elumish:

heartlessharless:

Suspense is one of the trickier parts of writing to manage effectively because, as the author, you can’t experience your story the way a reader does. If you don’t have enough suspense, it can be difficult to keep your readers interested. If you have too much, frustrated and stressed-out readers might throw your book against the wall. Too much suspense can even backfire – if you try to keep your readers constantly on edge, they can stop taking things seriously and the end result is as though you never included any suspense at all.

So how can you tell if you’ve reached the right balance? Unfortunately, I can’t answer that for you. Some things really do require feedback from honest and insightful readers. Once you have that feedback, however, there are easy tricks to adjusting the level of suspense without a drastic re-write. Here are my five favorite methods.

Promises and Payoffs

• INCREASE SUSPENSE by promising something huge and then giving your reader something unexpected. To borrow an example from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, imagine a teenage boy and girl sneaking into an empty building. Everything from the costumes to the lighting is designed to make you uneasy about the girl’s safety but, in the end, she’s the vampire. Give the audience something sensational and they won’t be disappointed that you didn’t deliver on what you originally promised.
• DECREASE SUSPENSE by promising less than you plan to deliver. For example, if you plan to kill off a character as they walk through a dark alley, let them worry about being mugged rather than murdered. Not only is it less suspenseful, the payoff is more shocking.

Characters are Crucial

• INCREASE SUSPENSE by shifting the focus to a character who’s more involved in the action or one who has more at stake. Even if you have a single POV character, another can come in and demand that character’s attention, along with the readers’.
• DECREASE SUSPENSE by focusing on a character who’s more concerned with a secondary goal. Subplots are a fantastic way to give your readers some room to breathe.

Calm vs. Chaos

• INCREASE SUSPENSE by cutting back on the action. Suspense flourishes in the quiet moments when your characters have time to think and to anticipate what may be in store for them.
• DECREASE SUSPENSE by giving your characters a big, exciting mess to deal with. Even when that mess causes more problems and puts more pressure on your characters in the long run, you’ve still created an oasis where both they and the readers are too distracted to worry about how the big picture will pan out.

Devil’s in the Details

• INCREASE SUSPENSE by concentrating on the details of the setting. Horror movies are great at this – every creak of a door, every shadow across a wall keeps the audience immersed in the experience and tense with anticipation.
• DECREASE SUSPENSE by breaking the “show, don’t tell” rule and allow exposition to help you move things along. You don’t need to take readers through every aspect of your story in excruciating detail. It’s okay to gloss over some things and it helps readers relax because they know you’re not going to be springing any surprises on them just yet.

Ticking Time-Bomb

• INCREASE SUSPENSE by imposing a deadline that your characters struggle to meet. It’s one of the oldest and most obvious tricks in the book, but very effective.
• DECREASE SUSPENSE by allowing your characters to believe that the deadline has been met or pushed back. If they (and the readers) believe that they’ve accomplished their goal or bought themselves more time, it relieves pressure and allows everyone to relax until the truth’s revealed.

The one thing to remember is that sometimes, if you decrease suspense too much and then have a big event, it can feel like the event came out of left field, and you lose credibility to your readers. 

Make sure, even if you decrease suspense, there’s still a reason for what happens. If an ordinary character is walking down a dark alley worried about being mugged, and then they’re killed by an assassin, it seems absurd. If someone who has been previously targeted thinks that everyone after them is dead/otherwise stopped, and then they’re killed by an assassin, it feels real, and the result is even more interesting.

the-right-writing:

• They do bad things because they’re scared.
• They’re gullible or misinformed. Example: somebody who has been told the heroes are out to hurt them.
• They are desperate for interaction, validation, kindness, or attention, and the dark side gives them those things. 
• They want to change their allegiance, but are pressured by people close to them to stay evil.
• They have an otherwise noble goal that they will do literally anything to achieve. Example: somebody who wants to protect their child, even if it means throwing other children into danger.