Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense (16 page)
Read Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense Online
Authors: James Scott Bell
To put comic relief in your stories:
- Look at the most dramatic moments in your book. Can you find an opportunity, within those moments, or before and after, to inject a bit of humor?
- Look to your minor characters. Can you intensify their eccentricities? Remember the grave digger in
Hamlet.
He is a complete personality. Look to your minor characters and to conflict between them, or between them and your main character. - Don’t force it. Let the comedy arise naturally from the situation. Look for places where the trivial can be blown out of proportion.
I know you like to sit down and have coffee or tea with your friends and talk pleasantly about many things. But don’t let your characters fall into that trap. In a novel, you don’t ever want just two characters talking.
You want conflict.
Here’s a type of scene I’ve seen more than once in a manuscript:
Don came in and sat at the table. “How’s it going, Al?” he said.
Al, a former NYPD detective, said, “Fine. You’re looking fit.”
“What can I say?” Don rejoindered. “Good genes.”
“The only good jeans I have are in my closet, and I can’t fit in them.”
Don laughed and motioned for the waiter and ordered a martini.
“How’s that girlfriend of yours?” Al inquired.
“Melissa’s great. I tell you, I’ve got a good one.”
“I’ve told you that for years,” Al reminded.
“I know. You’ve got it, right on. Did I tell you she’s started her own clothing line?”
“Really? That’s very enterprising of her,” Al encouraged.
“She’s a gem all right,” Don agreed.
They talked about the weather until the waiter came with the martini. Don and Al clinked glasses and drank. Don was drinking a Manhattan.
“So what is it that you wanted to see me about?” Don asked.
“I’ve got a little problem,” Al expostulated. “I’d like to tell you about it.”
“Go ahead. I’m all ears.”
“Well, it has to do with a woman I was seeing some time ago. She’s gone missing and I’d like your help in finding her.”
“Sure.”
“Great. When can we start?”
“How about right now?” Don said, draining his martini.
“Sounds good,” Al said, finishing his Manhattan.
The two friends got up. Al threw a twenty on the table. “It’s on me,” he said.
They walked out of the bar and into a pleasant New York evening.
This is a set-up scene, which means two people are talking just to “get the story rolling.” Information is exchanged.
But doesn’t that scene make you want to eat your own head?
Here’s a suggested rewrite:
Don came in and plopped at the table. “You call me out on a night like this?” he said. “You nuts?”
Al, a former NYPD detective, said, “Last guy called me nuts I laid out on the sidewalk.”
“Whoa.”
“Order a drink and shut up.”
Don motioned for the waiter and ordered a martini.
“Glad your girlfriend let you out,” Al said.
“Leave Melissa out of this,” Don said.
Al shrugged.
They sat in silence until the waiter showed up and delivered Don’s martini. Don took a sip and waited for Al to talk.
“I got a problem,” Al said.
“I know you do,” Don said.
“Cut the jokes, will you? I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“I have to find someone.”
“Who?”
“A woman I used to know.”
“Good luck,” Don said. “I don’t do that work anymore.”
You get the idea. It didn’t take much to add conflict to this scene, and while it won’t win any literary awards, it sure is more readable than the original.
Note that we could have added even more conflict. Suppose the waiter had come back with the wrong drink or a weak one. Or he could have spilled it.
We could have added a third character to come in and make some noise. Maybe an old enemy of the NYPD detective. Maybe someone with a grudge against Don.
The possibilities are endless.
- Look through your manuscript and find any scene where two or more characters are sitting and talking.
- Make a list of ways to inject some conflict.
- Make a list of ways other characters might add conflict.
- At the very least, give one of them an inner conflict (based on fear) that keeps him from being perfectly comfortable in the scene.
SUBPLOTS, FLASHBACKS,
AND BACKSTORY
T
here are three areas where conflict may lag if you’re not careful: subplots, flashbacks, and backstory. We want to have all of them filled with the same page-turning tension as any other part of the novel. This chapter shows you how to go about it.
It’s helpful to distinguish subplots and parallel plots.
A
subplot
is that line of a story that interacts with the main plot, while a
parallel plot
runs along independently and intersects with the main plot at some point in the middle or near the end.
Let me illustrate.
We have our mistaken identity plot involving Roger Hill. He’s suspected of being a serial killer and he has to keep from being captured. At the same time he has to gather evidence to prove who the real killer is.
When Roger is on the lam, it’s the main plot.
But what happens when Roger is helped by the lovely and dangerous Eve Saint? They are drawn to each other. This development is a subplot. More specifically, the romantic subplot.
Now what if we cut to the POV of the real killer, and he is pursuing his next victim?
That is a parallel plot. The killer is not interacting with Roger. Indeed, Roger doesn’t know who he is yet. So that plotline can run at the same time as the main plot.
We could also have a parallel plot involving the police detective as he follows the clues but also has trouble at home
In fact, we can lay out a general rule here: If the plotline involves the Lead and another main character, it’s a subplot. If it does not involve the Lead but is in another POV, it’s a parallel plot.
In general, a subplot adds to the conflict. A parallel plot adds to the suspense. Here’s what I mean: A subplot, by interacting with the main story line, adds complications (at least, it should). It can serve a number of purposes, which we will discuss below.
For example, the romantic subplot involving Roger and Eve complicates both of their lives. Roger can’t let his guard down for fear of being found. Eve has to be careful about getting involved with someone who might be guilty of murder.
The romance will bring out more feelings in Roger, a chance for inner conflict. And so on.
The parallel plot ratchets up suspense. When we see the serial killer performing his vicious acts, we grow increasingly worried about Roger. We worry the killer will soon come after him.
And from a structural standpoint, we can cut away from either plotline at a moment of great interest (see Cliff-Hangers on pg. 195) and keep those readers turning the pages.
In
Writing the Breakout Novel,
Donald Maass says that one of the most difficult tricks to pull off “involves creating story lines for two characters who at first have no connection whatsoever, then merging those plotlines.”
For some reason, this structure is particularly attractive to beginning novelists. While such a feat can be pulled off, again and again I find that novices fail to bring their plotlines together quickly enough. Beginners often feel the need to present scenes from each plotline in strict rotation, whether or not there is a necessity for them. The result is a manuscript laden with low-tension action.
Note what Maass says: Adding plotlines can actually lessen the tension.
Let’s make up a simple example. Suppose your novel is about a police detective trying to solve a murder (how’s that for a unique plotline? But remember, it’s what you do with the character that makes it original, and in this case the subplot will help us).
So the main plotline will involve police procedure—the gathering and analyzing of evidence, interviewing witnesses, and so on.
But what about life at home? Let’s create a subplot involving the detective’s son. The son lives with his dad after a divorce. He’s fifteen and getting into drugs.
This subplot involves the Lead character and one other major character, the son. It is going to be about challenges facing the father, like communication and influence and self-worth.
All good character work.
But if what happens in the subplot never “invades” the main plot, you’ve lost a huge opportunity for more conflict.
The ways in which the subplot can invade are various. It can be by way of emotion. If the detective-father brings, say, his rage with him to work, that could affect how he handles a witness. Maybe he crosses the line with that witness, all because what’s happening at home complicates his life.
Or maybe the subplot comes in via physical means. What if the son shows up at the crime scene the father is working? What if the son is connected with that crime scene in some way?
Or what if the bad guy the detective is after kidnaps the son? There is an example of the subplot charging right into the main plot and wreaking all sorts of havoc.
Here’s an exercise to use when working on subplots:
Make two columns. Title the left-hand column
Main Plot.
Give the main plot a label that describes it, then create rows of short sentences describing the main plot points.
On the right side of the page, create another column called
Subplot
, with an appropriate label. Only this time, instead of listing plot points, give a summary of the subplot. Now, draw two arrows from the right-side column over to the left. Put some space between the arrows so you can make notes. Label one arrow
emotional
and the other
physical
.
Under each arrow, brainstorm possible ways the subplot can shoot into the main plot. Your diagram could look something like this:
A subplot is not merely a plot complication. A subplot has its own reason for being, and weaves in and out of (or back and forth with) the main plot. Or it might go along on its own until it links up with the main plot later in the book. But here’s the deal: Because it has its own reason for being, it’s going to take up a significant chunk of real estate in your novel.
That being so, here is my formula for the maximum number of subplots, by word count, you can have in your novel (a novel being a minimum of 60,000 words).
- 60,000 words: One subplot (e.g., in a category romance, you might have the female Lead plotline and the love interest plotline, which intersect)
- 80,000: Two to three
- 100,000: Three to four
- Over 100,000: Five
There is no six. Six subplots is too many for any length, unless your name is Stephen King. If you ever go to this land, you go at your own risk. More subplots than suggested will tend to overwhelm or detract from the main plot.
Flashbacks, by definition, interrupt the forward momentum of the story. So they had better contain enough conflict in and of themselves to sustain reader interest.
The first thing you have to ask yourself is whether the flashback is necessary. Are you using it only, or primarily, for exposition? Do you have a lot of background information on your characters that you are dying to share with the readers?
Don’t do it. Unless there is a strong and compelling reason to do so. Reasons might include:
Information essential to understanding fully the life of a character.
Information essential to understanding the plot development.
Information essential to understanding a setting.
What’s not acceptable is that you have some really beautiful language you want to show off.
Once you have determined there is a flashback material, consider alternatives to a straight flashback scene.
For example, you might use what I call a
back flash
. This is where the character has a momentary thought in the midst of a scene, reflecting back on some significant incident in her life:
She started running down the street. She remembered how she used to run, back in high school on the track team, when her father was alive and rooting for her. When she ran to please him.
Now she felt the strain in her middle-aged legs. And the killers her father had hired were gaining on her.
How not to do a flashback:
The crucifix reminded me of my childhood. Especially the first time I heard about hell. I was five and my stepfather, who was very strict, caught me in a lie. It wasn’t a big one, but it was a lie all right. I’d taken two cookies instead of one, which was technically a violation of the rules. But they were small cookies.
Anyway, I told him I’d only taken one, but when he counted them we were one short. I never thought he’d count them!
That’s when he told me about hell. That people went there for lying and were burned alive forever and ever. And that’s where I was headed.
Instead, turn this into an actual scene with conflict:
The crucifix brought a memory rushing to the surface. When I was five I took two cookies from the jar, but was only allowed one.
My stepfather called me into the living room. “How many cookies did you eat today?” he said.
A little tremble ran up my body. I felt some gooseflesh on my arms. “One, Daddy,” I said.
He took a step closer. His gray eyes burned into me. “How many?”
I tried to say ONE again, but my throat got stuck. I held up one finger.
He grabbed my ear and started walking me to the kitchen. I yelped but it did no good. I thought he’d tear my ear right off my head.
In the kitchen he pushed me down in a chair. “Don’t move.”
I held my breath so I wouldn’t even move my chest. I held out as long as I could before sucking in air.
By then he was already pouring the cookies out on the counter … and counting them.
The walls of the kitchen started squeezing in on me.
When he turned back to me I thought he might have a wooden spoon in his hand.
“Do you know what hell is, boy?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Do you know what fire is?”
I nodded.
“Do you know how hot fire is?”
Nodded again. The way he said FIRE made me think it was the worst thing in the world.
“What if your hand was in fire, boy. Would you like that?”
I shook my head.
“Answer me out loud. Would you?”
“No … ”
“Well you’re going to be in fire someday, boy, and it will cover your whole body, and you’ll scream and scream but the fire won’t stop, and you’ll never die, you’ll just burn and burn forever. Do you want that, boy? Do you?”
This is a major event from the Lead’s past (if not, it shouldn’t be a flashback). Give us the beat-by-beat scene of it, not the summary.
When you reveal some of the character’s backstory, you have the opportunity to do more than explain. You can create a sense of ongoing conflict within the character, with the past as a form of opposition.
Do not simply slip us information and details. Pack those details with a sense of menace for the character in the present moment.
One way to do this is to create a sense that darkness from the past might, at any time, be repeated in the character’s present.
In Anne Lamott’s
Imperfect Birds,
Elizabeth Ferguson is waiting for her teenage daughter, Rosie. Elizabeth’s husband, James, is impatient and says they’ll leave in three minutes if Rosie doesn’t show:
“When did you get to be so bossy?” But she knew the answer. He had become more anxious and vigilant in the last few years, since Elizabeth’s little breakdown on the trampoline, as they still referred to it. Three years ago, while bouncing with Rosie on a neighbor’s trampoline in Bayview, something had jiggled itself loose, all the suppressed loss and devastation she’d kept to herself after Andrew’s death, and it poured forth without ceasing. She had spent a month dazed or crying in bed, on new medication, seeing her psychiatrist every two days. Then, two years ago, she’d had that brief AA slip, which is to say she had started drinking again after many years clean and sober. James hadn’t a clue she’d been nipping at the bottle late at night for a week, until he’d found her that morning at dawn on the bathroom floor.
In this paragraph, Lamott gives us a quick but packed look inside Elizabeth’s past. Her breakdown on the trampoline was sudden and eruptive. We feel that it could happen again.
And her “AA slip” is the sort of quiet and deceptive ghost an alcoholic carries around for life.
So we have two areas of inner vulnerability here, the past in conflict with the present. And it makes us wonder if it could happen again.
Which is what suspense is, remember: Will it happen again?
Sometimes the past itself can
be
the present. How? Consider Ken Grimwood’s classic time travel novel,
Replay
. It asks some intriguing questions: What if you lived your life over and over again and remembered everything? Could you correct mistakes? And how long could this go on?
At the beginning of the novel, Jeff Winston dies in 1988 and wakes up in his college dorm room in 1963. His roommate comes in and says Jeff is late for a test:
Martin stood in the doorway, a Coke in one hand and load of textbooks in the other. Martin Bailey, Jeff’s freshman-year roommate, his closest friend through college and for several years thereafter.
Martin had committed suicide in 1981, right after his divorce and subsequent bankruptcy.
