JCB's Ruminations on the Craft of Fiction #22
October 15, 2020
This week I want to talk about suspense. How do we make a story gripping so that it compels the reader to keep pushing forward long after their bedtime, breaking their promise again and again of only one more chapter?
The cheap way to do it is to not tell the reader all of the information, to describe actions and then at the last possible moment spring the surprise upon them: he was planning to betray them the whole time! The problem with this method is that it is usually frustrating. Readers notice when we don’t give them all the information they need. When characters behave in bizarre ways that we can’t make sense of because we don’t know what’s motivating them, we get increasingly perplexed and eventually give up on the story--long before what’s supposed to be the amazing reveal--because it just doesn’t make any sense.
Truly gripping suspense, the kind that fetters a reader to the story with bands of iron, comes out of moral dilemma. Instead of wondering, What’s going to happen to her next?, we wonder, Whatever will she do!? Often the suspense will rise as we follow along with a character as they wrestle with a decision. The writer doesn’t feel the need to create false suspense by hiding information; rather, the suspense demands the writer be as forthcoming as possible so that the reader understands all of the motivations and implications at play in the looming moment of decision.
Likewise, a chapter- or scene-ending cliffhanger should impact the character, and the reader should understand all the inchoate implications of that impact so that our instinct is to immediately begin the next chapter to find out What will she do!? The mystery of who knocked on the door isn’t enough to keep us reading, but finding out it’s the father she’s spent three chapters searching for in order to confront will compel us to find out how she reacts in the next chapter.
All stories are driven by character. When a character’s intentions come into conflict with other intentions (within the character or from other characters), the dilemma of how she will choose to navigate the conflict gives fiction the seeds of its suspense.
Next: On Being Psychic