Building Suspense And Creating Tension Part 1

Building Suspense and Tension – Part One

The most important thing you can do as a writer of fiction is make the reader want to turn the page. In fact, there is no other job more important to a writer. If the reader doesn’t care what happens next in your story, then you’ve failed as a writer. So to help you succeed in that regard, always keep in mind: suspense and tension are crucial to a good story. And without them, you haven’t got a story.

By it’s very nature, FICTION entails a willing suspension of disbelief. Ideally, fiction should be a heightened version of real life, where readers leave behind their boring, mundane lives to enter into a more dangerous, compelling and magical world. If fiction is a compressed version of reality, where everything boring and flat is left out, and only the interesting and exciting remain, then what ARE those remaining elements that make a story exciting, interesting, and intriguing? How DO authors build suspense and create tension? A few of the elements they use are: CONFLICT, DANGER, WITHHOLDING, and UNCERTAINTY.

CONFLICT – Like suspense or tension, CONFLICT can be used at both the MACRO, or PLOT LEVEL, or at the SCENE LEVEL (MICRO LEVEL)

Your primary conflict will be the one between your protagonist (main character) and whatever force or person you choose to stand in opposition to them. Conflict can be defined as opposing forces battling to fulfill the same goals, desires, or needs. Whether it’s socio-economic or class differences, tribal conflicts, warring tribes or gangs, or groups competing for the same precious resources like food or water. Indeed the heart of a good story is the ability to pit character against character, or character against nature or other forces. The genre you’re writing in will determine which type of conflict you choose.

The multitude of various types of conflict are often boiled down to the following:

MAN VERSUS HIMSELF – Write down on the left side of a piece of paper the names of your main characters and all the characters supporting them, i.e. friends, lovers, associates, and allies. On the right side write the names of your antagonist, as well as other characters who might be in opposition to your protagonist. All of these characters represent opportunities for inter-personal (Person-to-person) conflict in your story. (Delete “this is most often) Person-to-person conflict is most often portrayed at the PLOT LEVEL
a character who battles with himself, whether against addiction or other psychological issues or urges he or she cannot control, is the perfect way to create suspense both at the plot level and at the scene level. Everyone struggles with inner demons. Who hasn’t at times been their own worst enemy? And self-sabotage is a great way to keep a protagonist’s life interesting to readers. Most people struggle just to find happiness and love in this life. And in so doing, they end up making their lives even more miserable. Using character flaws, like overweening pride, vanity, or low self-esteem to trip up your characters keeps the tension high and the reader turning pages.

MAN VERSUS MAN – Write down on the left side of a piece of paper the names of your main characters and all the characters supporting them, i.e. friends, lovers, associates, and allies. On the right side write the names of your antagonist, as well as other characters who might be in opposition to your protagonist. All of these characters represent opportunities for inter-personal (Person-to-person) conflict in your story. Person-to-person conflict is most often portrayed at the PLOT LEVEL in protagonist versus antagonist. The driving force of most stories represents conflict at this level. Your main character desires some “thing” or person more than life itself, but is opposed and thwarted at every step by an antagonist who wants the same thing.

At the SCENE LEVEL, conflict between FRIENDS, ALLIES, or LOVERS is a great way to build tension and create suspense throughout the story. No one likes to see good friends fight. Unless that is, they’re reading fiction. When best friends struggle with conflict, the reader is compelled to stick around and see how things will ultimately turn out. Spats between friends can be used to infuse scenes with tension, and spice up scenes that might otherwise be yawn-inducing. Characters can disagree on almost anything, where to go on a honeymoon, what restaurant to eat at, what school to send the kids to, or when to make love.

MAN VERSUS SOCIETY/TRIBE/OR GROUP – This could be an outlaw, renegade, or other social misfit battling against the powers that be in an effort to overthrow the presiding order, or simply for personal gain to enrich him or herself.

MAN VERSUS NATURE – Another great way to create tension or build suspense at both the PLOT level and the SCENE level, is to place natural barriers like deserts, mountains, or oceans between your protagonist and the object of their desire. Natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, or fires are also excellent ways to keep the tension high, and keep your characters from attaining their goals or obtaining the object of their desires.

MAN VERSUS THE SUPERNATURAL – Whether it’s vampires, werewolves, or zombie, the supernatural presents a myriad of ways to build suspense with readers. The possibilities here are endless.

MAN VERSUS TECHNOLOGY – Man versus robots, and more recently, Artificial Intelligence, are tropes currently popular in sci-fi.

DANGER –

There’s no more sure-fire way of creating tension or building suspense than putting your character in danger.
There are two main kinds of danger – physical, and psychological/emotional.

PHYSICAL DANGER – Most readers find it nearly impossible to put down your book if your character’s safety or life is in danger. Consider the following:

As they prepared to open one of the boxes, Liora stopped and put her ear to the door.”Quick! Eamon, hide!”
“What is it?”
“They’re coming!”
“WHO’S coming?”
“Beckett’s men! The last person they caught in here they beheaded in the town square!”
Eamon’s heart pounded in his chest.
The footsteps outside were close and getting closer.
“Hurry! Get behind those boxes! Go! Go!” But it was too late. Before they could hide, the door wrenched open with a bang and light flooded the basement.

What reader in his or her right mind could put a book down at this point. Even if you ended the chapter here, chances are your reader would stay up a little longer just to find out what happens to your characters here.

PSYCHOLOGICAL DANGER – A deeper and more complex type of danger. As opposed to physical danger, PSYCHOLOGICAL danger requires a bit more planning and forethought. While our characters’ physical safety might not be endangered, there are plenty of other ways to make their lives miserable. Through the clever machinations of a cunning and malevolent antagonist, you can cost your characters their jobs, their marriage, their standing in the community, their self-respect, and even their sanity. All of which serve to build suspense and/or create and sustain tension throughout the story.

Psychological danger means to put at risk a character’s love or affection, their trust, respect, or standing. When one character shames, terrorizes, or bullies another, or otherwise endangers the emotional stability of a character, all of these can be considered “psychological danger”.

Consider the following example –
Glen opened the envelope to find a single page note wrapped around ten pictures. The pictures were all of Glen at the recent Oil and Gas Buyers convention. In his hotel room, with a prostitute. A transvestite prostitute. He’d been drunk, and by the time he noticed, it had been too late. He opened the note and read. “If you don’t want your wife and children to see these pictures, then follow my instructions carefully. A flurry of questions assaulted Glen’s mind. Had anyone he knew seen the pictures? How had the pictures had been taken? And, most of all, he wondered, WHO the hell had taken them, and WHY?

UNCERTAINTY

Building suspense means creating uncertainty in the reader, and compelling them to WANT to read ahead to see what happens next. While in the meantime, making them AFRAID to skip ahead for fear of missing something important. The last thing any writer wants is for the reader to know what’s coming in the next chapter, or to know halfway through a book what the ending is going to be. Creating uncertainty is the art of keeping the reader guessing.

CREATING UNCERTAINTY – One way is to begin with an OUTLINE, or at least a loose outline in advance. An outline can help writers stay out of the weeds, and prevent them from writing themselves into a corner or situation that’s impossible to get out of.

UNCERTAINTY IN YOUR PROTAGONIST – keeping your main character unpredictable is key here. Ask what you’d most expect your protagonist to do in a situation, and then make them do the opposite. How do you do this? My raining down catastrophe on their heads. By putting them in difficult situations that force them to act out of character. Situations that require them to do morally questionable things. Things they might not otherwise do in order to save the day or even save the world.

UNCERTAINTY IN YOUR ANTAGONIST – One of the best ways to keep your protagonist in a state of uncertainty is to use your antagonist against them. Just when your protagonist is about to succeed or reach his or her goal, your antagonist should be ready and waiting to thwart their goals or desires. Keep this going in a back and forth manner as the action steadily builds.

CREATING REALISTIC UNCERTAINTY IN YOUR CHARACTERS – Use VIVID BODILY SENSATIONS –
Instead of – Joey felt anxious and scared as he waited for the intruders to leave.
try – Joey’s chest constricted as he held his breath and waited for the intruders to leave. He was certain they could hear his heart pounding in his chest.

When you make your characters FEEL uncertainty in the most vivid way possible, your readers are more likely to feel it too. Recently, scientists at the University of Parma in Italy accidentally discovered what are aptly termed “mirror neurons”. When humans observe another person performing an action or expressing emotion, certain neurons in the motor cortex of the observer’s own brain are actually stimulated to reproduce the behavior they’re observing. So the more accurately we portray the behavior of our characters, the better able we are to elicit the response we want from our readers.