Three Easy Steps to Building Suspense
Hey, my favorite little obscure stars!
I'm super happy right now! I got the chance to share with you a post for this edition of the Wattpad Block Party. I thank the most magnificent Kelly Anne Blount for giving me this opportunity. *salutes*
For those who do not know me, my name is Nicaro and you can find me NicaroChadCoke (Formerly _JasonChin).
If you can't pronounce my name, call me Chad. *snicker*
I am the co-founder of The Write Movement (TheWriteandWin): a group of dedicated wattpaders who assist undiscovered authors of Wattpad to be better writers and ultimately better persons. My co-founder is an unquestionably fabulous poet. Her Wattpad username is . You can check us out if you ever need some help. Here's video to get you pumped:
Now that that's out of the way, let me begin!
Everyone loves a good book.
A good book is all one needs in life.
Famous works such as Matthew J.T. Stepanek's Journey through Heartsongs, Rick Yancey's The Fifth Wave, James Dashner's The Maze Runner and R.L. Stine's Goosebumps are books that have been raved about for many generations and have been ranked as the best of all times. People have loved them.
But, nowadays, it has come to my attention, that books are becoming mistreated and misunderstood. They are being said to be a waste of time, money and space. And though, there are MANY other means of being entertained in this modern world that continuously prove that the aforementioned conjectures of books are true, we forget the real reason why we read, and writers themselves, forget why they write. Therefore, there can be only one to blame in such a form of heedlessness in the world of literature.
It is the fault of a writer's witlessness and TACTLESSNESS of the reader's need for entertainment why books are becoming incessantly misjudged. A good book is dependent on the writer's competence to entice and capture a reader's apprehension and appreciation; whereas a writer's incompetence, ineptitude, and SLACKNESS is rewarded with a potentially good book growing old in a trash can, undeserving of being disposed of in a city dump.
Now don't get me wrong (I hope I don't offend anyone because I don't mean to)... this is only my opinion. Anyone can do anything they put their minds to. But just for proving my point, let me continue.
In simpler terms, if a writer cannot manipulate the mechanics of writing to his or her wit, he or she will then fail in appealing to the humanly emotions that govern this world, and will, eventually, at the end of the day, be referred to as a failure. On the other hand, if a writer is competent in the manipulation of a reader's emotions, (as horrible as it may sound), he or she will be able to hook a reader by the eyes and have that reader awake for hours on end turning pages of their work while they cross your legs and sip tea while trying to figure what part of the plot to twist next.
A great place to start with this joyous form of manipulation (where everyone is seemingly happy) is with the Suspense Factor. For those of us who enjoy reading lengthy stories, or even shorter ones, we have seen where the author just loves to leave us with those heartbreaking cliffhangers and plot twists that twist so far that you even start to hear voices in your head, telling you to slap some sense into the writer of the story.
Trust me, we have all been there.
And, we have also been at that point in our lives where we are up at 4:00 in the morning (with a math quiz or an important work deadline in three hours), binge reading a scrumptious story – an everlasting page turner with a whimsical plot and a knack for making you cry with just the right dose of glee, just because a single chapter ended in the craziest way possible. The characters are having the times of their lives, minding their own business (as the cliché would have it), and all of the sudden, the characters you care about the most – the ones you'd take a bullet for despite them not being as real as you want them to be – gets hit by a car which doesn't even stop after hitting him/her/it. Then just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, the chapter ends . . . just like that! KA-BOOM! *minion voice*
We scream, we shout, we get angry and we curse profanities unto the writer that has just betrayed our trust, (knowing that he or she cannot hear any of our harmless threats), but we are so angered and outraged that we can't help but to wait for an update in the next chapter – where we sometimes have to wait for weeks! This, my favorite little obscure stars, is a perfect example of using the Suspense Factor – one of the major techniques of writing a good book.
Using the suspense factor is an awesome way of restoring credibility among books, assuring reader satisfaction and providing proof that the writer is more than competent enough to entertain. For the suspense factor in your story to be successful, the writer must employ the use of his or her skill in appealing to reader interest/empathy/concern, creating a potentially threatening situation and concentrating/building/diffusing tension. Below are three easy steps to build suspense.
STEP ONE:
Augment Reader Interest & Apprehension/Appeal to Reader Emotion:
People are often told to not judge a book by the chapter they walked in on. Most persons note this proverb well and respect it, nonetheless, there are still a few who pay it no regard and heavily scrutinize a work by its cover (even before they walk in on a chapter). Therefore, to limit or to cut down the amount of potential readers that turn away from your work, I advise that you write something that immediately sparks interest. For instance, instead of starting your story with:
'I wake up to the sound of my annoying alarm clock . . .'
HELLO!
Been there. Done that. BANANA! *minion voice*
We are all tired of reading that cliché form of starting a book. Instead, to prevent a reader from being bored to the bone, try to begin with something like:
'I shift in bed from left to right, knotting my feet with my sheets as my hands roam aimlessly through my messy hair towards the pillow. I grab the pillow with all my might and with both my hands, I slam it against my head deafening the maddening sound of my alarm clock and all the sounds within. All I can smell now are the feathers of my pillow.'
In fact and truth, a reader will realize that the character did not have a good night's rest or is not happy about seeing a new day and will continue reading to find out why. This is augmenting reader interest: HOOK THEM BY THE EYES!
Then, to augment their apprehension, continue the story by giving more information about what has happened to the character or give more information about how the character is feeling. You may also introduce the character's attributes to allow that same character to be relatable to the reader; the reader may fall in love with the character.
Remember, never give away too much information which can be used to 'stretch-the-story-out' for plot-building purposes.
Then again, don't think it's over yet.
You have yet to appeal to the reader's emotion so that they can feel pity for the character. Therefore, present a situation where the character's condition is worsened, i.e., for instance, the character is female, and is now suffering from pains from her monthly cycle. This worsens her state of being and she becomes aggravated, and is suffering from an immense amount of pain. The more this is developed, the more you begin to appeal to reader empathy. The reader will then pity her.
STEP TWO:
Present a Potentially Threatening Situation – Build Tension and Worry with Information:
Now that reader pities your character, present a situation that makes it much worse. Give the reader information that the character does not have to build suspense. This hooks the reader. For illustration, the character mentioned above, (in step one), lives by herself. The smoke detector has just went off in her kitchen, and because she has deafened herself with a pillow, she is unaware that a fire is brewing and her 'death-by-roast' is imminent.
You have given this information to the reader, but the character is still unaware. Questions as to what will happen are brought up, and once the reader cares about the character, they will invest their time is reading further. This is the easiest step in mechanizing a good book.
STEP THREE:
Concentrating Tension, Building it to overwhelm a reader then diffusing it and twisting the plot:
Perhaps this may be the most difficult step in completing. According to a blog I read last year on Writer's Digest, Brian A. Klems, compared the building of tension to add suspense to a story to that of a situation where a human is inflating a balloon. He wrote that you must continuously add more and more and more information about the threatening situation until the reader can't stand it. I completely agree.
In adding more information, we could say that the fire has spread to the rest of the house and attention from the neighbors has not yet been caught. And then, because the character may be the type of person that closes all the windows at night, the fire will be isolated indoors and any sudden opening to the outside world means that the fire will fed with oxygen.
Isolated indoor fire + Sleeping Girl + Sudden Open Door = KA-BOOM! *minions voice*
#A-Not-So-Happy-Ending
#BANANA!
Nonetheless, the girl finally decides to get out of bed and turn off the alarm clock. The fire has worsened and she realizes the danger she's in. By now, your reader is going nuts, screaming: "Girl, DROP and ROLL!" This means that you have concentrated the tension.
Building it will require you to go on by saying that the girl indeed drops out of her bed and rolls out her bedroom. Her entire house is engulfed in flames with no possible way out. Convey her feelings and emotions and add more and more worsening factors to her situation. Overwhelm the reader.
Then, at that juncture, out of nowhere, diffuse the tension by saying, for example, that she escaped. It turns out that she was not the only one in the house. She had come home drunk from a party last night which was why she was not interested in getting out of bed. She had brought home one of her best friends. That friend slept on the couch and had gone out in the morning to pick up some coffee. When that friend had awoken, they had opened a window and when they left, they had not closed the door and therefore the fire was not isolated, (meaning that the door could be opened with a KA-BOOM! *minions voice*). So, when that very brave friend returned from the café with the coffee, noticing the inferno, they burst into the house, run through fire, and save your character.
Of course, this being told in story format would have a MUCH stronger plot and would not have been so silly, but this was just for the purpose of illustration.
If you have managed to complete these steps, at the end of the day – at the end of your story, the reader would undoubtedly have experienced mixed feelings but is very satisfied with the outcome.
***
Thank you guys so much for reading my post! I really appreciate it! Continue the #WattpadBlockParty fun and I'll see you soon! But, before I go, I want to share a small fragment of my story Little Obscurities. Hope you like!
It was still the end of the world.
He stepped onto the pavement of the library parking lot. He looked up. "Time to die," he said, stepping off. He had finally shaken the feeling of nerviness that haunted him.
Impulsively disrupting his train of thought, a fire truck sped past him as he stepped onto the sidewalk, driving with such speed that he could die from pure shock alone. It was then when he looked up that he saw the treacherous transfigured flames that revolutionized what he recognized to be his house.
Demoralizingly yet congenitally mutated, the unfeeling monster eradicated everything. It was then that he realized that it wasn't the end of the world. It was just a fire – a fire on his house!
He stood there unfazed for just a moment as he recalled the tangible memories that could never be replaced. Those memories were the only thing that kept him going, but now, they're simply gone.
The young boy stood there watching his house burn. It was all that he could do.
He pondered on what he had done. He was deep in thought, almost forgetting that his house was on fire. Then something struck in him. It could have been a nerve and it could've been his inner demons finally taking over, but he didn't know when it had happened. All he knew was that he found himself crossing the street without even caring if he was hit by a speeding train, pushing past the multitude that had gathered with their smartphones, slipping under the barricade that the police had formed and walking to the front of the house.
Before you knew it, he came to a halt in front of the raging conflagration of flames.
He stood transfixed watching hell betray the earth. All he could see were the flickering flames from the black rainbow gyrating in the dance of death. The smoke and heat that were exuded from the flames purged the surface of the house as the commander and chief does his people, shredding the walls like pages from our secret souls, staining the window panes with dark marks as trump cards mark history, and ripping the doors off of their hinges like extraditions of outsiders. He could hear the explosions and the crackling sound of the wood of his home until it made him deaf. As sinister as it may have been, his lungs scoffed at the combusting environ. He breathed as if he were a man on fire – a man in black. All the sounds around him were drowned out by the adrenaline that rushed through his heart, ensnaring his soul in the suffering that awaits him.
The flames spread across the yard and into the yards of the neighbors. He fell down to his knees. He started to cry, with sore blue eyes. Everything crashed down on him. Dust and smoke clung to his throat. He wriggled. He blubbered. He bawled.
He swallowed whatever moisture it is that was left in his mouth. He endeavored to quench his heart's thirst.
He then realized after what had seemed to be a millennia, that he had left his mother with whom was not well with his brother with whom was just a boy in that house.
Like an addict begging for clemency from the heavens, he threw his head up and howled at the top of his voice – howled because screaming wasn't enough.
Still, no one noticed.
***
See my profile for the remainder of this chapter!
Don't forget that I will be giving away a dedication in my story "Little Obscurities" and a review of five chapters of any one work of the writer's choice to three lucky winners! Make sure to click the links provided!
Yours sincerely,
Nicaro Chad Coke.
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