1. Creating Suspense Creative Writing – P.5

2. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna KareninaLeo TolstoyAnna Karenina What is wrong with this family?

3. Three basic techniques of suspense: mystery conflict tension

4. Mystery: Deliberately puzzling or confusing a reader may keep them reading for a while, but at too great an expense. To make the puzzle or mystery really compelling, the author must keep closing the door on all sensible or ingenious solutions to the mystery that may occur to the reader.

5. The author’s final solution may strike the reader as preposterous or a disappointing letdown. The interest is not in the characters and actions they take, but in the mystery and how it will be explained.

6. Conflict: Creates uncertainty as an aspect of suspense. Often becomes a matter of choice. How will the protagonist decide? The outcome must be made to depend on the character’s will.

7. To be effective, the situation of the conflict must be developed so that the forces or weights or values on each side are more or less balanced. However, the better the conflict is developed, the more difficult it is to resolve.

8. Tension: Creates anticipation. Consists of something that is unresolved. The most obvious way to create it is by simply saying something is going to happen, and then putting it off.

9. Martin was even-tempered normally, but whenever he did become angry, he lost control completely. He knew that the events of that day had accumulated on him, had grown finally to be too much for him. One thing after another had mounted up, until finally there had been one thing too many. Nevertheless, he never forgave himself for the way he acted when his anger finally broke out, and he knew Miranda would never forgive him either. It all began when he went down to the mailbox as usual one morning…

10. We don’t wonder what will happen, but rather when it will happen, and how it will happen, and why it will happen.

11. YOUR TURN: Teasing tension out of a scene is a major task for a writer. Look past the surface and write about the scene’s hidden tensions. Remember, every scene has the potential for multiple layers of tension. (Gleefully stolen from: http://www.downthewriterspath.com/2013/06/writing- tension-into-a-scene/http://www.downthewriterspath.com/2013/06/writing- tension-into-a-scene/)