Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense (26 page)

In other words, don’t pile it on. Don’t
tell
us something we already know by
seeing
it on the page.

While most readers won’t consciously notice it, each time you
tell
in this way, you take the reader out of the immediate experience, even if just for a moment.

Here are a couple of examples:

The last line is worthless. It doesn’t increase the apprehension in the reader. It is a momentary blip in the beat-by-beat creation of the feeling:

See what I mean? We don’t need you
telling
us how Mark feels because it’s obvious. The suspense of that moment is diluted with the addition of that sentence.

Style is a matter of practice with awareness. So practice. Become conversant with these techniques. Your ability to hold readers will improve dramatically—and isn’t
dramatically
the best way for a writer to improve?

I
remember this suspenseful moment when I was dating my wife.

It had to do with Boston Cream pie.

Cindy and I had gone out for the evening, then stopped by a place for a late-night snack. I chose a nice big slice of the aforementioned repast along with a glass of milk.

I forget what Cindy ordered.

I do remember looking into her big blue eyes and thinking what a lucky guy I was. We were talking about whatever it was two people in love talk about.

And then the pie came.

I looked down for my fork.

When I looked up again I saw another fork. In Cindy’s hand. Reaching across the table to snag a bite.

Time froze.

In that deep, slow-motion voice you sometimes get in cheesy movies, I went, “Noooooo …”

Cindy looked at me like I’d killed a baby seal by hitting it repeatedly with a baby dolphin.

“You aren’t going to share?” she asked.

Of course I wasn’t going to share! This was
my
pie. She could get her own pie. I’d lived alone and, in college, with four other guys. We hogged our food. Get your own food!

And so, in the stunned silence of a little late-night deli, suspense. We’re incompatible after all? Was this the end of the dream?

We worked it out. But for a moment there …

That was
instant suspense.
Little things that you can do in the middle of a scene to create more of the page-turning momentum you want in your book.

Alfred Hitchcock used to explain the difference between surprise and suspense this way: Surprise is when two people are sitting at a table in a restaurant, and a bomb blows up under the table.

Suspense is when the audience sees the ticking bomb under the table and wonders when it will go off.

This crucial distinction leads to a tremendous tool of increasing suspense and virtually any point in your plot: microobstacles.

A microobstacle is a seemingly small incident or object or character that enters a scene with the potential for huge ramifications.

Recently I was writing a scene where my Lead character had to get someone to an old priest in Hollywood. The priest was the only one who could help in this instance. He had been found in this little church that had its doors open 24/7.

My plan was to have my Lead drive up, run in, and find the priest bound and gagged. So that’s where I headed … until she got to the door.

This is a great place for a microobstacle, I thought. So I locked the doors.

Since time was of the essence in this scene, this little obstacle added to the suspense. It kept the scene taut without much effort. Now my Lead had to overcome this hurdle in order to get to the next.

If she didn’t, there was going to be even greater trouble for her.

These microobstacles enhance the pleasure of a reading experience if—and this is a big if—the readers already care about the characters.

If they don’t, microobstacles become annoying speed bumps.

A case in point is a scene from the Ben Affleck movie
The Town.
It’s the story of a crew from Charlestown, led by Doug McRay (Affleck), that robs banks. One of the other members is Doug’s childhood friend, Jim (Jeremy Renner).

When the film opens, they rob a bank wearing skull masks. An assistant bank manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), sees a tattoo on the back of Jim’s neck. That’s the only visual she has. And she’s an FBI witness.

Trying to keep an eye on this witness, Doug ends up smitten with her. They start dating.

This is already a very thin piece of ice. In fact, Jim—who knows nothing of this budding romance—has suggested to Doug that they “take care of” this witness.

As Doug and Claire are at a sidewalk café one day, Claire leaves to use the restroom. At that moment Jim walks up and starts a conversation, asking Doug what’s going on. Who is he here with? Doug tries to get him out of there, but Jim sits down to find out. He’s suspicious.

He’s also wearing a T-shirt and his tattoo is clearly visible.

Claire comes back to the table.

For the next two or three minutes, with camera shots of the tat thrown in every now and then, we wonder
Will Claire see the tattoo?
If she does, she’ll know Doug has been lying to her, that he’s part of the crew, and so on.

Even as the dialogue gets pointed, with Jim slyly trying to find out what’s going on and signal his displeasure to Doug, we keep wondering about what Claire will see.

A small obstacle thrown into the mix, but one that carries the potential of blowing up.

1. Look for scenes where you have more than two pages of low suspense. It might be two people talking in a restaurant, or allies conversing in the workplace.
   
2. Make a list of potential obstacles that could be introduced, from large to small. Keep going until you have nine or ten. Don’t edit yourself. These can be other characters, sounds, weather, accidents (large or small), annoyances, and so on.
   
3. Choose
   one
   to insert into the middle of the scene.
   

After you do this a few times, your writer’s brain will work on automatic and sense places to put a microobstacle. It’s well worth the exercise.

“To raise the stakes” is a saying that comes from the world of poker hustlers (obviously). Consider this scenario: A rube from the country comes into town, has a drink or two, then gets invited to a “friendly game of poker” in the back room.

“Why sure!” the country boy says and joins this group of men with pencil mustaches and beady eyes. After a few hands in which the country boy finds himself up a dollar or two, he feels confident. The beer his new “friends” have bought him doesn’t hurt.

“I guess it’s just not your night!” country boy exclaims as he pulls in another twenty cents worth of chips.

It’s about this time that one of the mustache guys suggests they raise the stakes of the game, you know, just to make it interesting.

And you know the rest. Slowly country boy loses not only his winnings, but all the money he has on him, maybe his gold watch or even his suit of clothes.

When the stakes are raised, the risks are greater and the potential loss more severe.

In your novel, you can raise the stakes in three areas: plot, character, and society.

When the main action gets ratcheted up, you are dealing with plot stakes. The outer circumstances take on more danger and importance. Ask:

• What greater physical harm can come to my Lead? Think about the capacities of the opposition and what further tactics can be marshaled to make things worse.
  
• Think about introducing another character who brings more trouble. In the classic western
  Shane
  , the stakes are raised when well into the story the gunfighter Jack Wilson (played by Oscar-nominated Jack Palance) rides into the action. He’s been hired by the villain as an enforcer. When you add a character, justify him with a real connection to the proceedings and opposition to the Lead.
  
• You can also add a character who is not necessarily opposed to the Lead but raises the stakes regardless. In
  Casablanca
  , a desperate young wife comes to Rick for help. Her husband is trying to win the money they need to buy their way out of Casablanca. But he’s losing and the wife knows the only other option is to sleep with Louis, the French police captain, to get the papers they need. Rick doesn’t want to get involved. Her plight is forcing him to make choices he doesn’t want to make.
  
• Is there some professional duty at stake for the Lead? What is it about her work or vocation that can be threatened?
  

In William P. McGivern’s classic noir tale,
The Big Heat,
a cop named Bannion is driven to get at the heart of the syndicate in his city. His superiors, who are part of the corruption, demand his badge and gun. He refuses to give the gun because he paid for it. Now his superiors have a reason to keep an eye on him, and he’s lost his job.

What happens inside the character to make the stakes more personal? What sends the Lead’s emotions reeling?

In
The Big Heat,
a murder case for Officer Bannion becomes a personal vendetta when a car bomb kills his wife. Revenge becomes the personal stake.

Consider:

• How can things get more emotionally wrenching for your Lead?
  
• What threatens not just to defeat her but also to destroy her spirit?
  
• How is psychological death immenent?
  
• Is there someone the Lead cares about who can get caught up in the trouble?
  
• Is there a “ghost” from the past that can show up and cause the Lead greater inner grief?
  

Here you ask what are the consequences to the larger community? In
The Big Heat,
if Bannion doesn’t bring down the syndicate boss, the town will suffer. The corruption that is going all the way to the top will remain. The citizens will be denied true justice.

So ask:

• How does my Lead character’s problem extend outward to the larger community?
  
• What characters in that community can be brought into the plot to illustrate the societal stakes?
  

One of the greatest suspense writers of all time lived much of his life alone in a hotel room in New York, typing stories for the pulp magazines. Cornell Woolrich became synonymous with the art of suspense, even though his name is, sadly, little known today.

In his story “Three O’Clock,” a man thinks his wife is cheating on him. So he plants a bomb with a clock mechanism in the basement. He’s going to scoot out of the house, but two burglars surprise him and tie him up, with a gag, in the basement.

So he’s left, unable to move. The bomb ticks, ticks, ticks away. Woorich gives us his thoughts, but his powerlessness to do anything ratchets up the suspense to unbelievable levels.

Until the twist ending, not to be revealed here.

In the Woolrich novel
Phantom Lady
(written under the pseudonym William Irish), the ticking clock is an execution date. A man has been falsely convicted of murdering his wife. His only alibi is a lady no one can remember or find. Will she be revealed before he gets the chair? The entire novel is divided by chapters with titles like, “The Ninth Day Before the Execution.”

The noted TV writer and novelist Stephen J. Cannell put it this way: “Often, usually early in the story, a clever writer plants a time lock, a structural device requiring some specific event to occur, or some particular problem to be resolved, within a certain period of time. This serves to compress the story’s tension. Of course, not all stories lend themselves to a ‘ticking clock,’ but the resourceful writer digs deep to locate a method and a place for integrating a meaningful one into the story.”

Examples:

ONE MOMENT CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING:
A man needs to get to the one he loves to tell her he realizes she’s the one, but she’s about to leave town to get on a plane. In
Manhattan,
Woody Allen runs through the streets of New York to get to Mariel Hemingway just as she’s coming through the doors to get into a cab.

PILING IT ON:
In
Back to the Future,
the ability of Marty McFly to get home to his own time zone is dependent on Dr. Emmett Brown hooking a conduit for lightning that will strike the town clock tower at precisely 10:04 p.m. and Marty driving the DeLorean into the wiring at the split second it happens.

• A) But a tree branch dislodges the connection with only a few minutes to go! Brown has to climb the tower to connect it.
  
• B) Marty positions the car and is ready to start at the right time, but it stalls.
  
• C) Brown almost falls off the tower.
  
• D) Brown connects the wires on the tower, but in doing so dislodges the wires on the ground. And Marty is coming!
  
• E) Brown slides down a cable and lands flat on his back.
  
• F) He has to disentangle the wire from the tree branch. Marty is almost there.
  
• G) The lightning strikes just as Brown makes the connection and Marty hits the wire.
  

1. Set up something of importance and attach a time limit to it. It can be as simple as an appointment or as dire as a bomb.
   
2. Brainstorm obstacles that will prevent the character from relief within the time frame.
   
3. Relieve the tension at the last possible moment. Sometimes the most important ticking clock will happen in the climax, but don’t overlook smaller time pressures in other parts of your story.
   

Suspense can also be generated by a simple interruption. Remember, suspense means withholding resolution. So at any moment of tension, with the reader wanting to know how the situation will resolve, you can put a little more time. It’s a way of stretching tension just a wee bit more.

Let’s posit a scene between our example, Roger Hill, and Eve Saint, the woman he has met in an office (she hid him from some cops who had followed him in). She decided to do that because Roger looks a lot like Cary Grant, and she, as an icy blonde, thought that little circumstance needed some follow-up.