Read novels and you will likely encounter the suspense genre; suspense is the art of keeping a reader on the edge of their seat. While suspense is subjective and something may not be suspenseful for one person, there’s a good chance someone else will pick it up. Suspense is built on building a character, setting, and plot in such a way that the reader is constantly unsure what will happen next.
Readers love stories that have tension, suspense and conflict. But not every story can be a thrilling thriller. More often, you need to write a story where your readers know the outcome before it starts.
Suspense isn’t just about making your novel scarier. It’s more about giving readers a reason to keep reading. That reason can be anything, such as wondering who the killer is, or wondering about the characters’ relationships. In fact, readers often enjoy suspense novels more if they don’t already know the ending.
1. Make Your Readers Hungry
A mystery story needs twists and turns that keep the reader turning the pages. Rather, an effective mystery story needs a good setting, suspense, and characters with flaws. The suspense in a thriller novel has to be heightened if the readers will hang on and read to the novel’s conclusion. One way to keep readers reading is to keep the action moving. There are several things you can do to keep your readers’ attention while intensifying the plot.
2.Foreshadow Important Elements
Try to build suspense into your novel early, if possible, so the reader feels anxious and tense right from the start and can’t hold their breath until the climax. Be clear about your main character’s secrets before the reader can guess, and keep the reader guessing about what may happen next. If you correctly foreshadow important elements, your reader won’t know what to expect and will remain guessing.
Just as there are elements that comprise a suspenseful novel, there are also elements in a suspenseful short story. In a short story, suspense is usually revealed through the course of the story, creating a sense of danger and intrigue. In a novel, suspense often lies more in subtle clues and hints, and almost becomes part of the protagonist’s journey. Both genres share the qualities that make up a good suspenseful story, though.
3.Use Flashbacks
Whether it’s a thrilling action adventure or an engaging romance, using flashbacks in your story can create suspense and heighten tension. With vivid impressions of the past, proven by powerful sensory details, flashbacks can add to the tension and emotion of a story. And unlike flash-forwards, which reveal something about the future, flashbacks cannot.
Want to make your novel more suspenseful? You can accomplish that one of two ways. One way is to use flashbacks, which can make your storytelling more intense. Flashbacks can also help you reveal information that would otherwise be kept under the readers’ noses. Using flashbacks in your work makes it difficult for readers to find out important plot points or characters’ secret histories.
4.Build Tension
Tension is a key element in any great story. You want to get your reader involved and committed to the characters in both your plot and your protagonist’s journey. Tension is often created by seeing how someone responds to outside forces. Suspense is a natural by-product of great writing and character development, but it can be difficult for writers to nail the pacing.
Tension is omnipresent in storytelling. In fact, sometimes a stilted opening scene or a slow build up to a denouement can feel out of place and break the flow of a story. However, tension and suspense are necessary ingredients in any good story. They engage the reader and help them enter the world of fiction.
5.Hint at What’s to Come
Mystery and thriller novels are about uncovering pieces of a puzzle that readers can’t begin to piece together. This is part of the fun, insomuch as readers enjoy the exhilaration of solving a mystery, but for writers, approaching the mystery scene in a novel is always a challenge.
Suspense is provocative. It’s attractive because it engages the reader, and compels them to keep reading and delve deeper into the story. It’s often the surprise and unexpected element that makes a story more memorable—and more suspenseful.
It seems every writer has their own trick for adding suspense to their books. Some suggest leaving hints about a character’s fall, others suggest adding more twists, and still others suggest setting their book in a place and time that can be interpreted in different ways. The challenge for mystery writers is that creating a suspenseful plot that keeps going until the end is difficult, but it can be done.
Zeeva Usman is a senior writer at Peter and Petra. She is leading the remote working training program at Human right Warrior and content marketing specialist at Church Marketing Agency. When not working she loves to play with her two dogs, Palm and Oreo.
