According to top New York literary agent Noah Lukeman
(The Plot Thickens), if a writer can maintain
suspense throughout the story, many readers will keep reading even if the
characters are undeveloped and the plot is weak. Clearly, suspense is a vital
tool, yet most books on writing only mention it in passing and few devote much space
to its creation and development.
I’ve written 27 novels, and some of them have been
rather successful, but Lukeman’s observation came as a revelation. Accordingly,
I’ve scoured my writing notes for the past quarter century, and the books and
articles I’ve read on storytelling, in order to compile a comprehensive list of
ways to create suspense. Here it is. My sources are listed at the end.
STORY
At its simplest, a story consists of a character (the hero) who wants something
badly, and an adversary (the obstacle)
who is trying equally hard to prevent the hero from getting what he wants. In
each scene, the hero attacks his problem in a new way, the adversary fights
back and the hero either fails or his initial success leads to a bigger
problem.
Readers read to lose themselves in the story and,
hopefully, to become the hero through identification (see Jerry Cleaver’s
excellent book, Immediate Fiction). But
before readers can identify with a character, he has to reveal his true inner
self. Character is revealed most clearly through adversity and conflict, when
the hero is desperate and has to give everything he has. When he’s forced to
the limit, the reader will identify strongly with the hero. The reader’s hope that the hero will succeed, and fear that he will fail, creates rising
suspense until the climax, where the hero’s goal or problem is resolved.
Suspense comes from readers’ anticipation of what’s
going to happen next. Therefore, never tell your readers anything in advance
when, by withholding it, you can increase suspense.
Following Brown, I’ve grouped the suspense creation tools
into these categories:
· The viewpoint
characters;
· The problems these
characters are facing;
· The plot of the
story;
· The structure of
the story.
For simplicity I refer to ‘the character’ or ‘the
hero’, though many stories will have a number of viewpoint characters and more
than one hero.
A. CHARACTERS
For maximum suspense, you should not use any old
character. Readers are only going to worry about, and identify with, characters
they care about – ones who are both sympathetic
and interesting.
1. Sympathetic characters are (after Brown):
· In trouble, or suffering in some way;
· Underdogs. It’s difficult to empathise with a hero
who is strong, powerful and has everything going for him, but everyone cheers
when the underdog wins;
· Vulnerable, ie they can be killed, trapped,
enslaved, destroyed politically or professionally, or ruined financially or
socially. Vulnerability can come from the character’s own physical, mental or
emotional shortcomings and conflicts as well as from the machinations of the
adversary; and
· Deserving because of their positive character
traits (optimism, courage, steadfastness, selflessness, compassion etc). A
character can be in trouble, an underdog and vulnerable, but if he’s also lazy,
selfish or a whining liar readers won’t identify with him or care what happens to
him, and his troubles will create little suspense. This doesn’t mean the
character can’t be a villain. If he’s acting for the best of reasons and the
good outweighs the bad, readers will identify with him.
2. Characters are likely to be interesting if (see Brown for a
detailed analysis) they’re important, unusual or extraordinary. One reason we love
to read about such characters is wish-fulfilment – living our lives through the
story, feeling the characters’ hopes and fears, and being awed by their
achievements. Characters may be more interesting if they’re:
· Powerful – because
of noble birth, wealth, high office, rank or position, intelligence or strength;
· Naturally gifted
or highly skilled at something important or useful;
· Unusual (in
appearance, a rare ability or an amazing life experience), extraordinary, strange,
eccentric or downright weird;
· Physically
attractive, funny, dangerous or mysterious; or
· Surprising (they
don’t fit the stereotype of their character type).
Your
characters should also be as different as possible, since they will often be
working together. Having highly contrasting characters maintains reader
interest, multiplies the potential for conflict with the hero and will suggest
many new subplot possibilities.
To build suspense through your characters:
3. They must have goals.
· Common goals are:
to survive, escape, win the contest or battle, become the leader, achieve their
destiny, master the art, free the slaves or change the world;
· The moment your hero
forms a goal, readers will hope she achieves it – and worry about what will
happen if she doesn’t;
· Sometimes the
goal (eg to survive or escape) will only appear after the character is
confronted with the problem (being stalked by a killer, trapped in a bushfire).
4. A strong hero needs a strong opponent. The opponent
isn’t necessarily a villain. It can be a good person who strongly disagrees
with the hero, a force of nature (flood, forest fire, epidemic), a beast or
alien, or an uncaring society. But when it is a villain:
· He should be at
least as strong as the hero, and preferably stronger. You can’t make a strong
story when the hero’s opponent is weak;
· Evil villains are
a cliché, and pure evil is both boring and predictable, so make your villain
human. Reveal his admirable side, make his motivations clear, show why the bad
things he does make perfect sense to him, and you’ll create a far more chilling
antagonist;
· If the villain is
largely in the background, strengthen him by revealing how much and why everyone
fears him. Show his power growing via his victories, one after another;
· Give him advantages
the hero lacks, fanatical supporters, and the power to lure away the hero’s allies.
5. Tailor your characters to maximise suspense (for details,
see Lukeman and the other refs):
· A cautious hero
won’t go down the crumbling mine shaft, but an impulsive or reckless hero will plunge
in. A coward won’t jump into the sea to rescue drowning passengers, a brave man
will do so instinctively. If the hero has a phobia, such as a fear of rodents, send
her into a ruin full of rats;
· Often the hero’s
biggest limitation will be himself. Does he have the strength of will to
confront the woman who betrayed him, or will he keep putting put it off? Is he
plagued by self-doubt, or a cock-eyed optimist who believes things will come
right in the end despite all evidence to the contrary?
· Does the hero
have a destiny, eg to become the next lord, president of the company, or to be the
catalyst for revolution? Is this destiny foretold in the story, or is it
something he’s known since birth? Is it a positive destiny, an unbearable
burden or a dark and dangerous threat? Will he achieve it, or fail? And either
way, what are the consequences to him and to others?
· Create loose
cannon characters. No one knows what they’ll do next and their unpredictability
heightens suspense. Will the reformed drunk crack under pressure and start
drinking again? Will the self-effacing heroine snap when pushed too far, and
explode?
6. Take away the hero’s ability to defend herself (or others) and
you create intense suspense:
· She’s being stalked
in the dark, but drops her only weapon and can’t find it; she’s injured and
can’t escape her enemy; her foot is trapped in a crack and she can’t get it
out; or she’s paralysed by terror or self-doubt;
· She sees her
friend heading across the rotten bridge but is too far away to warn her; she
rides to the rescue of an ally, knowing she’s going to arrive too late;
· He fails under
pressure – he could save the day with a magic spell but forgets the words, or
gets them wrong with disastrous consequences;
· His efforts are
in vain – his son is suicidally depressed and he can’t get through to him;
· She believes that
her fate (or a friend’s, or the country’s) is fixed by destiny and nothing can
change it.
7. Use rapidly
changing emotions to build suspense. By showing the hero’s emotions changing
rapidly in response to some threat or confrontation you can build suspense to a
crescendo that will bring your readers to the edge of their seats, eg:
· Vague unease
becomes fear becomes terror becomes shrieking hysteria;
· Irritation
becomes annoyance becomes anger becomes murderous rage.
8. Create anticipation and expectation.
· The more your
hero dwells on or worries about some forthcoming event (good or bad) the more
suspenseful it will be when the event is about to occur – a shy girl fretting
about her wedding night; a young recruit marching to battle, sick with fear;
· Have the hero
make a complicated plan and be rashly confident that it will succeed. This will
worry your readers because they know it’s going to go wrong;
· Build up the
hero’s anticipation (of winning the contest, gaining the prize, getting the
girl) into expectation. Then, when he
fails, the blow will be bitter. He hasn’t been beaten by the failure, but by
his defeated expectation.
9. Employ romantic and sexual tension. For variety or
to further the plot, action-related suspense can be alternated with suspense
arising from romantic or sexual tension between characters. Heighten suspense
by:
· Creating barriers
to the relationship – love between enemies, between a human and an alien, a lover
with a dark past or terrible secret;
· Or by using
obstacles to keep the lovers apart.
10. Use micro-tension – the
moment-by-moment tension that keeps readers in suspense over what’ll happen in
the next minute. (See Don Maass’s terrific book The Fire in Fiction for details). Micro-tension comes from the ‘emotional
friction’ between characters as they try to defeat each other. The characters
aren’t necessarily enemies, though. There should be tension between any two characters, whether they are
opponents, servants, friends, allies or lovers. There should also be tension
within the character due to inner conflicts.
· In dialogue, show:
the hero’s doubt or disbelief about what the other character is saying; the disagreement
about goals or plans; the disdain, dislike, contempt or concealed hatred; the
power struggles, and ego and personality clashes; bring out inner conflicts in
what each character says and does;
· Often action can
be lacking in tension because we’ve seen it a thousand times before – there are
only so many ways two people can have a sword fight. To make action
suspenseful, get inside the head of the hero to show his conflicting feelings
and emotions during the struggle. Then, break the action cliché by showing subtle visual details that give the
reader a clear and vivid picture of this particular scene rather than any
generic action scene;
· Use similar
techniques when writing sex or violence. Show the key moments with a handful of
striking visual images. Bring out the hero’s conflicting feelings and emotions
at each moment, focusing on subtle emotions rather than the obvious ones such as
(in sex scenes) passion, lust or tenderness;
· When the
character is thinking or emoting, create suspense by (a) cutting restated
thoughts, feelings & emotions and (b) making thoughts and emotions
realistic. For instance, the hero may be outwardly happy, but is concealing or
fighting some niggling worry. Or struggling with an inner conflict (justice
versus vengeance, duty to an bad leader vs personal honour);
· In descriptive
passages and quiet moments, show little details that make the setting vividly
real and establish the mood of the place. Describe the hero’s conflicting
feelings and emotions, focusing on subtle emotions rather than obvious ones.
B. PROBLEM
The story begins when your character confronts a
problem she has to solve, or forms a goal she’s determined to achieve. Problems
can be of three kinds: a danger, a want or lack, or a puzzle or mystery. Dangers and lacks arouse suspense because the
reader hopes the character will solve
her problem, yet fears the
consequences if she fails. Puzzles and mysteries create suspense through
curiosity – the reader wants to know the answer.
11. Put your characters (or their friends or
allies) in danger (for details see the references, especially Brown, Lyon
and Lukeman).
· Dangers can be:
physical (a threat to life, health or vital functions such as eyesight,
mobility or intellect); sexual (assault, pregnancy, disease); psychological
(abuse, bullying, brainwashing); emotional; or moral (being led into crime,
corruption or depravity);
· Dangers can also
threaten: the character’s relationships (love, friendship, family, clan, group
or society); her profession, trade, career or art; her property, possessions or
prospects; her sanity; her freedom;
· Alternatively,
your character could be a danger to others (he’s violent, a rapist, a psychopath
or just reckless), or to himself (depressed, suicidal or reckless);
· Expose the hero
to his darkest fear – if he’s claustrophobic, trap him in a lift or a dungeon.
Alternatively, make the imaginary seem vividly real (eg someone who is paranoid
or psychotic).
12. Give your character a want or lack that she’s
desperate to fulfil.
· To find love or
romance, support or friendship;
· To escape from a
blighted community or life;
· To master a
skill, disciple or art, or realise a dream.
13. Pose a
mystery or puzzle. In some kinds of stories, particularly crime and
mystery, suspense mainly comes from the puzzle the author has set, and readers’
curiosity about how the hero will solve it and what the answer is (see (26 and
(27)).
14. Force
the hero to face the problem. Either:
· She has no choice
because she can’t get away. She’s trapped in a locked building, slave camp,
spacecraft or bureaucratic maze;
· She has a choice
but walking away would violate her own moral or ethical code. Eg, she’s on the
run but sees a child in danger and has to help, no matter the risk to herself;
· He has a choice
but walking away would violate his professional duty to act – a munitions
expert who has to defuse a bomb; a priest who must exorcise a demon;
· He initially refuses
but is talked (or talks himself) into it.
15. Raise the stakes.
· You can either
raise the prize for succeeding, or
raise the price of failure – or,
preferably, both at the same time;
· These
consequences can either apply to the hero, to people he cares for, or those he
has a duty to (eg a doctor looking after a critically ill patient);
· Remember that
both the prize and the price are relative – if the emperor wins or loses a skirmish
it may be trivial, whereas winning or losing his first battle will change the
life of a young lieutenant.
16. Make the
problem more difficult to solve.
· Increase the
likelihood that the character will lose, then show what the specific personal consequences will be;
· Threats to the
viewpoint character and his friends and family will arouse far more reader
anxiety, and create more suspense, than problems facing people he doesn’t know,
or people in another province or country.
17. Shorten the deadline.
· Constantly remind
your hero of the time limit;
· Then cut it in
half;
· Slow down key
scenes to heighten suspense. Show them in greater than normal detail to bring
readers right into the moment.
18. Break reader
expectations.
· Readers are
constantly guessing what’s going to happen next, based on stories they’ve read
before, but if they know what’s going
to happen, suspense dies;
· Analyse the
hero’s problem and come up with unusual twists and reversals, new problems and
difficult conflicts that will confound reader expectations of what’s going to
happen.
C. PLOT
Plot is made up of the hero’s successive actions get
what he wants (ie to solve the story problem) and the opponent’s corresponding
actions to stop him. To build suspense to an explosive pitch at the climax of
the story, each new action by the hero needs to be blocked by his opponent, and
either fails or leads to an even bigger problem – until the climactic scene
where the story problem is finally resolved one way or another.
19. Make the story problem clear. A surprising
number of manuscripts fail to set out either:
· What the hero’s real
problem or goal is;
· Or the nature of
the obstacle or antagonist that’s trying to stop him achieving this goal;
· Or only do so
many pages into the story.
The real story doesn’t begin until the hero
formulates a goal and takes action to get it (see Cleaver, Immediate Fiction). Until this happens there can be little suspense
or story interest, so make the hero’s goal clear as early as possible.
20. Put the hero at a disadvantage. Examples:
· At the beginning,
the hero may not know how to solve her problem; or may not understand what the
real problem is (eg, she’s mistaken about her real enemy);
· She lacks the
skills to solve her problem (eg needs magic but doesn’t have any; has a gift
for magic but doesn’t know how to use it);
· She has critical
personality flaws, eg her obsession with gaining justice for her murdered
mother blinds her to vital friendships; his violent past leaves him paralysed
with guilt; his racism leads him to refuse the aid of the one person who can
help him;
· She’s handicapped
physically, mentally, emotionally or socially.
21. Increase the pressure in unpredictable ways (for details,
see the references, especially Lyon):
· Test the hero’s
abilities to breaking point. Take away her friends and supporters, undermine
her assets and any options she’s relying on, block her escape routes, cut the deadline
in half, devalue her strongest beliefs or the things she most cares about.
Anything that can go wrong, should go wrong – not just for her, but for everyone;
· Give her more simultaneous
problems than anyone can handle, so she makes damaging mistakes. Distract her
with an unexpected sexual attraction. Have disagreements escalate out of
control. Give her an impossible dilemma that will trouble her for ages.;
· Thwart her at
every turn. If she’s relying on aid, information or some object or talisman, have
it fail to appear, or be stolen, lost or destroyed when it’s almost within her
grasp. If she has a vital talent or skill, rob her of the ability to use it
when she needs it most;
· Arouse suspicion about
some of her friends or allies, or use dramatic irony (see (23), below) to make readers
suspect them even if the hero does not. Have a trusted ally betray her, desert
her or go over to the enemy;
· Foreshadow her
fate or peril, to the audience and other characters even if not to herself. Use
mysterious documents or eerie settings or symbols to create uneasiness, or show
that things are not as they seem;
· Have the hero lose
contact with her mentor; injure the hero; use forces of nature (weather, fire,
flood, difficult terrain) to block her;
· Plant red
herrings. Have the hero jump to false conclusions that lead her in the wrong
direction or to make disastrous mistakes, or to fall into a trap. Have failures
caused by misunderstandings or poor communication;
· Set the action
within some greater conflict (cultural renaissance, political drama, social
upheaval, war, religious persecution) or tailor social institutions to make
everything more difficult (paranoid government, martial law, police state, secret
society);
· Create an
emotional time bomb (something vitally important to the hero) then, at some
critical time, have it destroyed or lost;
· Lull the hero
(and readers) into a false sense of security by having things go too well for a
scene or two, then create a disaster;
· Show the hero
thinking over past events and seeing something she missed that’s worrying or
ominous. Or, when it’s too late, coming to a dreadful realisation.
22. Create
conflict with everyone and everything.
· With the opponent
– see (4) above;
· With family,
friends and allies – see (10) above;
· With people the
hero meets on the way – they may be hostile, unreliable, treacherous,
incompetent or give false or incorrect information;
· With the setting
(see 25) below, including landscape, weather, culture, politics, bureaucracy,
religion;
· Inner conflict –
see (22) below.
23. Create inner conflicts and dilemmas.
· Give the hero
impossible challenges or agonising choices that test his courage, skill &
moral fibre;
· Force a good man
to make invidious choices, eg between informing on his corrupt mother or
betraying his country;
· A girl sees two
friends in danger and can only save one. How does she decide whom to save and
whom to let die?
· Make the hero
choose between strongly held ideals (duty/honour, family/justice). Force a pacifist
to fight. Require a reformed drunk to drink.
24. Use dramatic irony (ie, your readers
know something vital that the characters aren’t aware of):
· The heroine is enjoying
a glass of wine by the fire, unaware that the killer is looking in through the
window. She’s not anxious, but readers are on the edge of their seats;
· The hero doesn’t
realise that he’s got things disastrously wrong, but it’s obvious to the reader
(and perhaps to other characters, too);
· Write some scenes
from the villain’s viewpoint so readers can worry about the trap closing on the
unsuspecting hero;
· A character bears
vital or troubling news but events conspire to delay (or prevent) its delivery
to those who need to know.
25. Use the unknown to create anxiety.
· Set a scene where
some terrible disaster or tragedy once occurred. The place need not necessarily
be dangerous, but fear of the unknown or the past will make it seem so;
· Arouse fear of some
danger the character has to face – this could be a real-life danger (fighting a
monster, swimming a flooded river) or an uncanny one (spending the night in a
ghost-ridden graveyard);
· Or an everyday
ordeal (a daunting interview; meeting the girlfriend’s parents; sitting a
difficult exam).
26. Put your
hero in a perilous place. Analyse your scene settings and work out how you
can change them to heighten tension:
· Move the scene to
a dangerous or unpredictable place. Instead of a park, use a derelict factory,
a minefield or a sinking ship;
· Make an everyday
place seem dangerous, eg the hero must race across a rugged landscape in a fog;
· Change the scene
from day to night, good weather to bad, peace to riot or war, or put the hero
in the middle of a plague epidemic.
27. Create mysteries. As noted above,
mysteries and puzzles create suspense both because the hero has to work them
out and because the reader wants to know the answer.
· How did the
disaster occur?
· How did a good
man (or company, or nation) take this fatal step into crime, addiction,
insanity or war?
· Is this document true,
or a despicable lie?
· What do these
clues mean?
· Why is this
device or talisman here and how is it used?
28. Design puzzles. These can
either be intellectual or physical:
· Intellectual – riddles,
conundrums, paradoxes, illusions etc;
· Physical – how do
I get in or out? Locked room mysteries. Puzzles requiring dexterity.
29. Leave issues and crises unresolved (especially at
chapter or scene endings) and tension will rise because readers long for the resolution.
Uncertainty and anticipation are interlinked and create suspense:
· Uncertainty can
be heightened with unexpected twists, sudden reversals and shocking disasters;
· Foster anticipation
by having the characters set out their goals, then by using omens, portents and
foreshadowing to arouse unease about the goals being met;
· Within scenes,
heighten reader anticipation by using distractions and interruptions to delay
longed-for meetings, confrontations, resolution of an important event, delivery
of vital news etc.
30. Use reversals. Reversals of the expected
are used to break expectations, clichés and repetition.
· Lead your readers
in a particular direction in order to create expectations about the outcome,
then throw in a reversal that breaks the expectation. This heightens readers’
anticipation, and thus suspense, because they have no idea what’s going to
happen now.
· Scour your story
for clichéd character types, plot elements, emotions, dialogue, action and
reactions, then use reversals where appropriate to break the cliché.
· Do the same where
you find repetition of character types, plot elements, emotions, dialogue,
action and reactions.
31. Secrets. The existence of a secret creates
suspense because readers want to know the answer:
· Rarely, a big
secret can form the suspense backbone for a whole novel, such as: Who was the traitor?
What happened to the money? The secret has to be developed throughout the story
by drip-feeding clues that heighten the secret rather than revealing it;
· Smaller secrets
can be used to heighten suspense within scenes, eg the Hogwarts letter withheld
from Harry Potter in the first book of the series, and the mysterious event
(the Triwizard Tournament) which people keep alluding to early in the fourth
book.
32. Use subtext
(see Lyon for details). Subtext is ‘everything hidden from the awareness or
observation of non-viewpoint characters’. Subtext based on rising tension will
create suspense. Some sources are:
· The hero’s physical
state, feelings and emotions: eg, tears forming, sexual attraction or lust, concealed
hatred, a need to throw up;
· Hidden agendas,
ie the character’s private thoughts, intentions and plans;
· In the natural
environment: a red glow over the forest, the ground shaking, the call of a wild
beast;
· In the built
environment: a patch of oil on the stair, a pram on the edge of the railway
platform;
· Other characters’
behaviour or body language: man sharpening a dagger, child playing near a cliff
edge.
33. Turn a dramatic event into a question. Beware of
having the event completely answer a question or resolve a problem, as this
undercuts suspense. Instead, have the event raise more questions, which draws
out the suspense:
· For small events,
draw out the answer over a few sentences or paragraphs. Eg, policeman knocks on
the door late at night. Instead of revealing upfront that the man’s wife is
dead, draw out the mystery about how the crash occurred and what’s happened to
her;
· For major events,
the resolution can be drawn out over pages or even chapters;
· Scour the story
for questions that deflate suspense because they’re answered too soon, and draw
out the answer.
34. Make it worse.
· There’s no
problem so bad that you can’t make it worse, and you should take every
opportunity to do so. But why would you want to?
· Because character
is revealed not in good times but in adversity. The worse you can make it for
the hero, the more his true character will be revealed by what he does, the
more the reader will worry about him and the greater the suspense.
D. STRUCTURE
Readers read to identify with the characters and live
their stories, suffering the ordeals the characters go through, worrying about
them and dreading that they’ll fail to achieve their goals, yet hoping and
praying that they’ll succeed. At the end, readers want to see the characters
resolve their problems, and long for that tidal wave of relief when all the dramatic
tension and suspense built up through the story is finally released. To build
suspense, the novel needs careful structuring to:
a) Clearly present
the hero and his goal to the reader in the beginning;
b) Portray the
hero’s increasingly difficult struggle to defeat the adversary and achieve the
goal;
c) End scenes and
chapters in ways that create reader uncertainty and anticipation (see (28)
above; and
d) Show how the hero
achieves his goal (or not) at the climax, then satisfyingly release all the
built-up tension.
35. Structure the beginning to create suspense (see Brown for
details):
· Create a hero who
is both sympathetic and interesting (see (1) and (2) above);
· Set out the story
problem (ie the hero’s goal) clearly, and why he must pursue this goal;
· Reveal the
obstacle (the adversary or force that’s trying to prevent the hero from
achieving his goal);
· Twist both the
characters and the goal to break stereotypes, freshen the story and surprise
the reader.
36. Tailor
the hero’s actions to heighten suspense: In each scene, the hero faces some
problem related to her goal. The actions she takes to solve the problem should
either:
· Partially succeed,
though worryingly (she finds a clue to the murder, but following it will lead
her into greater danger);
· Succeed but lead
to a bigger problem (he kills the giant spider but now another hundred are
hunting him); or
· Fail and make the
problem worse (she breaks into the enemy’s fortress to steal the documents, but
they’re not there and now she’s trapped).
37. Vary the hero’s fortunes to maintain and heighten
suspense throughout the story.
· If every scene runs
at fever pitch and ends disastrously, the law of diminishing returns sets in –
the reader becomes desensitised to the drama, and suspense dies;
· Instead, alternate
tense action or drama scenes with calmer ones, and end a few scenes with the
hero succeeding, and with moments of peace, happiness or hope. Variety in
endings maintains suspense because
the reader knows the success is only temporary; the opponent will never give up
trying to defeat the hero;
· To heighten suspense, make the hero’s
failures progressively worse, and his dark moments bleaker, towards the climax.
38. Sequence
the antagonist’s reactions to progressively heighten the hero’s troubles.
· Look at each
scene from the antagonist’s point of view and ask how he can make things worse
for the hero. What action will cause the hero the most trouble, and what’s the
worst time it can occur?
· To heighten
suspense, make these troubles progressively worse towards the climax, until it
seems impossible that the hero can win.
39. Heighten critical scenes. Identify the key
events in the story (those moments of intense drama that are also turning
points) because they need to be carefully set up and treated differently (see
Lyon). Key events can be positive (love scenes, celebrations at war’s end, the
award of prizes or honours) or crises (murders, defeat in battle, guilty
verdicts, terrible realisations). Build suspense by:
· Foreshadowing the
coming event to raise worrying questions and create reader anticipation. This
can be done via characters thinking about or debating the possibility (eg of
war), and making plans and preparations for the worst, as well as by omens,
foretellings, signs and symbols;
· Writing a small
scene or moment which hints at the coming critical scene (a burning house hints
at the violence and ruin of war); a shouting match foreshadows the murder to
come;
· Then a reversal –
a moment that’s the opposite of the coming critical scene. Eg, in a trial, the overconfident
defence lawyer has a lavish lunch with friends before returning to hear a
shattering guilty verdict; immediately before the joyous wedding, the couple
have a furious argument; the soldier relaxes with his family before going to bloody
war. This contrast makes the critical scene far more powerful;
· In the critical
scene, use all the dramatic techniques at your disposal to raise the scene to a
higher peak of suspense than anything that has gone before;
· Afterwards, make
sure the hero emotes about all that has happened, reviews how the event has
made his problems worse, and reformulates his plans.
40. Climax, Resolution and Endings.
· Vary your scene
endings to maximise suspense. Some scenes should end at moments of high drama,
many with unanswered questions, several with shocking twists, a few with
emotional completion, and some with no more than a wry observation or pithy
phrase.
· The climax of the
story, where the greatest obstacle is overcome and the hero’s story problem is
finally resolved one way or another, is the biggest of all the critical scenes
and must coincide with the highest point of tension and suspense.
· If the greatest
tension occurs in a scene before the climax, the ending of the story will be
anticlimactic and the reader will feel let down.
· If the story’s
resolution is weak, contrived, over too quickly or in any other way fails to
match the build-up of suspense to the climax, readers will be bitterly
disappointed;
· In most novels, all
the key questions will be answered by the end, and the resolution provides a
sense of completion plus the blissful release from suspense that readers are
waiting for. Some stories may end with a dilemma, however – the main story has
been resolved but there’s still a question raised in the reader’s mind about
what choice the hero will make.
· Stories which are
part of a series should resolve most of the story questions at the end, but the
overarching series question (eg will Harry Potter defeat Lord Voldemort) remains
and creates ongoing suspense until the series ends.
41. In
editing.
· Review the story
scene by scene, rate each scene out of 10 for its level of suspense, then plot
the sequence of suspense ratings. Ideally the graph should be a zigzagging line
rising progressively to the climax of the story, then falling away in the
resolution.
· Does the story
have flat periods with little suspense? Insufficient breaks from high suspense?
The highest suspense occurring before
the climax? Suspenseful moments that are too quickly resolved? Critical scenes
where the suspense is too low, too brief or too similar to other scenes? A
powerful climax ruined by a weak resolution? Work out how to fix these
problems.
· Common scene
problems that lower suspense include: lack of a clear goal for the scene;
stakes too low; lack of an obstacle or weak obstacle; too little conflict; too
much thought or talk and not enough action; too much action and not enough
thought, emotion or reflection; no twist or disaster at the end (see Lyon for a
detailed analysis).
· Analyse your
characters (see (2) above). Can you modify or change certain character traits to
vary the kinds of suspense in the story, and to heighten it in key scenes?
REFERENCES
Bell, James Scott (2004). Plot and Structure. Writer’s Digest. Probably the best book on the
topic of plot and structure.
Bell, James Scott (2008). Revision and Self-Editing. Writer’s Digest. Also a great book; a
wealth of practical info and examples.
John D Brown (2011). Key Conditions for Reader Suspense (27-part article). http://www.sfwa.org/2010/12/key-conditions-for-suspense/
An excellent series of articles.
Cleaver, Jerry (2002). Immediate Fiction. St Martin’s Griffin. No one has ever explained
the craft of storytelling more clearly or simply.
Kress, Nancy (2005). Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint. Writer’s Digest. Excellent book
on these topics.
Lukeman, Noah (2002). The Plot Thickens. St Martin’s Griffin, New York. Terrific chapters
on characterisation, suspense and conflict, a lot of stuff I’ve never thought
of before.
Lyon, Elizabeth (2008). Manuscript Makeover, Revision Techniques no Fiction Writer can Afford
to Ignore. Perigee Trade. In my view, the best book on revision and
self-editing.
Maass, Donald (2009). The Fire in Fiction. Writer’s Digest. He identifies the problems
his agency sees over and over again in manuscripts and tells you how to fix
them. A fantastic book.
Truby, John (2007). The Anatomy of Story – 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. Faber
and Faber. A fascinating and insightful book.
Vorhaus, John (1994). The Comic Toolbox. Silman James Press. Not just the best book on
comic writing, but better than all the others put together.
About me: I'm an Australian marine scientist.
I've written 27 novels, including the internationally bestselling Three
Worlds fantasy sequence, an eco-thriller trilogy about catastrophic
climate change, Human Rites, and 12 books for children, most recently the Grim
and Grimmer humorous adventure fantasy series.
My next epic fantasy novel is Vengeance, Book 1
of The Tainted Realm, to be published by Orbit Books in Australia in November
2011, and in the US and UK in April 2012.
For more on my books, including covers, blurbs, reviews and the first chapters of
all of my novels and my 2 novellas, see my site: http://www.ian-irvine.com/
To say Hi, get a quick answer to your questions, or to
enter my Win an iPad 2 competition (closes October 15, 2011),
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5 comments:
This is so useful I'm printing it up and putting it under a magnet on my filing cabinet. It is going to get a lot of use. Many thanks, Ian, for putting it all in such an organized fashion.
Thanks very much, Rosanne. I've had an abbreviated version of this article by my side for a year or two now. I'm glad you find it useful.
Your advice is always so useful. I too am printing this out to keep beside me when I write and plot and plot my stories. Please write a book about writing!
I didn't mean to write 'and plot' twice. Ironically though, I probably spend too much time plotting and not enough writing.
I may write a book on writing one day, Nathan – when I'm not finishing my next novel. Good luck with your own writing.
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