Building Suspense and Creating Tension Part 3

RADICAL PLOT REVERSALS –
Another time-honored way of building suspense and creating tension is to create radical reversals for your characters. Reversals that jar the reader, create confusion, uncertainty, and doubt.

SELF-INFLICTED REVERSALS – A reversal could be self-inflicted. For example, a recovering alcoholic with decades of sobriety could fall off the wagon. An ex-gang member could succumb to loneliness and decide to go back to his old gang and the streets.

ANTAGONIST CAUSED REVERSALS- More likely though, dramatic reversals will come from your antagonist. Just when your protagonist appears to have everything under control, your antagonist will appear to throw a monkey wrench into their plans and knock them to their knees. Radical reversals work best if you roll out a nice beautiful red carpet for your character. And just when they’re comfortably situated on it, your antagonist will yank it right out from under them. It may sound cruel, but there’s a purpose for it.

EXAMPLES OF REVERSALS – of reversals could include a dramatic change of heart in your characters. Perhaps your main character’s son no longer wants to join the military and follow in the footsteps of his father. Maybe your main character’s son no longer wants to go to medical school, dashing the hopes of his mother who’d always dreamed of her son becoming a doctor. Maybe your main character’s finance no longer wants to get married, or worse, decides to marry someone else.

TRAITORS – Often reversals come in the form of traitorous allies turning on your protagonist. Best friends who stab your protagonist in the back. Or lovers turning on one another.

Whatever reversal you choose, the object is to sow confusion and despair, to crush hopes, to give the appearance that all hope is lost. But fret not! Because it is from the ashes of such setbacks that your protagonist finds the strength and the courage to go out and obtain the object of their desire, or attain new heights of achievement.

Dramatic reversals are the darkness just before the dawn. They remind your character of the preciousness and brevity of life. Reversals awaken them to the value of good friends, family, and love.

The idea of such reversals is not simply to torture your characters. But rather to forge your character’s soul in the fires of adversity; to force them to make the changes needed in order to learn and grow.

Reversals should generally be placed following a string of good fortune for your character. And whenever possible, the reader should have no clue a reversal is coming. Of course, a discriminating reader usually knows when things start looking too good for a character, that trouble is sure to be on the horizon. If you can’t place a reversal after a period of happiness, at least place it following a lull in the action, or at a place when the character appears in control of the situation.

CREATING TENSION IN DIALOGUE –

Dialogue should as a rule, always contain at least an element of tension. Avoid using dialogue for small talk or pleasantries.
In other words, avoid scenes like this:
“Good morning, Mr. Evans.”
“Good morning, Steve. How are you?”
“Fine Mr. Evans. And how are you?”
“I’m well, Steve. How’s the missus?”
“She’s fine, Mr. Evans. How are the kids?”
Mr. Evans can’t answer because he’s snoring.

Creating TENSION IN DIALOGUE can be a tricky proposition, since tension often exists between the lines of dialogue, in what ISN’T said, and in subtle body language. Consider the following:

Ray stared at the man without a hint of emotion on his face. “Oh, and Carlos? Don’t come back without my money.”
Carlos’s face went white. “But Ray, what if they don’t-”
Ray held up his hand. “I said, don’t come back without my money.”
“But Ray, where am I supposed to go if I don’t have your money?”
Ray smiled. “That’s all been taken care of, Carlos. You’ll never have to worry about a thing. Arrangements have already been made.”
Carlos tried to speak, but one look at Ray’s expression told him it would be better not to.

Now, I could’ve written, “With a look of rage in his eyes, Ray said, “If you don’t bring me my money I’m going to kill you!”
But the danger here is implicit in what wasn’t said.

CONFLICT IN DIALOGUE – Consider conflict in dialogue as a sort of verbal tug-of-war, which creates emotion and energy and forces your characters to act.

“All right, Evers. Damn you! How much?”
I blinked at him. “How much what?”
“Oh, cut the crap, Evers! You know exactly what I’m talking about! How much do I need to pay you to make this go away?”
I leaned forward and got in his face. “All right, asshole! Now you listen to me! Because I’m only going to say this once. Since the day we met, you’ve been riding my ass. But today, it stops! All of it! You hear me?”

DIALOGUE should always be used only to:
1) Drive the story forward
2) Provide the reader a deeper understanding of your characters
3) Deepen the relationship between your characters