Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction

by Patricia Highsmith

Consequently here, I describe economic difficulties I’ve had, physical ones, too—noise, other people—and I also speak about the publicity efforts that a writer has to make for himself, because he cannot always count on his agent to make these efforts for him. Agents, like anyone, can be lazy, especially with the clients who are not earning so much. It is often up to the writer to bestir himself and think of ways to advertise his talent. Every human being is different from the next, as handwriting and fingerprints prove. Every painter or writer or composer has consequently something different to say from the next (or should have). A Rembrandt or a Van Gogh is identifiable from a distance and at once. I believe in individuality, in being oneself, in using the maximum of one’s talent. That is what this book is all about. That is what the public finally loves—something special and individual. APRIL 1988 CHAPTER 1 THE GERM OF AN IDEA THE first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. If you can amuse yourself for the length of time it takes to write a book, the publishers and the readers can and will come later. Every story with a beginning, middle, and end has suspense; a suspense story presumably has it more so. In this book I shall use the word suspense in the way the book trade uses it, as meaning stories with a threat of violent physical action and danger, or the danger and action itself. Another characteristic of the suspense story is that it p...