3 Tips for Writing Suspense

 

Pages From My Journal - 003: Simple Joy

I opened Twine today for the first time since October of 2025. I decided to play The Black Hare to see how far I'd gotten. I chose the Vigilante Route, and followed along, going through two of the three main portions in the prologue: the breakfast, and the exploration of the train.

Every time I made a choice that personalized my character - name, sex, background, skintone, travel clothes, etc. - a little green box popped up to tell me. It added it to my Profile, which I could access from the menu, and when I opened it up, I could see everything I needed to know about the character I was building in my playthrough. I found some newspaper articles I liked, and clipped and added them to my Journal, to keep in case they come in handy later on. Things I'd forgotten that I'd even included in my game.

It gave me a burst of happiness as I went through the game, and found myself actually enjoying it as a player. Sure, it's my creation, but I'd given myself distance enough from it that for once, I was able to play through it and really see it as a player, not as a developer or writer.

I took stock of my game and tried to figure out what needed to be done to have that promised prologue finally finished. At 276 passages, and only about 1/5 of the way complete, it feels an almost overwhelming task. And yet, I know that when I do, I'll feel just as proud, if not prouder, to have done so.

The best part is the feeling of having already tackled large projects - projects that took me months and years to finish - and knowing that if I've done it once, twice, thrice, then I can certainly do it again. So what if this is a behemoth? I have a whole resource that talks about eating elephants. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and do just that.

I haven't felt so creatively motivated in a very long time. It brings me joy to feel it again. I've missed this. Through the burnouts and the long winters of creativity, I've truly missed this.

I hope this time it sticks around for a long while.