3 Tips for Writing Suspense
My Three Tips for Writing Suspense
My all-time favourite thing to do with my writing is to build suspense for readers. I love writing suspense because it makes the story exciting - not just for the readers who will be reading it, but for me as the author.
Over my many years of writing, I've found that there are a bunch of methods to create suspense that are effective and easy to use. Here are just 3 of the ways that I personally enjoy building suspense in my stories, and I hope they work for you, too.
1. Deliberate Description
One thing I've found over my years of writing suspense is that having a middle-ground when it comes to description is key. You don't want to go on a long ramble about what a house looks like to the minutest of details for paragraphs and pages in a row! That gets boring very quick, and a lot of readers will probably just end up skimming it or skipping it completely - not something you want readers to be doing.
At the same time, you don't want to give absolutely zero description, because it leaves the reader floating in space like an astronaut that's lost their spaceship, wondering where they are. You have to find a comfortable middle-ground, where you give them what they need to know about the setting your characters are in, and leave out all the unimportant details.
In other words, focus your description. Make it deliberate. Is it important for the reader to know what the apartments and rooms look like in my eerie suspense novella Apartment? No - not just because it gives little value to the reader as it lends almost nothing to the plot or literary analysis, but also because not describing these settings in detail also allows me to create a cold, empty, bare-room atmosphere for the book, which is definitely something I'm going for (with the exception of one vibrant, cluttered, very much lived-in setting, which stands out all the more because the other settings are so minimal in description). My descriptions - and lack thereof in some areas - are therefore deliberate.
How much description you include, though, is a balance you have to figure out for yourself as a writer. There's no easy answer there. It'll vary depending on what kind of suspense you're writing.
Are you writing a historical thriller? You'll probably have a lot to describe because your readers will be in an unfamiliar setting - but try not to go overboard in the more suspense-heavy scenes.
Are you writing a contemporary suspense novel? You might get away with less description because many settings might seem quite familiar to readers.
At the end of the day, you've got to take a look at your writing and figure out the right balance that allows you to keep readers gripping their metaphorical (or literal) seats in suspense and still get across the information that you need them to know.
Which brings me to my next tip.
2. Information in Increments
When you do give readers important information, you might want to make sure that you dole it out throughout the book in increments. What I mean by that is, if you were to give the readers all the pertinent information in the first few chapters, they might not feel the suspense as strongly because they already know - or at least, they can pretty much guess - what's going to happen.
You can use this to your advantage and turn the tables on the readers, of course. You can give them information, make them think they know what's going on, then rip the rug out from under their feet!
Let's say you've got yourself a mystery. You wouldn't want to give away all your strong plot-turning clues right off the bat, right? You'd want to space them out and make sure you sprinkle a few red herrings into the mix to lead the readers off in the wrong direction. This creates an aura of uncertainty, and in turn creates suspense, because your readers will want to know just what in the world is going on.
In a similar way, when I was writing Apartment, I didn't give out all the information about my characters right away. It wouldn't make for any interesting reveals, nor would it make for a good read. Even when we're smack-dab in the middle of a character's train of thought, we still don't know a great deal about them, making them all the more interesting and mysterious - and suspect. Sometimes, I had characters carry out actions or exhibit specific behaviours that their thought processes didn't straight-out explain, so the reader is left wondering why they're doing certain things, or why they're behaving in that particular way. This also creates suspense.
But it's not just about characters and plot. We've also got to keep in mind that there are smaller cues that can create a strong sense of apprehension for readers, taking the suspense in your writing to another level.
3. Suspenseful Surroundings
You must also pay attention to what's going on around your characters, and around your plot. What's your environment like while everything is going down? What's the atmosphere like? Does it lend itself to the aura of suspense you're trying to create?
In Apartment, there are certain things happening around the characters, in the environments, that build the tension and suspense. For example, the apartment building where our three characters live is practically in the middle of nowhere. If something were to go wrong... well, let's just say that our characters are on their own. In several scenes, the strange and eerie sensation of being in this particularly bizarre building is mentioned, creating an atmosphere of discomfort and unease. The use of cameras gives the impression that characters are being watched, which keeps them on edge - and, by extension, the reader. There are other small bits and pieces of environment that lend itself to rising tensions - like, for example, brewing storms and dark, shadowy locations.
Now, this doesn't mean that you need to have the usual visual elements in order to create suspense. There doesn't need to be a storm a-brewin', and your story doesn't have to take place on a dark and stormy night. There are various equally ominous visual cues that you can use in your character's surroundings to create suspense - shadows that take on particular shapes, threatening graffiti on the wall, a vandalized picture frame, a discarded knife in the garden completely overlooked by the characters - there are so many ways to build suspense for the reader through atmosphere. Small cues like this can be just as effective as obvious ones like weather changes.
Which tip do you agree with best?
These are a few things that I do in my suspense writing to keep readers invested and on edge. They're not the only methods I use, but they are effective.
Use these tips to help you create suspenseful stories that keep readers on the edges of their seats while they voraciously devour your book!
And, if you'd like more tips for writing suspense, let me know over on Twitter or right here in the comments.
My eerie suspense novella Apartment is out now - you can buy the book here!
~⭐~
Check out my psychological thriller Apartment. Add it to your TBR on Goodreads!
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