Adding Tension, Suspense, & Intrigue to Any Story

 

Concrete Tips for Adding Tension, Suspense, & Intrigue to Any Story

I'm over at The Kill Zone blog today with this post: 

by Jodie Renner, editor & author 

Are you in the process of writing a novel? Maybe a thriller or other popular fiction that you hope will grab readers and really sell? Besides a great character and a fascinating plot, you’ll also need some tried-and-true fiction-writing techniques to take your story up a level or three.

To keep readers engaged and eagerly turning the pages, all genres of fiction, not just thrillers, need tension and intrigue – and a certain amount of suspense. And of course, you’ll need to ratchet up the tension, intrigue, and suspense a lot more if you’re writing a fast-paced, nail-biting, page-turner.

Here are some techniques for engaging your readers and keeping them riveted: 

~ First, create a protagonist that readers will care about, and give him some worries and secrets. 

Make your hero or heroine intriguing and complex, clever and resourceful. But not perfect – make them vulnerable too, with an Achilles heel and some inner conflict, regrets, and secrets. In most cases, you want your protagonist to be likeable too, or at least have some endearing traits to make readers worry about her and root for her. If readers can’t identify with or bond with your character, it’s pretty hard to make them care what happens to her. Essential Characteristics of a Thriller Hero

~ Get up close and personal. 

Use deep point of view (first-person or close third person) to get us into the head and body of your main character right from the opening paragraph. Show his thoughts, fears, hopes, frustrations, worries, and physical and sensory reactions in every scene. Engage Your Readers with Deep Point of View.

~ Show your hero or heroine in action in the first paragraphs. 

Rather than opening with description, background info, or your character alone musing, it’s best to jumpstart your story with your lead interacting with someone else who matters to them, preferably with a bit of discord and tension. And show his/her inner thoughts and emotional reactions, maybe some frustration or anxiety. 

~ Give your character a problem to solve right from the get-go. It can be minor, but creating an early conflict that throws your lead off-balance makes your readers worry about him. A worried reader is an engaged reader.

~ Withhold information. 

Don’t tell your readers too much too soon. This is so important and a common weakness for new fiction writers. Hold off on critical information. Hint at a traumatic or life-changing event early on, then reveal fragments of info about it little by little, through dialogue, thoughts, and brief flashbacks, to tantalize readers and keep them wondering and worrying.

For the rest of this blog post, with many more tips, go to:

 https://killzoneblog.com/2020/09/concrete-tips-for-adding-tension-suspense-intrigue-to-any-story.html

Click HERE for options to receive email alerts of new posts published on this blog.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICKCLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook. 

Two of my articles in Suspense Magazine

Available on Amazon in e-book or print

by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker

I'm pleased to share that Suspense Magazine has published two of my articles to date on various techniques for increasing the tension, suspense, and intrigue in your novel.

Here is the first third of an article of mine published in the August 2013 issue:

Adding Suspense, Tension and Intrigue to Your Story

by Jodie Renner

All genres of fiction, not just thrillers and action-adventures, need tension, suspense, and intrigue to keep readers eagerly turning the pages. And of course, you’ll need to ratchet up the tension and suspense a lot more if you’re writing a fast-paced, nail-biting page-turner.

Some “Big-Picture” Techniques for Adding Suspense:

~ First, make your readers care about your protagonist by creating a likeable, appealing, strong, smart and resourceful but vulnerable character, with some inner conflict. If readers haven’t bonded with your main character, they won’t care what happens to him or her.

~ Create a cunning, frightening villain. Your villain needs to be as clever, determined and resourceful as your protagonist – or even more so. Make him a serious force to be reckoned with!

~ Threaten your protagonist. Now that your readers care about your main character, insert a major threat or dilemma within the first chapter that won’t be resolved until the end. Create an over-riding sentence about this to keep in mind as you’re writing your story: Will (name) survive/stop/find/overcome (difficulty/threat)?

~ Establish a sense of urgency, a tense mood, and generally fast pacing. Unlike cozy mysteries and other more leisurely genres, thrillers and other suspense fiction generally need a tense mood and fast pacing throughout most of the novel, with short “breathers” in between the tensest scenes.

~ Show, don’t tell. Show all your critical scenes in real time, with action, reaction, and dialogue. Show your character’s inner feelings and physical and emotional reactions. Don’t have one character tell another about an important event or scene.

~ Use multiple viewpoints, especially that of the villain. For increased anxiety and suspense, get us into the head of your antagonist from time to time. This way the readers find out critical information the heroine doesn’t know, things we want to warn her about!

~ Keep the story momentum moving forward. Don’t get bogged down in backstory or exposition. Keep the action moving ahead, especially in the first chapter. Then work in background details and other info little by little, on an “as-needed” basis only, through dialogue or flashbacks.

~ Create a mood of unease by showing the main character feeling apprehensive about something or someone or by showing some of the bad guy’s thoughts and intentions.

~ Add in tough choices and moral dilemmas. Devise ongoing difficult decisions and inner conflict for your lead character. Besides making your plot more suspenseful, this will also make your protagonist more complex, vulnerable, and interesting.

... for the rest of this article, go to www.SuspenseMagazine.com and purchase the August 2013 issue, which is full of excellent articles, many by bestselling authors! They also have some free issues available.

 

 

 

 

And here's about 1/3 to 1/2 of the second article of mine, published in the Sept./Oct. 2013 issue of Suspense Magazine. This one's on foreshadowing to create intrigue.

 

Amp up the Tension, Suspense, and Intrigue with Foreshadowing

by Jodie Renner

As you’re writing your thriller or other suspense novel, you want to be constantly thinking of ways to provoke reader curiosity and apprehension, so they keep anxiously turning the pages.

Foreshadowing is an excellent technique for adding suspense, especially for the first half of your novel, but it’s one that requires some planning (or backtracking later) and a bit of expertise to really be effective.

What is foreshadowing?

Foreshadowing is about dropping little clues about possible secrets, revelations, complications, and trouble to come. To pique the reader’s interest and keep her reading, hint at dangers lurking ahead. Foreshadowing incites curiosity, anticipation, and worry in the readers, and also prepares them somewhat for the possibility of later occurrences, so lends some credibility when the hinted-at event does occur.

For example, in the opening of The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy’s still in Kansas, the transformation of Miss Gulch into a witch on a broomstick foreshadows her reappearance as Dorothy’s enemy in Oz.

Weave little hints in as you go along, but be subtle about it, and don’t give away the ending. If you make it obvious, it takes away the suspense and intrigue, along with the reader’s pleasure at trying to figure everything out.

Why is foreshadowing important?

Foreshadowing is a way of alerting readers to the possibility of upcoming critical events, of telling them to keep reading because some exciting developments are ahead.

Foreshadowing creates suspense. According to the dictionary, suspense is “a quality in a work of fiction that arouses excited expectation about what may happen.”

If you don’t foreshadow events and developments to come, readers will have no expectations, so no anticipation or worry. Foreshadowing stimulates curiosity and provides intrigue, increasing tension and suspense.

Also, if events and changes are foreshadowed, when they do occur, they seem more credible, not just a random act or something you suddenly decided to stick in there, especially if they’re unexpected. ...

...

How to use foreshadowing:

Use foreshadowing to lay the groundwork for future tension, to tantalize readers about upcoming critical scenes, confrontations or developments, major changes or reversals, character transformations, or secrets to be revealed.

Foreshadowing to add worry and increase reader engagement

...

Some ideas for foreshadowing:

Here are some of the ways you can foreshadow events or revelations in your story:

– Show a pre-scene or mini-example of what happens in a big way later. The roads are icy and the car starts to skid but the driver manages to get it under control and continues driving, a little shaken and nervous. This initial near-miss plants worry in the reader’s mind. Then later a truck comes barreling toward him and... (or the icy road causes some other kind of accident).

– The protagonist overhears snippets of conversation or gossip and tries to piece it all together, but it doesn’t all make sense until later.

– Hint at shameful secrets or bad memories your protagonist has been hiding, trying to forget about.

For the rest of this article and many more top-notch articles, go to www.SuspenseMagazine.com and subscribe to the Sept./Oct. 2013 issue.

For more tips on amping up the tension, suspense, and intrigue in your novel, see Jodie's book, Writing a Killer Thriller - An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction.

Jodie Renner, a freelance fiction editor specializing in thrillers and other fast-paced fiction, has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER and STYLE THAT SIZZLES & PACING FOR POWER (Silver Medalist in the FAPA Book Awards, 2013). Both titles are available in e-book and paperback.

For more info, please visit Jodie’s author website or editor website, or find her on Facebook or Twitter.

 

WRITING A KILLER THRILLER on sale & in paperback

The updated and expanded second edition of my e-book, Writing a Killer Thriller - An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction, is on sale for only one more day at $1.99, so grab it while it's still at half price! And it's now available in trade paperback, on sale for $8.54.

Here's the beginning of a new article of mine that's up on Crime Fiction Collective blog today:

Big-Picture Problems to Look for in Your Novel

New edition e-book, and in print today.

by Jodie Renner, editor & author

Has anyone told you your almost-done story is too long, confusing, or just doesn't grab them? Here are some typical “big-picture” weaknesses to watch out for in your novel and correct before publishing it or pitching it to an agent. These types of glaring gaffes in writing, pacing, plot, or structure will bog down your story and could sink your reputation as a novelist. Fortunately, they can all be remedied at the revision and self-editing stages.

~ Overwriting. Not enough self-editing.
Today’s bestselling thrillers are mostly between 70,000 and 90,000 words long. Unless you’re an absolutely brilliant writer, and experts in the business have told you so, if your manuscript is over 95,000 words long, it definitely needs tightening up.

~ Meandering writing – the main story question / problem is fuzzy or buried.
What’s the protagonist’s main goal and fear, and his main problem? This should be obvious early on and be the overriding driving force behind your whole story. Don’t let it get lost in meandering writing, too much backstory, frequent info dumps, too many characters, too many subplots, and unrelated plot details.

~ One unrelated thing after another happens.
Don’t get caught up in “and then, and then, and then,” with a bunch of sub-stories or episodes that aren’t related to each other and don’t directly tie in with the main plot problem and story question. Your events and scenes need to be connected by cause and effect. Each scene should impact the following scenes and complicate future events.

~ Dog’s breakfast
A common problem is too many characters crowding the scenes with no elbow room, and readers getting confused and frustrated trying to remember who’s who. Or maybe you have too many subplots that veer off in different directions and confuse the issue. Or a convoluted story where many issues or subplots don’t tie in with the main character and their overarching problem. ....

 

For the rest of this article, click HERE. 

WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, 2nd Edition, now out

by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker

I'm pleased to announce that my revised and expanded 2nd edition of Writing a Killer Thriller - An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction is now available on Kindle and in trade paperback for $8.54.

This new edition, which is four times as long as the original, popular e-booklet, with lots more great tips on increasing the tension, suspense, and intrigue of your fiction, is on sale for $1.99 until Tues. a.m., June 18 only, as a special deal for people who bought the first edition. Then this new one will go up to $3.95, then to $4.95. So get it while it's half price! (It won't be offered it for free.)

Also, I'll send a free PDF of the new edition to anyone who wrote a positive review for the first edition.

Please send any feedback to me via my website: Info@JodieRenner.com.

Here are some advance reviews of this expanded second edition:

“Finally, someone who understands the thriller! More than ever an author must also be his own best editor and Jodie Renner is there to help. Writing a Killer Thriller should be on every thriller writer’s desk. It breaks down the thriller into its must-have component parts to write a scintillating, edge of the seat novel that will get readers buzzing and sales flowing.”

~ Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author of The Jury Master and Murder One


“Writing a Killer Thriller by Jodie Renner is an in-depth journey through each component of the thriller. Renner breaks down the process into key elements, each essential to keeping the reader turning those pages. From character development to building suspense, Writing a Killer Thriller should be on the desk of every thriller author out there. A staple for the beginner, a refresher for the pro.” 

~ Joe Moore, #1 Amazon and international bestselling co-author of The Blade and The Phoenix Apostles


“Writing is hard, editing harder, and self-editing almost impossible. Writing a Killer Thriller demystifies each of these steps on the road to a published manuscript. Read this book. It will help you now and for many years to come.”

~ DP Lyle, Macavity Award winning and Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Benjamin Franklin, Scribe, and USA Best Books nominated author of the Dub Walker thriller series


“A killer of a thriller guide! Jodie Renner lays out, in clear, easy steps and lists, how the best writers craft their works of art – and shows how you can do it, too. A terrific how-to in avoiding the pitfalls and burnishing the gotta-haves of writing a bestselling thriller novel, by an editor who knows her way around action, drama and creating characters so fresh and real you’ll swear they were your friends.”

~ Shane Gericke, national bestselling and No. 1 Kindle bestselling author of Torn Apart
“Jodie Renner is a terrific fiction editor who is constantly updating her craft. She’s edited several novels for me, and I highly recommend her services and books. Even if you don’t write thrillers, her advice is applicable to writing a compelling story in almost any genre.”

~ L.J. Sellers, bestselling author of provocative mysteries and thrillers


“In Writing a Killer Thriller, Jodie Renner propels your writing to the competitive level that’s critical to delivering a thriller ace. She outlines easy-to-apply techniques on how to ‘hook ’em’ from the beginning, pump tension into every scene, fix those plot holes, and create compelling characters that will drive readers to keep reading until the very last page. ...From drafting your novel utilizing the basic elements of a thriller to creating your riveting final revision that packs a high-intrigue punch, Jodie shows you how to deliver a break out thriller—again and again.” 

~ Donna Galanti, 2012 International Thriller Writers Debut Author of the paranormal suspense novel A Human Element and the short story collection The Dark Inside.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor who specializes in thrillers, mysteries, and other fast-paced fiction. For more info on Jodie’s editing services and her books, please visit her website. Jodie has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Writing and Killer Thriller and Style That Sizzles & Pacing for Power, which is available in paperback, as an e-book on Kindle, and in other e-book formats. And you don’t need to own an e-reader to purchase and enjoy e-books. You can download them to your computer, tablet, or smartphone.