Building Suspense And Creating Tension Part 2

building suspense and creating tension part 2

Building Suspense and Tension – Part Two

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.

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.

Free Outline PDF – Structure & Methods

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?

By 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.

Withholding is one of the simplest and most effective ways to create tension and build suspense.

Remember Christmas as a child? Did you ever pick up a gift-wrapped box with your name on it days before Christmas and shake it in an effort to determine its contents? Though you were outwardly chafed, there was something exciting about the whole idea of being made to wait until Christmas morning to get your presents.

The same magical forces are at play when a reader is kept in suspense through withholding. But it takes finesse. You have to know when to stop withholding, and give your protagonist what he or she wants.

Plot-level withholding – The first four tasks for every writer are as follows:

Identify early on in your story what your protagonist wants or needs more than anything else in the world.
Determine what your protagonist is willing to do to obtain that want or need. What extremes are they willing to go to? Will they lie? Cheat? Will they break the law? Will they even hurt or kill to achieve the object of their desire?
Create an external conflict such as nature, the supernatural, or technology, which will stand in the way of your protagonist and the object of their desire.
Determine the primary motivating factor driving your protagonist. Is it want of love? Need of money? To be esteemed? Or is it survival? The answer to this question will help you align your conflicts with the opposition you’ve created.

What compels a reader to turn the pages of a 500 page novel is not the gratification of those desires, but the frustration of them. Because once that withholding is satisfied, all the tension in your story dissolves.

Scene-level withholding – In addition to withholding your protagonist’s main object of desire, you can and should, within each scene, create smaller desires which you can then withhold.

This is where your glass of water comes in – having your character want or need something in every scene.