Keep Them in Suspense

Suspense is what keeps people turning the pages, no matter what genre of story it is, and since no one wants a reader to put down their book before the end, this seems like a good topic to explore. We writers love to use that word – suspense – but it might also be thought of as frustration.  The reader wants to know something and the writer keep saying, “I’ll tell you in a minute” and by the time that minute is over the story is done. If you write thrillers or that subgenre we call suspense, the word worry might work better.
I first learned about suspense when read the Tarzan novels.  Edgar Rice Burroughs had an interesting technique for holding his readers’ attention.  After the first book the stories involved Tarzan AND Jane.  They always took off on some adventure, and they always got separated. So you might see Tarzan running thru the jungle – he comes face to face with a lion – the lion roars – he pulls his knife.  The lion jumps at him and…
The chapter ends and we’re following Jane.  She’s lost so she climbs a tree.  She finds herself on the limb with a huge snake.  It gets closer.  She’s about to fall out of the tree.  The snake rises up, about to strike and…
The chapter ends. Suddenly we’re watching Tarzan grapple with the lion. And the whole time we’re watching Tarzan, we’re worrying about Jane. As a kid I found this kind of thing very frustrating – but fun. As an adult I learned that people like to be frustrated this way.    More technically, suspense is created by posing a question the reader wants answered.  In my own work i use three different kinds of suspense.  There is “what’s going on here?” suspense.  If you watched the television show Lost, or more recently Colony, you know what that is.  You came back every week trying to figure out what the heck was going on. 
There is also “why is this happening?” suspense.  This is what writers mean when they tell you to start the story in the middle.  Page one opens with someone holding a gun in your hero’s face, saying “This is what happens to people who go poking their noses into my business.” Of course, then the writer has to answer the obvious questions during the action. 
Btw, in my opinion, Stephen King is the best novelist alive and King writes suspense - not horror. Every King novel is a master class on how to write the “why is this happening?” kind of suspense. If you haven’t time to read one of his giant books, Rent the first season of his TV show “Under the Dome.” You’ll get the idea.
We’ll talk about other kinds of suspense, and how to create them, next week.