruits are taught to memorize codes, read biographies of foreign officials, counter terrorists, recruit foreign agents, develop intel on economic trends, undermine hackers, and learn a host of other tricks of the trade.

For CIA officers, the training is carried out on “The Farm,” a site not far from Dulles Airport in Virginia. Recruits are taught to memorize codes, read biographies of foreign officials, counter terrorists, recruit foreign agents, develop intel on economic trends, undermine hackers, and learn a host of other tricks of the trade.

New diplomats are trained at the Foreign Service Institute just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. There they learn to speak fluently in foreign languages and are immersed in the history, politics, and cultures of the more than 200 countries. These details are crucial to a strong spy plot.

Love relationships, in my opinion, enhance any espionage novel. The hard choices made between romance and politics add a deeper layer to the story line. If done well, the reader will be drawn into the evolution of the relationship, the frustrations, and choices made, and the reader will be rooting for the couple in the end.

(Philip Kaplan: On When the Book Writes Itself)

I found that these eight elements were present throughout each espionage thriller I read, and it held true for my writing, too. I saw that plots are often supercharged with the quest for truth and survival. A truly compelling novel of this genre lives in a more subtle shade of gray, where truth is elusive, and good people often succumb to impulses. When heroes face danger and temptation, but possess the strength to secure successful results that align with national interests as well as their personal values, you create a true masterpiece.

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