On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [114]
The suspense that keeps the readers paging through your book isn't the same kind of suspense named in the romantic suspense subgenre—books that involve characters being chased by bad guys, or trying to solve mysteries, or spying on the enemy. The suspense we're discussing here doesn't necessarily involve the characters being in peril; it's created whenever there's something the readers want to know. Will Joe kiss Brenda? Will Sally give in to Brad's demand that she work for him? Will the letter Jill just took out of her mailbox be the answer she wants? Will Jared answer Katherine's question or dodge it?
Whenever you cause the readers to be curious about what comes next, you're creating suspense. Suspense arises naturally from good writing—it's not a spice to be added separately.
In fiction, you create suspense by withholding information from the characters and/or the readers. You, as the author, can therefore create suspense in three main ways:
• By withholding information from the readers. The author knows the entire hidden story behind the plot and characters: the backstory and the plot twists that are yet to come. A new writer is apt to spill out the backstory and hidden story right away, but most stories are improved when at least some of that information is held back—sometimes up to the very end.
• By withholding information from the characters. This is the Hitchcock effect—so called because Alfred Hitchcock was a master of it in his films. By reading between the lines and applying common sense and experience, the readers (like Hitchcock's movie audience) can draw conclusions about what's likely to be coming up. But, like the movie audience, the readers are powerless to prevent a character from stepping into a yawning trap that only the readers can foresee.
• By having the main characters withhold information from the readers and other characters. Just because a character knows something doesn't mean he has to share it with the readers (even if he's a POV character). And even hidden motives will affect how a character acts, clueing alert readers to what's really going on.
When you're writing scenes in which suspense is crucial, keep in mind that putting too much backstory early in the book and using too much introspection
to divulge information about your characters are great ways to bore the readers and destroy any suspense you may have established.
There are, however, a number of techniques you can use to increase the level of suspense in your scenes:
• Keep the action intense. If significant amounts of time go by without suspense-ful action, with the hero and heroine living their everyday lives, the story loses momentum and the readers may lose interest.
• Make the danger feel real to the readers. If the hero and heroine stop in the middle of a chase scene to share a passionate interlude, trusting to dumb luck to keep them from being discovered, then it's going to be hard to convince the readers that they have reason to be fearful. If the readers are to believe in the danger, then the characters must act as if they're threatened. Even if the danger isn't physical, keep pressure on the characters; don't let their problems slip into the background.
• Keep the bad guy in check. The villain needs to be believably, logically bad, not a cartoon. But to allow him to actually rape, pillage, and torture moves the book into general fiction rather than romance.
• Keep the emotional level high. Even if the story doesn't involve physical danger for the characters, their lifelong happiness is at stake. Keeping emotions at the core of the story reminds the readers how important the situation is.
• Limit the story's time frame. Putting restrictions on how long your story can last increases suspense. A two-week vacation, a school semester, a train journey, a wedding date, a project deadline—all can function as time clocks, pushing the hero and