Secretly, Every Thriller is a Myth Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Minotaur

Confession Time:

I’d wanted to commit to posting something on the blog twice a week, but the story I had slated for next up was the second short story about arsonists. [The first story is here.] And the draft of that arson story died faster than a cub scout campfire in the Hoh rainforest. Maybe karma was jinxing me as a way of promoting fire safety?

Or because my actual house CAUGHT ON FIRE mid-draft, forcing me to take some time off while living in a small apartment that smells like two Golden Retrievers and working on getting contractors lined up to fix the fire damage. But that’s a story for a different post. Anyway, fate’s critique can be brutal.

After my forced hiatus though, here’s what I figured out: when the story still feels flat after a few rewrites, the problem isn’t the prose – it’s the philosophy.

The problems with the second story: the dialogue worked, the scenes flowed from one to another, but.… something felt hollow. Like eating jello when you’re starving. Anyway, the story was/is just unconvincing. When I broke down what just was not working in the story, it occurred to me that it was thematically challenged – what was the story about? The draft didn’t acknowledge the theme of the story and advance the argument.

Which lead me down an entire (very deep) rabbit hole of what makes a successful story successful. Or one that resonates. The answer: theme. In turn, that lead me to:

"Theme isn’t what a story is about—it’s what the story argues.”

So, not to get too Professor Kingsfield, but good thrillers, ones that resonate over time, aren’t written—they’re presented as a logic argument, a philosophical proof. A theorem is advanced, argued throughout the book, and the statement if proven or disproven in the telling of the story. We have car chases and bloodstains instead of Q.E.D. statements at the end, but those are more fulfilling anyway.

Sometimes, perhaps often, the old ways are best. Turns out, Lee Child, Tana French, and even Suzanne Collins aren’t just spinning yarns. They’re modern-day Homers, lacing plot devices with myths our lizard brain recognizes before the prefrontal cortex does.

Let’s talk about why your favorite cops and killers are Theseus in Kevlar, how Spielberg owes Poseidon a fruit basket, and why Orwell’s coffee addiction proves theme isn’t a pretentious buzzword. It’s a bone saw.

The Labyrinth Isn’t a Location—It’s a Vibe

Every thriller writer owes a royalty check to Theseus, the OG labyrinth wanderer. For those who skipped Greek Lit 301: Theseus volunteers as tribute (sound familiar?), ventures into a maze to knife a bull-headed freak, and uses a thread to escape. Fast-forward 3,000 years, and your favorite stories are still cribbing his homework:

• The Labyrinth = A corrupt city (Chinatown), a killer’s psyche (Hannibal), the bureaucratic hellscape of Season 1 of True Detective’s Louisiana.

• The Minotaur = Drug lords, sadistic billionaires, that Internal Affairs agent who’s too clean.

• The Thread = A MacGuffin (a thumb drive, a witness) keeping your sleuth from getting lost in despair

But here’s the twist: Myths aren’t about the monster. They’re about the rot the monster reveals. Take 1984. Yes, Orwell wrote “Totalitarianism bad,” but his real argument was sneakier: “Surveillance isn’t the horror—it’s how eagerly we’ll betray ourselves to survive.”

Orwell’s real horror? The Ministry of Love doesn’t just torture – it convinces. Winston betrays Julia not to avoid pain, but because he learns to love Big Brother. It’s not coercion, it’s conversion. Replace “Room 101” with a corrupt mayor’s office, a blackmail plot, or the lies we tell to sleep at night – you’ve got the same rot.

Winston’s worst moment isn’t the rat mask in Room 101. It’s when he sells out Julia and means it. The real beast—the part of us that will accept servitude and licks Big Brother’s boots just to breathe another day. That’s theme at work, turning plot into a moral autopsy.

Jaws & the Hydra: How to Drown a Theme Without Killing It

Everyone remembers Jaws for the dolly zoom and that cello screech. But its secret weapon? Thematic sleight-of-hand so smooth even Ricky Jay would nod approval. Let’s break it down like Jack McCoy on Law & Order explaining a murder to the jury:

Greek myth gave us the Hydra—a sea monster that sprouts two new heads for every one Hercules lops off. The harder you fight, the worse it gets. Jaws steals this blueprint, swapping Hydra’s claws for human denial:

• Head 1: Mayor Vaughn hides the shark threat to protect tourist cash.

• Head 2: Beaches stay open; idiots party like it’s Spring Break in Hades.

• Head 3: Quint’s PTSD monologue about the USS Indianapolis—a story so brutal it still haunts Navy recruiters.

Critics at the time dismissed Jaws as a “killer shark movie.” But Spielberg’s real argument? “Arrogance (greed, ego, and related trauma) is the deadliest predator.” The shark’s just a fish. The townsfolk’s refusal to see the truth? That’s the gut wrenching realization from the story.

Hunger Games & the Myth of Subtlety

Yes, Hunger Games isn’t subtle. It shouts its themes like a drunk Boomer at a Renaissance fair. But so did Beowulf. The secret? Suzanne Collins hotwires mythic templates for modern outrage:

• Katniss = Theseus (volunteer tribute) + Artemis (wilderness goddess who’d yeet an arrow through your eye).

• The Capitol = Mount Olympus if the gods vaped glitter and livestreamed executions.

• The Berries = Trickster 101. Loki, Anansi, and Wile E. Coyote all pulled this stunt.

But here’s why it doesn’t feel cheap: Collins ties Katniss’s rage to mythic inevitability. We know Katniss will rebel, just like we know Theseus will slay the Minotaur. Allegory isn’t subtle—it’s a sledgehammer. And sometimes, you need a sledgehammer.

Orwell’s Coffee Cup & the Art of Hiding Monsters

George Orwell wrote like a man racing death, which he was. His genius? Burying themes so deep they’d survive nuclear winter. Take 1984:

• The REAL Horror: Newspeak isn’t about banning words. It’s killing dissent through grammar. “Don’t you see? The whole aim is to narrow the range of thought.”

• The Mythic Mirror: Orwell’s Winston is basically Cassandra with a nicotine habit and worse coworkers. Both scream into voids—hers literal, his a diary soaked in Victory Gin. Neither is heard. But here’s the kicker: Emotionally, readers trust madmen over politicians. The detective needs to sound just unhinged enough to be right.

Crime reader hack: Next time you read that the detective finds a clue, ask: What ancient curse does this echo? A bloodstained scarf on a dock isn’t just evidence—it’s the Fates’ thread, snipped too soon.

The takeaway for me as a writer:

1. Steal a Monster, Not a Motive

The Minotaur wasn’t born evil—it was abandoned. Maybe the drug lord smuggles fentanyl, but his rage comes from a razed favela.

(≈ In one of my arsonist drafts, the detective was chasing pyros for cheap thrills. Then I stole from Hephaestus – the Greek god of fire and abandonment. New angle: my fire starter isn’t evil. He’s burning the building exactly where his daughter died in a supposed accident – a twisted memorial that no one else understands. The fire argues: grief without witness becomes a wildfire of the soul.)

2. Shatter a Prophecy

In The Godfather, Michael’s “That’s my family, Kay, it isn’t me,” isn’t dialogue. It’s Oedipus swearing to end a curse—then making it worse.

(→ Let the killer fulfill a victim’s dying words in a way that torches their own soul.)

3. Let the Labyrinth Win Sometimes

Theseus survived Crete, but myth says he got pushed off a cliff by his own people. Moral? Surviving the maze doesn’t mean you survive life.

(≈ Nota Bene: If you let your hero escape the labyrinth unscathed, you’ve written propaganda. True Detective’s Rust Cohle survives Carcosa, but his victory is as empty as a shotgun barrel. He’s alive, but changed—haunted by cosmic indifference. My job as the writer? Make the maze leave scars readers can feel. My arsonist story only started working when my detective lost his badge saving the fire starter—proving even heroes become collateral damage in theme wars.)

Why This All Matters (Or: If I had a therapist, he’d be saying Hi right here)

Themes aren’t pretentious decoder rings. They’re bone structure—invisible, but the reason the story doesn’t faceplant. For every Gatsby whispering “The American Dream is rot,” there’s a True Detective growling “Time is a flat circle.”

So next time the WIP feels flatter than a coroner’s humor, I need to ask myself:

• What’s my monster—and what human flaw does its teeth reflect?

• Where’s my thread—and who’s holding the knife on the other end?

• Would Athena speed-dial this draft, or toss it into Tartarus?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an arson story to restructure. Although there’s a part 2 to this blog post coming. I got a bit wordy.

Next Up: How to Turn Your Serial Killer Into a Celtic God (Without Getting Sacrificed).

P.S. If you spot a typo, blame the Fates. If you hate it, blame my inner Medea. If you love it, pour one out for Homer.

[As always, if you’ve got thoughts or questions about any of this, shoot me an e-mail here.]