The Coin, The Doorway, The Inner Chamber

Last month, I left both of us hanging on a promise to delve into my formula for writing thrillers. I called it the What, Why, and Who.

Hint: it’s a bit like an archaeological dig. Let’s pick up our trowels and brushes.

Recall the blurb for book 10 that I put in the back of my ninth book, Signal Code: “…something Imperial scientists buried when the war turned against them.”

The only problem was—

I had no idea What Imperial scientists had buried, let alone Why it mattered.

I had Where—Bora Bora—an enticing setting. And I had my series protagonists, Darwin and Eyrún, but they wanted a holiday, not the accidental discovery of a grave, and not learning they’d exposed something “more valuable than gold.”

But the object isn’t the story. It’s an invitation. It has to matter on its own terms, to people who disagree about what to do with it.

Why they want it sets off a series of consequences.

Recall that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana Jones shouts across the canyon. “I’m gonna blow up the Ark, René!”

The Ark of the Covenant matters to the Nazis because it might win them a war. It matters to the U.S. government because the Nazis can’t be allowed to triumph. That could be enough, but the storytellers refuse to stop there. Jones could have destroyed it. Done. Game over.

René Belloq doesn’t flinch. “All your life has been spent in pursuit of archaeological relics. Inside the Ark are treasures beyond your wildest aspirations… we are simply passing through history. This… this is history.”

In that moment, Belloq changes our focus. We’re no longer wondering who gets the Ark.

Jones lowers his weapon. He needs to know what’s inside. And now, so do we.

Take another example: Sauron wants the One Ring for domination, the Fellowship wants to destroy it, and nearly everyone who touches it wants it for a corrupting reason of their own. What would you do with a ring that made you invisible?

Why people want the What gives the story actual teeth.

I hinted above that writing this book felt like archaeology. You don’t uncover a buried city all at once. First, you find a coin. Then a doorway. Then, finally, an inner chamber. The coin doesn’t tell you what’s beyond the door, only that there’s a direction worth digging toward.

My coin was the blurb itself—“something Imperial scientists buried when the war turned against them.” But plenty of things got buried in 1945, and the world moved on. For a buried object to earn its stakes, it had to be the kind of thing more than one party would want, for deeper reasons.

Once I answered what wartime discovery in Bora Bora could disrupt in the present day, Tahitian Vault became more than a treasure hunt. The What created the kind of advantage that doesn’t just make a company richer—it tips who’s ahead in a race for domination. That’s why the corporation wants it back. And the reason the protagonist has to stop them.

The Why shows up in the intricate layers of the character’s motivations.

In the stratigraphy of an archaeological site, careful scraping with a trowel reveals the clues. In storytelling, I do the same. Only, instead of using a trowel, I use questions: Who cares? Why do they care? Who suffers the most if they lose?

The answers fuel the plot. And every answer uncovers another layer. But notice the pattern?

Why someone wants the One Ring or the Ark of the Covenant bends the storyline.

In the case of Tahitian Vault, my answer popped up while writing the mastermind: make him the son of the scientist who buried the object. Boom. Once I let the past have a living, present-day heir—someone whose company, fortune, and whole sense of what he’s owed traces back to Bora Bora—the Why sharpened further. He’s not chasing a legend. He’s chasing an inheritance.

That’s the doorway to the Inner Chamber—the Who—of my story formula. But I’m not going to open it all the way yet, as it deserves its own month.

I’ll say this much: the Who didn’t wake up one morning and decide to be a villain. In fact, they are the protagonist of their world. That’s one reason readers tell me the antagonists in my books stay with them.

Next month, I’ll introduce you to a few of my favorites.

For now, the artifact isn’t the story.

Why someone wants it—and their personal cost to get it—that’s the story.

Next month, we’ll step into the inner chamber.

If this is your first Debrief, welcome—this is what we do here, one buried thing at a time. And if you know someone who’d enjoy digging alongside us, forward this one along.

Until then,

Dave

Writer’s Tip: I write my questions on Post-it Notes, stick them where I can see them, and then keep writing. Trust the process of discovery.