5 Steps to Create Tension and Suspense in Fiction Narratives
Suspense is one of the most powerful driving forces in fiction, and when used correctly, will keep readers turning pages in any story. In this article I’m going to be giving some basic pointers when it comes to using suspense to create tension and draw in readers.
But first, what is suspense? The way I see it, suspense comes down to anticipation and what we anticipate will happen. With that in mind, let us proceed to the article.
Step 1: Goal
Characters must have goals/objectives for there to be a story, right? Since suspense=anticipation, characters must have something they are anticipating. This can be as simple as planning to do the dishes, to the more dramatic goals of a killer trying to kill a victim or evade capture.
Step 2: Raising the stakes
In the first example above—washing the dishes—there is very little suspense involved. Doing the dishes is boring to the reader because there’s no reason for us to care about it. But what if, say, the character hasn’t done the dishes in months because he has a terrible phobia of dish soap? Moreover, people have been complaining about the smell from the rotten food, and his landlord will evict him if he can’t clean it up. If he is evicted, he will have to go and live with his parents again because he can’t afford any of the other apartments in town.
We start to care a little more about the dishes then, don’t we? I know, I know--that's a lousy example. But the more potential harm there is the character, the more we feel suspense.
In the same way, someone paddling in a pool isn’t as suspenseful as an Olympic swimmer trying to win a race, or someone struggling to stay afloat in a fast-moving stream. I'm going to repeat this: In general, the more a character’s wellbeing will be affected by the anticipated event, the more likely we are to care about him or her.
Step 3: Time limit
One of the most common (and slightly overused) methods of creating suspense is the time limit, or “ticking clock.” This is when the character has only a limited amount of time to achieve their goals. In action/adventure fiction this device is extremely common, and we see loads of stories where terrorists will destroy the world in less than three days, or a bomb will detonate in 30 seconds if not defused.
Overused as this device is, however, it is an excellent and almost foolproof way of creating tension and suspense in your story. In the washing dishes example above, I could say that he has only two days before he will be evicted.
Inability to take action: This occurs when a character is in danger but is unable to do anything about it--the hero listening to his girlfriend being kidnapped on a phone, the girl fumbling with her keys as a killer comes up behind her, etc. This is a very potent way of creating suspense, but do not overdo it, because it is very painful to be that anxious for a long period of time.
Step 4: Dramatic Irony
Dramatic Irony is when the reader knows something that the characters don’t—a couple picnicking without knowing about the avalanche coming swiftly their way, the young girl wandering through the woods unaware that a wolf is following her, the guy paddling happily through the waves, not knowing that a great white is approaching.
While this technique does work very well—to end chapters, for example—it is also overused in the same way that the ticking clock is. It can also begin to sound a bit melodramatic if not carefully played. You’ll often find phrases like “Meanwhile, a few miles away,” and “Neither of them noticed the peculiar shadow sneaking up behind them” or the like to help shift between the placid scene and the oncoming disaster. These forms of creating suspense may sound like the author is talking.
[Edit] As Suzanne pointed out, dramatic irony can also occur when one character knows something the others don't. See her comment for more information.
Step 5: Never resolve everything.
Sounds weird, right? But every time the suspense is alleviated, readers have a tendency to get bored. This doesn’t necessarily mean that characters can never have a break; some breathing room is required. But try not to resolve all issues completely until the very end.
Similarly, it is often better to end a chapter with the reader hanging; the classic “cliff hanger.” This doesn’t have to be dramatic, and in fact usually shouldn't be--obvious cliffhangers are quite annoying--but in general it is easier to keep a reader’s attention if issues aren’t completely removed at the close of the chapter.
The same thing goes for subplots—in cases where you have several, try ending chapters without resolving all conflicts so that you can switch around to the other subplots without completely losing a reader’s intention.
Don't overdo it!
When used sparingly, all of these tips can help you keep people interested and reading your story, but if you are too heavy handed, it will have the opposite affect, jarring your reader out the story and making your writing contrived and cheesy.
Good luck!
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