Ten Tips for Building Suspense in a Novel

What makes you come back to that novel sitting on your bedstand night after night? Is there a powerful reason to keep reading it other than the fact that you paid money for the darn book and you don’t want it to go to waste?

For some readers, it’s curiosity. Once they’ve committed to a novel, they have to know what happens, period. For others, it’s a compelling character that makes them laugh every time he shows up. Or perhaps they have fallen in love with the author’s voice.

For me, it’s the plot. The not knowing what’s going to happen next. But there are two caveats for the story to hold my interest: either the plot has to be somewhat unpredictable or the premise must pose a “big question” that keeps me hooked until the end of the novel.

As writers, we have an arsenal of tools at our disposal to help construct our plots. Perhaps one of our best tools is suspense.

Suspense can be your novel's best friend.

Suspense, the antidote for boredom

Suspense is what will keep your readers guessing and coming back to your book until they reach the end. (And I don’t mean a thriller. Suspense should be found in any genre.) But injecting intrigue in your plot can be tricky. It must be handled with care for too much of it could make the reader confused and frustrated, and too little could bore him to tears. Finding the perfect balance is one of the hardest things we writers have to learn.

A few years ago, I took an excellent writing class called Revising Fiction. The instructor, Kirt Hickman, recommends a series of practical tips for building tension in a novel. I have adapted and condensed the ones I’ve found most helpful.

1. Surprise/mislead the reader.

Who doesn’t love surprises? Especially when we think we know exactly where a story is going. If a character does or says something unexpected, the reader will be shaken (or at the very least awakened from his blissful sleep.) The archetypal shapeshifter works wonderfully for this purpose. Surprises can range from having a character smile at someone before smacking him across the face, to having a trusted friend betray your innocent hero. Surprises can also come in the form of well-guarded secrets exposed at the right time.

2. Have a ruthless/powerful antagonist.

Powerful doesn’t necessarily mean “rich.” It could just be someone who has many advantages over the heroine (beauty, confidence, the love interest’s affection, etc.) Hickman recommends an especially violent character, but I think it really depends on what genre you’re writing. If your book is lighter, a violent character obviously doesn’t belong, but you can still have an antagonist powerful enough to torment the main character (and the reader!)

3. The nightmare comes true.

Though we may feel inclined to protect our characters (they’re our babies, after all), the truth is that when things go too smoothly it can be very boring for the reader. Remember what Leo Tolstoy wrote at the beginning of Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In other words, bad things should happen to your protagonist (whether you like it or not.)

Think of the worst thing that could happen to your main character. Now do it. (This can include taking away the thing that she values the most—be it an object, a loved one, a job, etc.) Think about Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. She loses her parents, her slaves, her money, her childhood crush (Ashley), her daughter and her true love (Rhett).

4. Give your character a phobia/fear to confront.

When a particular phobia or weakness is established early on in the text, it can be a good pay off for the reader when the character is forced to confront it. This could represent (when done right) a great moment of tension in the story. (Just picture your reader with her fingers clutching the pages of your book. Now that’s a beautiful image!)

Think of Alfred Hitchcock’s "Vertigo." The protagonist, Scottie (played by James Stewart), suffers from acrophobia and has to confront it twice to save the woman he loves. He fails the first time but succeeds the second time.

Scottie's fear of heights is tested in "Vertigo" (1958)

The same goes for the protagonist of "Jaws" (Roy Scheider.) The one thing he fears the most is the water. He could have let the marine biologist and the professional shark hunter go after the killer shark attacking the beach-goers in his small shore town, but his strong sense of duty forces him to go with them. In the end, he has to confront both the shark and the ocean after the boat is destroyed.

5. Show the danger is real.

The reader won’t worry too much about your main character if you’re constantly sheltering her from tragedy. In order to warn the reader that bad things may in fact happen to the protagonist, you must show the danger is real and can reach anyone. How do you do this? By hurting your main character or killing someone whom she cares about (as painful as that may be for you, gulp.) This raises the hero’s personal stakes and gives you an opportunity to include an emotional moment in your novel.

6. Never make things easy for your main character.

Have you noticed that us human-types don’t usually appreciate things that are easily attained? (Remember when your mom/grandmother told you to “play hard to get” with that guy you liked? Well, she said it for a reason! It’s human nature to want those things we can’t have.) The same is true for our characters. If their goals come to them effortlessly, they won’t value them as much as if they suffer to get them (neither will your reader.) If readers witness the many obstacles the protagonist must overcome to achieve her goal, they will cheer for her when she succeeds in the end.

7. Include an external circumstance or event beyond the character’s control.

Think about the movie "Titanic." Remember how the imminent sinking of the ship added suspense and tension to an otherwise predictable plot? I watched this movie in the theatre and not a peep was heard during those harsh scenes where masses of characters were dying and there was nothing Rose could do to change her situation.

The environment “turns loose” on Jack and Rose in "Titanic" (1997)

This doesn’t mean that every novel should have a natural disaster. Other external incidents can include wars, epidemics, political factors (ruthless dictators, protests, etc) or economical circumstances (think "The Pursuit of Happyness" or "Angela’s Ashes.")

8. Haunt your character with a past failure.

Characters should have flaws. We all know that. But if you include a past failure, it will add another layer to your story. The character will seem more real if the reader believes that the hero had a past before the novel started. Especially if this bad experience still affects his present decisions and his confidence to succeed in whatever mission he’s now encountering. Insecurities in characters are a good thing because as readers, we want to see them become stronger and grow.

9. Impose a deadline.

Do you hold your breath when you watch your favorite athlete (team, horse, loved one) during a race? Does your pulse quicken? Are you unable or unwilling to take your eyes away from the competition? (Even if you don’t watch any sports, humor me please.) Well, the same thing happens when a beloved character must beat a ticking clock to achieve an objective (especially if the consequences of not making it on time are disastrous.) There doesn’t always have to be a clock (though some novels/films use this element.) What matters is that you create a sense of urgency and transmit it to your reader. If you ever saw the movie "Nick of Time", starring Johnny Depp, you know exactly what I mean. A less literal example is the film "Poseidon". The characters are on a race against time to reach the top (in this case, the bottom) of the ship before it drowns. Many romantic comedies use this device, too. The protagonist must reach the love interest before she marries someone else or gets on a plane that will take her to a faraway land (for good!)

In "Back to the Future" (1985), Marty McFly must make his parents fall in love and then return to the time machine (the DeLorean) before lightning strikes the clock tower. Or else he'll cease to exist.

10. Add a final twist near the end of the novel.

Ideally, endings shouldn’t be predictable. The contradiction is that they shouldn’t be inconsistent with the plot, either. In other words, you shouldn’t write a tragic ending in your romantic comedy only because you don’t want the audience to predict the outcome. What you could do is come up with one surprise or twist for the reader that in retrospect seems inevitable. The reader should finish the book realizing that it couldn’t have ended any other way. An excellent example that Hickman offered in class is the movie "Shrek." We all know that Princess Fiona and Shrek will end up together (inevitable). The twist is that instead of Fiona staying a beautiful princess forever, she turns into an ogre, just like Shrek (surprise.) Upon reflection, we realize that an ogre and a princess wouldn’t have fit well together. Fiona had to become an ogre. Surprising inevitability.

Perhaps this last caveat is what makes endings so difficult. There must be a balance between giving the reader a satisfactory ending, but making it unique enough so that the reader can’t predict every bit of dialogue to the letter.

Use a combination of suspense builders that seem appropriate for your story and genre. Many successful novels and films do. Just take a look at this year’s Oscar-winning film "The King’s Speech" and you’ll find many of them.

King George VI, aka Bertie, must confront his fear of
public speaking in "The King’s Speech" (2010)

What about you: What tools have you found more useful for adding suspense in your novel? Do you have a hard time coming up with a satisfactory ending?

Pink covers.

‘When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.’
--Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Spanish playwright and novelist, 1901-1952

There is a difference between being able to adequately assess whether or not the writing behind a project is good, and dismissing an entire sub-genre out of hand. Why is it that those projects which avail themselves of the rich trove of archetypal characterizations and plotlines and those which garner critical acclaim often congregate at opposite ends of the continuum?

To put it another way, why are the pocketbooks of the masses open for the presumably inferior devices of ‘commercial’ writing while the more refined eye of the intellectual elite appears to delight— if in a muted, ironic fashion— only in stories which regularly eschew the time-honored hero’s journey altogether?

Put yet another way, why is it that the Katherine Heigl vehicles and the Nancy Meyers projects consistently rake in the bucks while the depressing— arguably demoralizing— films and genres of literature mostly concerned with meeting Waterloo are often leagues ahead in racking up the ‘serious art’ brownie points? Why is there a disconnect between what the average heart races to consume— again and again— and what the above-average intelligence scrambles to approve of? And— perhaps most importantly— can we, as writers, heal the breach?

Is it tone? Is it execution? Or is it subject matter? Is it the difference between tying up all the loose bits at the end with a tidy bow and leaving the characters flailing in a vat of angst and lack of resolution that determines the credibility conferred upon a work? Is it all of these things? Is it any of them?

Perhaps it’s compression, the sense that if the writing is swiftly and methodically touching all of the mile markers— the call, the reluctance to answer, the introduction of allies, obstacles, heightened stakes, the turning point, the moment of grace with— on celluloid— the gratuitous close-up, the dark moment which more often than not smacks of contrivance at the end of act two chased by the scene with a manufactured sense of urgency as it barrels toward resolution— that leaves certain readers/viewers cold with the awareness that attempts at emotional manipulation are underway. Well, naturally, all experience of art is an exercise in emotional manipulation. The question then becomes is the manipulation seamless or do the seams show? And my question to you— as the writers responsible for many of these journeys— is why do the seams show more consistently in the stuff that sells?

I recently watched a Katherine Heigl film with the express purpose of dismantling the experience in order to study it. There was a row of women behind me in the theatre who laughed a lot. They peppered my viewing experience with exclamations of, ‘Oh, snap!’ and— in the moment that the boy does in fact return to the girl at the end of act three— ‘I knew it!’ When the lights went up, they cheered.

In other words, these women were moved enough by unapologetically formulaic premise, plot and execution to grow noisy and applaud— though it must be said that, personally, I gave Heigl herself a fair amount of the credit. In any event, the consumers got what they paid for. And as I sat there in my movie bucket seat next to a fellow scribe along for the experimental ride, a jumble of thoughts rushed through both mind and heart— the most salient of which were, for whom am I writing? And why?

Is my writing trying to be an artful interpretation of human experience? A commentary that is ethical in nature? Moralistic? Subversive? Sublime? Is it trying to emerge as something which pulls a more visceral punch or something that—perhaps, finally, by unabashed design— simply goes down easy? I know I want my readers to feel, but how do I want them to feel? Do I want them to laugh? Cry? Both— often? Or do I want them to think? Do I want to rout expectation or do I want to take them where they’re paying me to lead— straight through the reliable climb of escalating emotion and down a safe descent into surprising inevitability? Can I even decide— with authority— and, if so, do I have the chops to carry out any intentions with excellence?

Though a novelist, the bulk of my night stand material— say, 85%?— is non-fiction. When it comes to story, you might call me immoderately particular. I like a smart read, but not one that is too heavy. I’m partial to sharp banter between expertly-drawn voices but not too many graphic scenarios (or any, really.) I like to read characters stripped of their complacency but not of their dignity and— if at all possible— with a light touch. I favor subtlety but not authorial conceit. I like to laugh but not at the expense of substance and I like to grow but not at the (total) expense of levity. But perhaps most of all, I like to be left on an auspicious— but not hackneyed— note.

Which leads me to wonder, is it possible to write a book that can translate to a two-hour capsule— easily consumed with a side of popcorn and Junior Mints— which at the same time does not inspire the roll of a more discriminating eye? Because to imagine that a description like ‘bubble-gum pink’ covers the scope of the contemporary female living— largely through accident of birth— in an industrialized society as she grapples with vocation, love and progeny is both an indignation and a challenge.

So— in the end— does the onus of responsibility land on us as writers to execute these reputedly bromidic arcs in such a way that the dismissal of the erudite is not a foregone conclusion? Forgive me, as I seem to be all questions, today— and with precious little in the way of answers— but I’m stumped, and have been so for a rather annoyingly long time.

Perhaps you can shine some light along the way?

Until next time, dear reader.

Your,
-Aurora