Suspense in Writing
Mystery, action/adventure, crime, and detective stories require
components which build, add, and/or continue the suspense needed
to keep the reader's attention.
The first place to build suspense needed in any writing is the
first few sentences. According to Bill Reynolds, The
Writer, August 2005, page 7, "A proper opening picks the
reader up by his collar and throws him into the story."
The art of suspense means giving the reader something to worry
about. In Latin suspendere means to hang, thus suspense, which
avoids boredom and losing readers. The reader is compelled to
turn pages, the cure for boredom.
Suspense (uncertainly, doubt, anxiety) is a must for all
fiction. It should start from the very beginning of a story or
novel, should be built into the premise and structure of any
fiction writings.
According to The Writer, composition text books, and my
own notes and lesson plans, the essential elements for suspense
are as follows:
1. State the story's plot as a question (not in the story
itself), one that can be answered yes or no in the pre-writing
stage. Make a list of all the possible reasons why the answer
could be "no." Those "no" answers become the focus of problems
and obstacles - suspense.
2. Create a likable and competent - but flawed - protagonist.
(Protagonist = hero, good guy/gal) If the reader doesn't care
about the protagonist, then suspense is meaningless. The flaw or
flaws will help create needed suspense because the outcome of
the struggle/conflict will be in doubt.
3. Give the protagonist a powerful motivation. He/she must have
strong desires, needs, wants. The basic and powerful human needs
and drives are essential: Love, ambition, greed, survival are
examples. Something vitally important must be at stake, or
readers can't believe the protagonist would never abandon the
quest.
4. Give your protagonist highly motivated antagonists
(opponents, villains). "All stories need strong villains.
Suspense rests on the possibility - even the likelihood - that
the villain will defeat the hero," William G. Tapply writes in
The Writer, August 2005.
5. Keep raising the stakes and creating disasters. The formula
for building suspense is a bad start that gets worse. Suspense
is about problems and obstacles, disasters and failures, small
triumphs and big reversals. As Tapply says, "Never make things
easy for your protagonist."
6. Choose your story's point of view to maximize suspense. The
objective POV allows the attention of the reader to shift from
character to character. We, as readers, are allowed to interpret
and imagine, to wonder and worry. We are drawn into the story by
the changing of point of views from one character to another.
The single POV limits only to one character's experiences and
thoughts. Anything else is speculation, imagination, and worry.
7. Finally, wind up the ticking clock. Tapply's words express
this point best. Suspense depends on urgency. Build a zero
hour into your story's arc: Antagonists of all kinds -
kidnappers, terrorists and assassins, of course but also
teachers and parents and editors, not to mention tides and
storms and seasons - create time pressures and constraints. Your
story's momentum might build gradually at first, but soon it
becomes a race against the clock, and it accelerates as it
rushes towards its fateful climax.
The result of the use of suspense in any story becomes a
riveting story that the reader cannot put down until finished.