Writing Tips For Creating Good Suspense- Part 2

We recently published the first part of this series, so feel free to go check it out if you missed it. This series is designed to help you write good suspense thrillers by giving useful tips you might be interested in. Are you in the process of writing the next Gone Girl? Then here are some tips for you:

1. Play with time
   
   Time is your ally when building suspense. A race against time makes any book a page-turner, but that’s not the only way you can use the time to your advantage. Use flashforwards or flashbacks as an original way to narrate your story. By mixing up the timeline you prevent the reader from figuring out the plot before finishing the book. You can also use time as a way to make the threat scarier. Stephen King did this in ‘It’ when Pennywise would hibernate for 30 years between each attack. By having a villain that appears and reappears whenever they want makes them seem more powerful and untouchable. You know they’re not going to be easy to defeat, which makes the chase even more exciting.
2. Have external conflict affect the personal lives of characters
   
   Going back to point number one in the previous article about playing with the relationship between the reader and the character, one of the best things you can do to build the suspense is show how the plot is affecting the main characters personal life. By making sure that the external conflict prevents the character from redeeming themselves or obtaining what they’ve worked hard for, you will create a strong emotional bond with the reader until the end. Frustration is a great emotion to use and abuse whenever you want to build suspense. For example, in Harry Potter, the fact that you knew Sirius Black was innocent but the rest of the world didn't, which resulted in him being locked up in Grimmauld Place (which he hated!!) only to be killed right before everyone found out he was innocent makes you feel frustrated beyond belief. You want to carry on reading after this just to see how they’re going to address this during the conflict resolution.
3. Make a good villain
   
   If you make a good villain the plot will write itself. Hannibal Lecter and The Joker are perfect examples of that. People love to read about a good villain because they’re fascinated by them. They know they’re psychopaths yet they’re so interesting, you can end up rooting for them. Antiheroes or villains that the public can empathize with and respect are key to good suspense books. If you write a villain that isn’t evil, but rather became evil after the world failed them, you humanize them. It makes it easier for the reader to engage in the villain's story if they are intrigued by how they became the bad guy.
4. Write in the first person point of view (POV)
   
   Narration can be a great tool to build suspense. POV is fantastic for this because not only do you provide a better insight into how the events are affecting the main character, but you can also use it to build up the mystery. This type of narration means that the reader is receiving subjective information, the reader knows they’re not getting all of the information. Instead, they’re going to have to wait until the main character figures everything out. It’s a perfect technique to use, especially when you want to draw fake suspicion to characters in order to divert the reader from what will be the plot twist. It’s really clever if your readers know they can’t trust the narrator.
   
   We hope you enjoyed the second part of this article. As always, we encourage you to read as many suspense books as you can so that you may find inspiration for how you want to write your book. You can browse through our books at www.imagahub.com. Stay tuned though! We’ll be back soon with more tips!