Guest Post: A Suspense Story Isn't (necessarily) a Thriller by Ed Teja

For some time now, you have seen news of author Ed Teja’s publishing success in my “Thursday Treats” roundup of publishing news columns. Please welcome Mr. Teja to the blog today as he discusses his latest novel, Songs of Saigon, and category placement.

 

 

A suspense story isn't (necessarily) a thriller by  Ed Teja

 

In writing my latest novel, SONGS OF SAIGON, I wound up doing a strange thing, at least for a writer who wants to sell books that wind up categorized as thrillers — I took out several action scenes.

Those scenes weren’t badly written; they provided excitement and drama. But in terms of advancing the story, they failed the book. They had to come out.

 To be fair (to me, of course), I had set out to write an espionage thriller. But as the characters and situations evolved, I found myself drawn into the personal stakes facing Cole Miller, my main character. A young Chinese-American OSS agent, after his mentor is killed, he finds out he is working for a boss who hates both espionage and half breeds. An odd situation for a spy, and given the cauldron he has been dropped into, he either evolves or dies.

When my focused changed from the larger political landscape to the story of this man, it meant the bulk of the action — the war, the convoluted administration of the Vichy government running the colony for the Japanese, the gun smuggling — all became the stage. The story does revolve around a murder mystery, but while the murder and the political intrigue provide tension and suspense, I saw that they weren’t the story. When the novel asserted itself, my espionage thriller had morphed into a historical crime suspense novel.

And it took me along for the ride.

Revisiting the action scenes and cutting some of them was not an easy decision. The realization that they didn’t fit took a long time and three drafts. In my defense, I am a discovery writer at the moment, and that is one of the perils of declaring one’s freedom from outlines. But I came to see that exciting action didn’t necessarily make the suspense story come alive. And although the murder is rather central to things, solving the crime wasn’t exactly the point either. Learning this made me confront. in a new way (for me), some of the many distinctions between a suspense story and a thriller. One of the biggest distinctions was pacing and tone. Atmosphere, if you will. A suspense novel can be quieter; its conflicts are often as much internal as external. When the stakes increase, taking action isn’t always the best solution.

But you knew that. I should have. As with so many epiphanies I’ve had as a writer, no sooner did I sit back in my chair to stare at my bookshelves and mutter: “aha,” than it settled down into a dull: “Duh, Captain Obvious.”

That’s okay. Catching on, even belatedly, was incredibly helpful, although it had me spending an inordinate amount of time contemplating the lesson — thinking about the nature of suspense, what creates it, and how the tension in a suspense novel can be different from the sword of Damocles that hangs over a thriller novel.

That was productive, but it got me thinking about the damn categories — those irritating labels the sales platforms use to “help” readers find your (my) book. And here is where this goes off the rails.

My artist wife likes to point out that, fundamentally, such issues are a word thing. But then all our writing headaches are word things and seldom do I stumble into more word traps (with deadly punji sticks in the bottom) than in the publishing industry’s godawful (to use the technical term) distinctions (or lack thereof) between “suspense” and “thriller.”

Let’s start with suspense: As Lee Child so eloquently points out, all stories have suspense in them, or you wouldn’t read them. Good one. Yes, suspense keeps the story moving, and I can’t take issue with that at all. In fact, he goes on to suggest inserting tension into the writing at the paragraph and sentence level, which are other excellent thoughts.

The problem, to my mind, lies more in the use of the omnivorous and ubiquitous term “thriller.” According to the wise heads at Wikipedia, a thriller is a story that “generally keeps its audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax.” Sort of like suspense, you (and me, and Mr. Child) might say. The implication that suspense stories are thrilling goes without saying. The problem is that our online bookshelves lump them together.

I’d go so far as to argue that the publishing industry (I include the platforms in this) conflates these two (quite different kinds of stories) together to an incredible degree. For instance, while surrealism is given its own BISAC code, mystery, thriller, and suspense stories share a single category.

Of course, there are a few subcategories that let a clever reader summon from the algorithm a list of cozy mysteries or even assassination thrillers. Unfortunately, the suspense reader will have less luck doing that. Searching on suspense leaves her confronting the task of digging through a less-than homogenous pile of titles in an uber category called, unhelpfully, “thrillers & suspense.”

A case in point: On its Amazon product page, Patricia Highsmith’s THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY is listed as: Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Crime

In all fairness, it is a crime novel. But a thriller? I can’t see Mr. Ripley even concerning himself with global stakes or impending doom. He’s a bit self centered for that.

And the bestseller list this book would fit into (thriller & suspense, subgenre, crime) includes numerous books that are also listed as “domestic thrillers,” “psychological fiction,” and “amateur sleuths.” (I should add that delving deep into those narrower subcategories can lead the unwary into other treacherous and equally murky miasmas.)

A quick interaction with Amazon’s online chatbot lying in wait in the sidebar of the bestseller page assures me that the most popular suspense crime fiction books are Lee Child’s Jack Reacher stories. Stories his publisher calls thrillers.

All this suggests that, like so much jargon, the term “thriller” might be a tad overused, a bit too ubiquitous, while its unwanted stepchild “suspense” is simply misunderstood.

Of course, this essay has wandered into the dark forest that is marketing. None of this should have anything to do with the writing, and yet, in this age, it does. Those two intermix annoyingly. This isn’t even restricted to abuse of us, the modern suspense writers, or even just books. If you look at the listings for several of Hitchcock’s most famous suspense stories, such as Vertigo or Rear Window, you will learn that, in today’s jargon, the “master of suspense” produced thrillers.

There isn’t much one can do about this situation. It’s just a frustrating reality confronting a writer who fancies writing suspense fiction. Her suspense novel will inevitably enter an arena face a cohort of fiction that is action oriented and plot driven.

From the cheap seats, the situation seems unavoidable. Using “common sense” or even “English” (as in relying on dictionary definitions rather than influencer-coined catchwords) to pick your book’s categories will lead you straight off the nearest cliff. No, success lies in going with the flow. Thus, after a lot of painful research to select the terms to feed the platforms, I’m not thrilled by my choices. Honestly, Amazon and its ilk sometimes ignore your input and substitute their own judgment, so even that can be futile. For better or worse, my book is categorized as:

·         Literature & Fiction › Historical Fiction › World War II

·         Literature & Fiction › Historical Fiction › Thrillers

·         Mystery, Thriller & Suspense › Thrillers & Suspense › Suspense

As I write this, the book is on preorder, leaving me waiting to see if those word crumbs will lead the right readers to my book. I don’t find that particular suspense all that thrilling.

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link for Songs of Saigon:  https://amzn.to/3RlxyfA

Amazon Associate Purchase Link for the Storefront Assassin series: https://amzn.to/4fcM6WR

 

Ed Teja ©2026 

 

Ed Teja is a full-time writer and part-time martial arts instructor. A member of The Short Mystery Fiction Society, his recent publications include stories in Black Cat Weekly, Punk Noir, Yellow Mama, Black Petals, Thrill Ride, Wyldeblood 13, Anotherealm, Mystery Tribune, and several Crimeucopia anthologies. In addition to writing suspense, he actually writes a thriller series: THE STOREFRONT ASSASSIN STORIES.  https://edtejaauthor.com/