Balaji Telefilms




Sony Entertainment Television

Star India

Vivek Agnihotri

How to Write Suspense and Thrillers

Director Vivek Agnihotri provided the perfect finale to the workshop with an interesting presentation on developing a script. He said that often the best source of stories is newspapers, history, myths and legends, family and childhood stories and travel. Dreams too are a rich source of potential stories, he said. "A well crafted plot should have a series of rising and falling action, tensions and climaxes … a good suspense plot is a roller coaster ride", he said.

Vision and technique, he said, are both important tools of scriptwriting, while dreams and travels can often be a rich source of content for scripts. The titles and loglines have to be pithy and to-the-point, Agnihotri stressed, while a solid plot is the single most important element in a successful suspense. Characterisation is just as important as the suspense curve, which as Agnihotri explained to a hooked audience - has to be circular, not linear. Tension inducing conflict is what holds a suspense drama together, he said. The most important aspect, finished Agnihotri, is a series' quality - if you can watch the show with your grandchildren with pride, you have done it, he said.