This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Suspense is the state of not knowing something that you wish to know. It’s the classic cliffhanger ending; it’s the ‘who’ in a ‘whodunnit’ or the ‘why’ in a psychological drama.
Just because you’re not writing a mystery or a thriller, it doesn’t mean you don’t need suspense. If your reader is not in a state of suspense, they may not be transfixed by your narrative or, worse yet, they might even be getting bored.
So, how do you create suspense? I like to think of it as asking questions. When you ask a question, you put the reader in a state of suspense until that question is answered. The level of suspense will depend on both the importance of the question and the degree to which the reader cares about the answer.
In this way, you can create high level suspense with seemingly mundane events. Equally, you can write the most action-packed, crime-ridden sequence known to man, and still leave your reader sitting back in their chair with boredom.
Making your reader care about the answers to your questions is the key to creating suspense, but pacing is important, too. If you answer questions too quickly, the reader doesn’t have time to enjoy the suspense. Answer them too slowly, meanwhile, and the reader may lose interest and empathy. If you delay gratification too long, they may no longer give a damn when you finally deliver it.
So, suspense is a balancing act. It’s a dance between what your reader knows and what your reader wants to find out. You need to give enough information so that your reader is engaged, but leave gaps so that they are also compelled to read on.
One way of doing this is to make sure you ask lots of small questions throughout your story. Your main plot will have one big question (for example, in Lord of the Rings, the main question is: ‘Will Frodo destroy the ring?’), but there are hundreds of tiny questions (and answers) throughout.
What questions can you ask in your novel in order to inject some suspense?