One Step Beyond

Last week I posted a number of tips for building suspense, and here’s one more important one: Always be one step ahead of your readers.
As you write you must constantly be asking yourself what your reader is hoping for or wondering about each point in the story. Your job is to give them what they want, when they want it – or maybe a little later than they want it – or to add a twist so you give them more than they bargained for. How do you do that?
1.      As you develop your story, appeal to readers’ fears and phobias. Phobias are irrational fears, so to be afraid of a tarantula is not a phobia, but to be afraid of all spiders is. Most people are afraid of helplessness in the face of danger. Many are afraid of needles, the dark, heights and so on. Think of the things that frighten you most, and you can be sure many of your readers will fear them as well.
2.      Make sure you describe the setting of your story’s climax before you reach that part of the story.  This is necessary to protect your pacing.  In other words, let someone visit it earlier and foreshadow everything you’ll need for readers to picture the scene when the climax arrives. Otherwise you’ll end up stalling out the story to describe the setting, when you should be pushing through to the climax.→3.       As you build toward the climax, isolate your main character.Remove his tools, escape routes and support system (buddies, mentors, helpers or defenders). This forces him to become self-reliant and makes it easier for you to put him at a disadvantage in his final confrontation with evil.
4.      Make it personal. Don’t just have a person get abducted—let it be the main character’s son. Don’t just let the whole city be in danger—let the protagonist’s grandma live there.

Work all those elements into your story, and you will give your readers a satisfying journey and always be one step ahead of them.