The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 22 December 2008

I warned you! Now, it's time for a moldy article from Writers Digest, February 2005. Pages 20 and 21 are the column Fiction Essentials by James Scott Bell, and in this issue, he's highlighting the three secrets of suspense. Wouldn't you like to know what they are?

"What happens next? When you're writing a novel, that's the question you want in your readers' minds all the time. That's what keeps them flipping pages long into the night. That's suspense. And every novel needs it."

What do you think suspense is? Well, Bell starts out by telling us that "suspense in fiction is a feeling of pleasurable uncertainty." When we don't know what is going to happen -- although we may have suspicions -- and we really want to find out -- that's suspense!

Kind of like waiting for the three secrets of suspense :-) So without further ado, here they are!

1. The Death Threat

"The best suspense is about death." Physical death in various variations -- serial killer, villain, malevolent conspiracy -- death abounds. However, professional death -- loss of work or livelihood -- also works. Or psychological death, the inner death that results from not having a reason to go on living, not dealing with dark secrets from the past, not healing.

"Here is the key to creating a convincing threat to your character's life, whether it's physical, professional, or psychological: Include scenes early in your novel that explicitly show what the central problem means to your protagonist. Get your readers to feel what's at stake from the very beginning of the story."

When death in one guise or another awaits the character, we have to keep reading.

2. The Sympathetic Protagonist

"No matter what kind of danger is present, if readers don't care about your protagonist, they still won't worry much about what happens. To really care about your story, readers need to feel sympathy for its lead character." So what makes readers sympathize with -- feel emotionally bound with -- the hero?

First, a well-rounded character, with flaws and strengths. Neither perfection nor complete failures are terribly interesting. Second, guts -- make the hero active. Third, characters who care about someone else are more sympathetic than self-centered egotists.

3. Scene Tension

"Every scene in your novel should have tension, whether that comes from outright conflict or inner emotional turmoil." Outside tension comes from the character having a goal that matters to him or her and significant opposition to achieving it. Most scenes end with the character failing. Even success comes with a cost. I've seen it described recently as "yes, but..." Yes, we succeeded, but now there's a bigger problem! As for failure, that usually is "no, and furthermore..." Not only did we fail, but we're further away than before. Even relatively quiet scenes can have inner tension -- growing worried, concerned, irritability, anxiety.

"So put a sympathetic character into a life-or-death situation and maintain tension in all your scenes. You'll create the pleasurable uncertainty that readers love to feel, page after page."

Check your story against this checklist:

1. Do you have a sympathetic protagonist?
2. Are they facing life-or-death problems?
3. Does every scene maintain the tension?

Your exercise -- take a character, imagine a situation that faces them with a life-or-death challenge, and make a list of at least three scenes where they try to solve the challenge, and fail. Go ahead and write those up -- if you add a beginning and ending, you'll have a whole short story.

No ideas? How about pick a number from one to six? And you have selected the
following situation:

1. A building on fire, with people calling for help
2. An automobile accident, with people pinned inside
3. A building collapsing, with people trapped inside
4. A train wreck, with people hurt
5. A snow storm, with the power out, and people needing help
6. A boat drifting, with engines out, and people looking for help

Go ahead -- walk your character into that situation, and let them try to help.