See how that enhances the suspense? Now it matters. For this to happen, the stakes need to be high and the reader needs to be able to clearly identify what the protagonist stands to gain or lose. As conflicts arise—obstacles and complications that keep your character from achieving her goal—the level of suspense increases, keeping the reader glued to the page.
An example of a story with progressive complications that keep ratcheting the suspense to ever-increasing levels is the Mel Gibson movie Ransom. We all are. Because of this, we can use the pieces laid out by the storyteller to predict and anticipate what could happen in the story. In the movie The Fugitive , the pieces get laid out for us early on. We have Dr.
Richard Kimble, wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for killing his wife. We have the one-armed man who committed the crime. We have a US Marshall who cares not one whit about the guilt or innocence of his quarry; he is simply obsessed with capturing Kimble.
We see the pieces moving and predict that Kimble will find the one-armed man and prove his own innocence. This is the outcome we anticipate and we will watch with rapt attention to see how the pieces interact and if we guessed correctly. We all want to see what happens in the end, and with a well-constructed story, we hang on with both hands until we see it. I remember, as a child, watching a sketch on Sesame Street. A cartoon girl wants to pop a balloon with a pin. The girl imagines she will end up in big trouble with mom.
She anticipates the disaster, and her ability to do this averts it. Again, she imagines a play-by-play of what could happen, and then thinks better of it. We demand the disaster and we delight in being able to anticipate it. And that suspense is what keeps us invested in a story, reading to find out what happens. As you write your own stories, remember to give your characters—and your reader—something to worry about, something to anticipate.
Suspense is what drives the reader forward, devouring sentence and paragraph to reach the resolution. For example, the Sophocles play Oedipus Rex relies heavily on suspense as readers or viewers press forward to learn how the tragic hero will fulfill the prophecy that predicts he will kill his father and marry his mother.
Suspense is what motivates the reader to keep turning pages as they anticipate story events. Every kind of story should have some suspense serving this function, whether slated for a New York editor or simply for your own enjoyment. In a suspense story, you need to create an atmosphere of underlying peril and let your reader know things are not what they seem, dropping hints along the way so they can anticipate the truth under the surface.
The three modalities that entertain a reader and move the story forward are curiosity, surprise, and suspense. While the three are related, they are not synonyms. We make a promise to our readers, right from the first sentences of a story, by way of genre and reader expectations.
What a reader brings to the table is curiosity and a willingness to be satisfied. Providing, of course, that we furnish something to be curious about. Curiosity serves us well in the beginning, and from time to time thereafter. Providing the supporting information, bit by bit, will boost the reader into a state of suspense. I was in a deep sleep, alone aboard my houseboat, alone in the half acre of bed, alone in a sweaty dream of chase, fear, and monstrous predators.
Why is he alone? Why is he having nightmares? What are the nightmares about? But without more information, we are not in a position to make many predictions beyond that he will soon wake up with his heart racing.
This generates curiosity, but little suspense. My decision to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when I realized my father hated the legal profession. Reading this, we might wonder: Who is this lawyer? Why does his father hate the legal profession? Why does he hate his father? I suppose he must have been in his early twenties.
It was hard to be sure of his age because there was so little of his face available for study. That kind of intense focus really is a survival mechanism, causing us to snap to attention and assess the situation to decide what course of action is called for. It can be a life saver. In story, surprise might come in the opening sentence of a scene or the last, taking the form of a cliffhanger. Its impact is immediate, but its influence can quickly dissipate, meaning one of the other modalities—curiosity or suspense—will need to take its place to keep us glued to the story.
I know, this seems counterintuitive. Simply by having your characters tell readers their schedules, you create a promise that can create anticipation and build suspense:. A story moves through action sequences to moments of reorientation when the characters process what just happened and make a decision that leads to the next scene. We do this in real life as well—we experience something moving or profound, we process it, and then we decide how to respond.
Problem is, in those moments of reflection, a story can drag and the suspense can be lost. During every interlude between scenes a promise must be either made or kept. And, if you resolve one question or plot thread that is, you keep a promise you made earlier , introduce another twist or moral dilemma in other words, make another promise.
To fix this, show us how deeply the character wants something but cannot get it, and escalate the story by making it even more difficult to get.
This was a problem I faced with my thriller The Knight. In the story, a killer is reenacting 10 crimes from a 13th-century manuscript that was condemned by the church. If I showed all 10 crimes, the story would have certainly included lots of gruesome violence, but the murders would have gotten boring after a while.
Instead, my investigator finds out about the killings partway through the crime spree, and he has to try and stop the killer before the final grisly crime. And, of course, different genre elements dictate different means of suspense. In a mystery you might find out that a person was beheaded. This occurs before the narrative begins, so the focus of the story is on solving the crime.
Nearly all genres include some scenes with them. Also, remember that valuing human life increases suspense. Because readers only feel suspense when they care about what happens to a character, we want to heighten their concern by heightening the impact of the tragedy.
Show how valuable life is. Our job as writers is to give them what they want, when they want it—or, to add a twist so that we give them more than they ever bargained for. Phobias are irrational fears, so to be afraid of a cobra is not a phobia, but to be afraid of all snakes is. Most people are afraid of helplessness in the face of danger. Many are afraid of needles, the dark, drowning, heights and so on. Think of the things that frighten you most, and you can be sure many of your readers will fear them as well.
Instead, start your countdown in the middle of the book. To escalate a countdown, shorten the time available to solve the problem. Remove his tools, escape routes and support system buddies, mentors, helpers or defenders. This forces him to become self-reliant and makes it easier for you to put him at a disadvantage in his final confrontation with evil.
No matter what you write, good prose really is all about sharpening the suspense. Any novel of any genre can have mysterious elements that keeps the reader wanting more. Author Christopher Parker offers 4 tips for writing a story with an engaging mystery. For the November PAD Chapbook Challenge, poets are tasked with writing a poem a day in the month of November before assembling a chapbook manuscript in the month of December.
Today's prompt is to write a health poem. Every memoir requires searching for the truth of the story. Lilly Dancyger, author of the memoir Negative Space, shows how this hunt can serve as the structure of the narrative. Would the master of the mystery novel be the master of solving mysteries in real life? Author Colleen Cambridge considers whether or not Agatha Christie would make a good amateur detective.
Today's prompt is to write a location poem. The Writer's Digest team has witnessed many writing mistakes over the years, so we started this series to help identify them for other writers along with correction strategies. This week's writing mistake is oversharing in self-help writing. Multi-award-winning author Joy Castro discusses the confluence of events and genres that led to writing her new literary thriller, Flight Risk.
Write Better Fiction. Short Story. Writing Techniques. Because the reader is aware of the same information as the detective, there is often a lower level of suspense compared to other genres.
The majority of suspense in mystery novels comes from clues that mislead readers and the anticipation for solving the mystery. In a thriller , the protagonist is suspended in an almost constant state of danger. These stories create suspense more because of their quick-pace than the building of plot.
Unlike mystery, thrillers are not about solving a puzzle, but rather about the pressure of high-stakes scenarios. In a suspense novel, the sense of worry or anticipation is very high because the reader is aware of things that the protagonist is not. This creates even more anxiety in the reader, causing the novel to be more suspenseful than a mystery or thriller. Despite their differences, it is very possible that your book may fall into two—maybe even all three—of these categories.
Whether your story is about trying to solve a murder or a protagonist trying to save the human population from extinction, this conflict will be the center of what makes your reader eager to find out what happens. You can also have smaller conflicts that build off of your main conflict to build even more suspense around your plot. The pace of your novel is another important component to building suspense. Build more suspense with quick pacing, such as giving your conflict a deadline or a short time limit to solve the problem.
Red herrings are clues in your story that mislead readers.
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