Why I Rarely Use Guns In My Thrillers
A gun can alter a thriller in a single second. It creates an immediate threat, establishes a power imbalance and offers a brutally clear answer to the question of what might happen next. That power is precisely why I use firearms sparingly. When every crisis can be settled with a weapon, suspense has little room to breathe.
My novels are more interested in pressure, memory, guilt and the difficult choices people make when escape is impossible. Thorkild Aske is not a polished action hero moving through a world of convenient targets. He is a damaged, observant man whose inner life often matters as much as the crime he is trying to understand.
That approach can feel especially distinctive for Australian readers. In Sydney or Melbourne, a thriller set around an ordinary commute, a late-night walk or a quiet apartment building does not automatically suggest a person carrying a handgun. The local atmosphere often makes social tension, isolation and improvised violence more credible than a constant exchange of gunfire.
The Australian crime market also rewards a strong sense of place and believable stakes. Readers know that the country’s strict firearms framework, including licensing, registration and secure-storage requirements shaped by the National Firearms Agreement, affects how weapons appear in fiction. A story has to earn the presence of a gun rather than treating it as standard furniture.
| Element | Gun-led thriller | Low-firearm psychological thriller |
|---|---|---|
| Primary source of tension | Immediate physical threat | Suspicion, secrecy and emotional pressure |
| Typical pace | Fast and confrontational | Gradual, uneasy and investigative |
| Character focus | Ability to survive violence | Capacity to endure uncertainty |
| Use of setting | Backdrop for pursuit | Active force shaping behaviour |
| Reader expectation | Who will shoot first? | What is being concealed, and why? |
Violence Must Have A Cost
I do not want violence to become decoration. A firearm can make an event spectacular, but spectacle can distance the reader from its human consequences. The sound, injury and aftermath should remain present in the story, even when the weapon itself appears only briefly.
That means asking what violence changes. Does it damage trust between two people? Does it expose a secret? Does it leave someone unable to return to an ordinary routine? A credible thriller is often built from those consequences rather than from the act itself.
Suspense Begins Before The Weapon
The strongest danger usually exists before anyone reaches for a gun. A character may already be trapped by debt, addiction, shame, professional failure or a promise made years earlier. Those pressures give a scene weight. The weapon, if it appears, becomes an extension of an existing conflict rather than a shortcut to one.
This is important for Thorkild Aske, whose investigations are shaped by personal wounds as well as evidence. His observations, silences and uneasy relationships can create suspense without requiring a physical attack. Readers begin to worry because they understand what a character might lose, not simply because a weapon has entered the room.
Ordinary Places Can Become Threatening
I am drawn to locations that initially seem safe: a hotel corridor, a ferry terminal, a kitchen after midnight or a road disappearing into bad weather. Such places allow unease to develop gradually. Familiar details become suspicious, and the reader starts noticing what the characters would normally ignore.
Australian readers may recognise this shift in places such as a suburban train station after the last service, a crowded Melbourne café or a long stretch of road outside Adelaide. Everyday habits provide useful texture: people check their phones, wait for coffee, look for a rideshare and assume other strangers are harmless. A thriller becomes unsettling when that assumption begins to fail.
The Law Shapes Believability
Firearms fiction carries a practical burden. In Australia, access to a gun involves legal and social realities that vary in application across states and territories but generally include licensing, registration, approved storage and a recognised genuine reason. Handguns are particularly restricted, and many ordinary characters could not plausibly obtain one at short notice.
These details do not limit a writer; they create discipline. If a weapon appears, its origin should matter. It might belong to a licensed rural worker, be stolen from a collection, come through organised crime or be connected to a professional security role. Each possibility creates investigative consequences. The law becomes part of the plot rather than an inconvenience to be ignored.
Fear Is More Complicated Than Firepower
A person with a gun is dangerous, but a person who knows exactly what another character fears may be more disturbing. Psychological manipulation can continue for days or years. It can make a victim doubt memory, question loyalty or reinterpret an apparently kind gesture.
This form of threat suits crime fiction that values character depth. In exploring Aske and his sidekicks, the relationships around him reveal how danger can travel through dependence and trust. A sidekick, witness or reluctant ally may intensify the story simply by withholding one fact.
Guns Can Flatten Character
A firearm sometimes gives every character the same solution: draw, aim and fire. That can reduce individual differences. The frightened person, the calculating person and the morally conflicted person all risk becoming operators in the same action sequence.
I prefer obstacles that demand distinct responses. One character lies convincingly; another leaves town; a third searches through old records; a fourth cannot resist confronting the person who hurt them. Their methods expose who they are. A thriller gains variety when the central conflict cannot be solved by technical skill alone.
Recommendations For Writing Credible Threat
- Let a weapon change relationships, not just the direction of a scene.
- Establish why a character has access to a firearm before it becomes important.
- Use silence, surveillance and withheld information to build pressure.
- Give violence physical, legal and emotional consequences.
- Make ordinary Australian settings carry part of the suspense.
- Allow investigators to follow paperwork, witnesses and contradictions.
- Reserve the gun for moments when its presence has genuine narrative meaning.
What The Reader Should Remember
Rare firearms do not mean low stakes. A person can be cornered by evidence, memory, debt or another person’s silence. The absence of a gun may even make danger feel closer, because there is no obvious object to blame and no easy boundary between ordinary life and criminal intent.
For me, the essential question is never how much firepower a thriller can contain. It is what the characters are willing to conceal, endure or sacrifice when violence is only one possibility among many. The reader should remember that suspense lives in consequence, and the most frightening weapon is often the truth someone has spent years trying to keep hidden.