Self Discovery and the Essence of Suspense

Just as there's value in noticing that we might habitually lean further forward on initiating a left ski turn than we do when veering right...which is data we can then use to improve those right turns...or that every time we eat ice cream at dinner we wake up a little more tired next morning...or that we're more patient with our child in the weeks following the sharing of some little adventure...or any of a million other bits of knowledge about ourselves that (hopefully) accumulate as the years go by, it's important for an author to recognize patterns in the sequence of steps he or she takes in the writing process. While one method isn't intrinsically better than another across the board, a given piece of the process can most definitely be "best" for any particular individual...or conversely can be a habit detrimental to the final result, a habit that's holding the author back.

The preliminary piece of the puzzle wherein an author "gets" an initial idea for a novel is no exception. There are so many different ways to alight upon a concept we deem adoptable for our next work. Which one works for us?

It has hit me recently, in casting about for a worthy idea for my next novel, that my best work in the past has always begun with...get this...not actualy "getting" a full concept at all. What I "get" is nothing but a single scene, some unexplained moment in time between two people I don't know...a scene that hypnotizes me but which is completely obscure in origin, importance, and outcome. I sense a compelling dilemma, and that is all. And if the intrigue of it is powerful enough for me to wonder what brought those people to that situation, to that brink, and the next day to keep wondering, then the muse is ignited and I take pains to get to know those characters over months...and little by little they reveal to me their backstory leading up to the moment.

But the moment itself, and only it, is always crystal clear.

When such a sliver of isolated inspiration collides with my head and heart, it's a godsend. As I jot down speculations as to its origins and possible results, I get to know the people. What they do is never invented by me; they tell me, by the trail going hot or cold, whether I'm speculating down the wrong road, or getting warm, or spot-on. They demonstrate, subtly, their obscure motivations, their foibles and fears. They correct me, scoffing, mocking, schooling me. Their actions will be true to their complex natures, and no oafish, clumsy fool of an author is going to derail that from being the case.

And invariably, as I learn their story, I share it with my readers in the same spirit of discovery. The telling quite naturally retains the original intrigue, the mystery, the uncertainty that is by degrees disrobed.

This, I believe, is the essence of Suspense. At least, I've learned that this is the process by which world class suspense will always come from my pen. I won't fight it to adopt some other author's process; I'll leverage it, like a volleyball spiker with a damaged left thumb develops his own unexpected and effective back-hand shot despite claims by others that it's unorthodox, like an orator builds a quiet timber of voice into real emphasis.

We live, and hopefully we learn. I'm working (forever) on that right-turn forward lean. I can put the "butt-ugly backhand" on a dime when I need to. I make a point of going on jaunts of all varieties with my kid. I admire and seek to emulate quiet understatement in orators. And I wait for that moment, that unexplained, isolated scene, for my next literary project, alert to them as each one gets here from wherever in the cosmos they come, ready to share the discovery process on paper as it happens in my own heart.

The essence of Suspense will be in the telling.

- Michael Vorhis