Suspense is anticipation; action is payoff. Stories are much more than reports of events. Stories are about transformations. We have to show readers where things are going—what situation, character or relationship is going to be transformed. Of course, depending on your genre, promises can be comedic, romantic, horrific or dramatic. For example, two lovers plan to meet in a meadow to elope. In tandem with making promises is the obligation of keeping them. The bigger the promise, the bigger the payoff. Every word in your story is a promise to the reader about the significance of that word to the story as a whole.
This is where so many authors—both of suspense novels and of fiction in other genres—fumble the ball. Start your story with a prologue, say, in which a woman is running on a beach by herself, and there are werewolves on the loose. Hmm … what a twist this is going to be—she gets attacked by the werewolves! What a fresh, original idea that was.
How is that a broken promise? Because it was predictable. Readers want to predict what will happen, but they want to be wrong. Click here to find out. 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. Need an idea for a short story or novel? Order now from our shop and get a discount!
Why does the resolution of a story usually end the suspense? | WordReference Forums
For more great writing advice, click here. Follow Brian on Twitter: Steven James is a teaching genius. Congratulations from Madrid, Spain! When 2 months of treatment, the worst space of pain, close to his neck, had shrunk from a circle six inches across to the dimensions of quarter, he said. I read it whole and going to share it with my social circules.
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It is an extraordinary site.. The Design looks great.. Continue working like that!. I read that Post and got it fine and educational. It would be ideal if you share more like that… safe cutting supplements. There are some stories that pose a dilemma to the hero at the end. Seth can save his best friend or his girlfriend, but not both.
Spiderman can have Spidey powers or M. Sometimes these are moral dilemmas where the hero can sacrifice his morality and win or keep it and loose. In the movie High Noon , for example, the hero can live by running away and becoming a coward. Or he can stay, be a man worth his salt, and die for it. Some story gurus say that a satisfying story MUST have a dilemma at the end.
Some say the dilemma must, in fact, be a moral dilemma.
You know Reacher is going to choose the vigilante path each time. Dilemmas are wonderful tools. They have the power to shoot suspense through the roof. Nor do you always have to use them in the resolution. The question for you is whether a dilemma will make your story better? Or is it just a different option? Stories often spend a bit more time in the preparation, approach, and climax phase of this trip around the story cycle than they might in other revolutions.
You can drink it all in one gulp. Or you can savor the quenching of your thirst. Readers want to enjoy it. The stories below show the variety. You might find other stories with resolutions that last longer or even shorter.
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The key is to look at the patterns in the stories you like. There are three phases to solving a problem in a way that will raise reader tension. These three phases form the structure of our story. There are a number of options for what happens in each phase; this means a whole range of event sequences can be successful.
There is no one plot pattern that is best. My challenge to you is to start looking at the stories you read and watch through the lens of the model above. Notice the options and patterns. But they are by no means all that are out there. The best place to see these are in the stories you love. Break them down into problem resolution phases and story cycle revolutions.
In the meantime, other authors explain their models of story structure. I suggest you look at their models then test them against the stories you love. Some will actually model how stories work. And if one of these folks maintains that ALL great stories follow a specific event sequence or feature a certain type of problem or obstacle, make doubly sure you test it against actual stories.
Again, the best place to learn story patterns is in the stories you love as well as those that fail to deliver. Think instead of objectives, problem-solving, patterns, and options. And, always, always, always about what effect the form has on the reader. About making them worry for a character.
They want that worry to build to a pitch. And then they want a release. There are certain things that you need to provide readers to enable them to do this. You need to provide a problem, a character they can be interested in and get behind, and a plot that will build the suspense and release it. However, there are a lot of options that will work.
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I hope it has sparked ideas in you. May your readers always sweat in a good way, of course. John Brown is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. Servant of a Dark God , the first book in his epic fantasy series, was published by Tor Books and is now out in paperback. He currently lives with his wife and four daughters in the hinterlands of Utah where one encounters much fresh air, many good-hearted ranchers, and an occasional wolf.
For a list of all of the posts in this series, head to Key Conditions for Suspense: This has been so helpful. I just want to keep reading so I can get more info.