Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

by Sol Stein

Suspense needles the reader with a feeling of anxious uncertainty. Here are examples of the kinds of situations that create suspense: • A prospective danger to a character. • An actual immediate danger to a character. • An unwanted confrontation. • A confrontation wanted by one character and not by the other. • An old fear about to become a present reality. • A life crisis that requires an immediate action. The writer’s duty is to set up something that cries for a resolution and then to act irresponsibly, to dance away from the reader’s problem, dealing with other things, prolonging and exacerbating the reader’s desperate need for resolution. Therefore: • Don’t eliminate the prospective danger to a character. • Don’t let the character overcome the immediate danger without facing an even greater danger. • If your character is apprehensive about an unwanted confrontation, make sure you hold off that confrontation as long as possible. • When an old fear is about to become a present reality, don’t relieve the fear. Make the situation worse than the character anticipated. • If a character’s life crisis requires an immediate action, make certain that the action backfires. Prolong the crisis. The point, of course, is that you don’t resolve the suspense you’ve aroused. Your duty is to be mean. You are giving the reader a thrill he yearns for in books and detests in life. You frustrate the reader’s expectations.