Other then having the MC internalize, wonder, question and check around for clues, what else can you do to keep your mystery suspenseful?
Is having everyone be a suspect not a good idea?
Is having everyone be a suspect not a good idea?
How To Keep Your Book Suspenseful
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I don't think you need EVERYONE to be a suspect because it can be confusing, and chances are you're going to work so hard to implicate them that the main story line will be lost. Plus, you'll then have to exonerate them all, and it could come across contrived.
I like to have just three potential suspects, and make part of the suspense the MC's trying to discover the "why" of the crime, as well as the "who".
Suspense also comes from the MC being in trouble, either physical danger or some sort of emotional peril. Suspense comes in a lot of shapes and sizes, the mroe you use the more suspenseful your novel.
You're right. Thanks. I have these lull periods in the novel, I think what I need to do is put the MC in trouble again. Right now he's just mulling over everything and I think I might have too much of that.
conflict
Ah, a good question, one I've pondered myself. The trick is conflict, conflict, everywhere.
Ever wonder why so many detectives don't get along with their superiors? Why hard boiled detectives are well done? Why tough guys are well, tough?
Conflict. Since a mystery typically doesn't have a ticking clock, or a direct threat to the MC, you need to generate conflict any way you can. Interaction type conflict.
Robert Parker makes sure Spenser gets in a fight at least once a book. Most P.I's get warned off, a gun pointed at them. Detectives fight with their superiors. Don't get alone with their partners. Are not very trusting people. The witnesses don't give up easy. You have to grill them. Trick them. Badger them.
The second trick is the inner monologue. Take the reader along in your MC's thought process. Make us feel like we're helping them solve the mystery. The third trick is the mystery, and the accompanying plot twists. Just when you're sure it was Bob that did it, a good reason comes up to clear him and blame Sue.
Ah, a good question, one I've pondered myself. The trick is conflict, conflict, everywhere.
Ever wonder why so many detectives don't get along with their superiors? Why hard boiled detectives are well done? Why tough guys are well, tough?
Conflict. Since a mystery typically doesn't have a ticking clock, or a direct threat to the MC, you need to generate conflict any way you can. Interaction type conflict.
Robert Parker makes sure Spenser gets in a fight at least once a book. Most P.I's get warned off, a gun pointed at them. Detectives fight with their superiors. Don't get alone with their partners. Are not very trusting people. The witnesses don't give up easy. You have to grill them. Trick them. Badger them.
The second trick is the inner monologue. Take the reader along in your MC's thought process. Make us feel like we're helping them solve the mystery. The third trick is the mystery, and the accompanying plot twists. Just when you're sure it was Bob that did it, a good reason comes up to clear him and blame Sue.
Although I write Roman spy thrillers, I think the trick is to throw a curve ball at the MC once in a while, turn an ally into an enemy. Something that will throw your MC off course.
TKO, I agree, and I have a lot of that too. Lots of inner monologue, the MC trying to figure it out type thing. Keep searching for clues, stuff like that. I just think I have to up the ante and give it more conflict. Thanks
And you too too, Gothicangel. I think I'm of that point in the book it needs another curve ball. It's at 45K and I want it to be 50 or more, but I don't feel it coming to an end just yet. Then again I still need to write it. That always changes things. Thanks
And you too too, Gothicangel. I think I'm of that point in the book it needs another curve ball. It's at 45K and I want it to be 50 or more, but I don't feel it coming to an end just yet. Then again I still need to write it. That always changes things. Thanks
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Suspense can be thought of as the knowledge that something is going to happen, but not having actually happened yet.
What makes effective suspense is when the characters or your readers don't know everything about the something that is going to happen. Think about your five questions: who, why, where, how, and what.
For instance:
- one of the peoplein this room on the MTS board 
is a killer, but who?
- someone is killing mime artists and re-dressing them as clowns, but why?
- the bad guy is going to blow up the White House on Christmas Day (Shane Black, your cheque's in the post), but where's the bomb?
- you have thirty minutes to escape a locked room before the bad guy pumps poison gas inside, but how will you get out?
- a convicted serial killer sends you a note telling you to "watch out" on your birthday, but what's going to happen?
You can do combos to ramp things up, but be wary of piling too much on. You need a bit of knowledge to generate suspense, otherwise it's just stuff happening out of the blue.
Some of these things carry additional weight - for instance, a "when" immediately gives you time pressure. I hate time pressure. You want to make a simple video game tense and annoying? Stick a hideous time limit on it (ending of Portal, I'm looking at you - but only cos I love ya). It's the inevitability of it. If you can stop and think about something, it becomes less scary. When you have to just react, react, react, then you make mistakes.
Consider also what knowledge the reader should have and what knowledge the characters should have. In an omniscient or multi-POV story you can explicitly divulge information to the reader that other characters don't know, hence the popular trend for alternating chapters between hero and villain. Knowing what the villain is going to do helps generate suspense in the hero's chapters. The reader having information one or more of the characters don't is called dramatic irony. As with everything, don't overuse it. It can be irritating rather than suspenseful to watch characters bumbling about when we know more about what's going on than them. It gets perilously close to the line of characters doing stupid things to advance the plot, except the things only seem stupid because we know something they don't.
You can also let the reader to know things the characters don't without the narrator giving that information by laying the clues in place in classic whodunit fashion. If you are clear and logical then clever or experienced readers may be able to work things out before your characters do, and this allows you that suspense of knowing what will happen before it happens. Again, be careful, because if the characters get too far behind the reader they will seem stupid, and the above trope about stupid characters making stupid choices simply to advance the plot gets invoked.
Just looking around for clues and thinking a lot will not make something suspenseful, but it indicates that they don't know everything. As long as they know something will happen - and that's absolutely vital, the certainty that things won't just go back to normal if the hero walks away - then you should be on the right track.
What makes effective suspense is when the characters or your readers don't know everything about the something that is going to happen. Think about your five questions: who, why, where, how, and what.
For instance:
- one of the people
is a killer, but who?- someone is killing mime artists and re-dressing them as clowns, but why?
- the bad guy is going to blow up the White House on Christmas Day (Shane Black, your cheque's in the post), but where's the bomb?
- you have thirty minutes to escape a locked room before the bad guy pumps poison gas inside, but how will you get out?
- a convicted serial killer sends you a note telling you to "watch out" on your birthday, but what's going to happen?
You can do combos to ramp things up, but be wary of piling too much on. You need a bit of knowledge to generate suspense, otherwise it's just stuff happening out of the blue.
Some of these things carry additional weight - for instance, a "when" immediately gives you time pressure. I hate time pressure. You want to make a simple video game tense and annoying? Stick a hideous time limit on it (ending of Portal, I'm looking at you - but only cos I love ya
). It's the inevitability of it. If you can stop and think about something, it becomes less scary. When you have to just react, react, react, then you make mistakes. Consider also what knowledge the reader should have and what knowledge the characters should have. In an omniscient or multi-POV story you can explicitly divulge information to the reader that other characters don't know, hence the popular trend for alternating chapters between hero and villain. Knowing what the villain is going to do helps generate suspense in the hero's chapters. The reader having information one or more of the characters don't is called dramatic irony. As with everything, don't overuse it. It can be irritating rather than suspenseful to watch characters bumbling about when we know more about what's going on than them. It gets perilously close to the line of characters doing stupid things to advance the plot, except the things only seem stupid because we know something they don't.
You can also let the reader to know things the characters don't without the narrator giving that information by laying the clues in place in classic whodunit fashion. If you are clear and logical then clever or experienced readers may be able to work things out before your characters do, and this allows you that suspense of knowing what will happen before it happens. Again, be careful, because if the characters get too far behind the reader they will seem stupid, and the above trope about stupid characters making stupid choices simply to advance the plot gets invoked.
Just looking around for clues and thinking a lot will not make something suspenseful, but it indicates that they don't know everything. As long as they know something will happen - and that's absolutely vital, the certainty that things won't just go back to normal if the hero walks away - then you should be on the right track.
End chapters with cliffhangers; make good use of twists and reversals; make the MC an underdog (villain is much more powerful than MC is) and put him/her in danger; make sure your main plot points are securely in place and make sure they up the stakes
I'd like to put in a good word for the ever faithful red herring. If your main mystery starts to drag, add a second mystery that has nothing to do with the other one ... unless you decide that it does after all ...
Now do you have one villain or two? Are they working at cross purposes or in tandem? Which clues go with which mystery? Is the second crime meant as a smokescreen, to keep you distracted from the first one? or is it a plot so deep and dark that it makes the first one look like a dognapping?
Now do you have one villain or two? Are they working at cross purposes or in tandem? Which clues go with which mystery? Is the second crime meant as a smokescreen, to keep you distracted from the first one? or is it a plot so deep and dark that it makes the first one look like a dognapping?
I'm leaning towards two culprits. It's in first person, so I have to do it through his eyes. I try to keep up with my cliffhangers, but I don't do it every single chapter, I think that would be overkill.
And I don't want to be dragging it out too much either. Yet I want to thicken the plot. But I do appreciate all your comments, you guys. They are in fact helpful.
And I don't want to be dragging it out too much either. Yet I want to thicken the plot. But I do appreciate all your comments, you guys. They are in fact helpful.
> Other then having the MC internalize, wonder, question and check
> around for clues, what else can you do to keep your mystery suspenseful?
The first trick in the Mystery genre is in the reveals. Have your sleuth follow a tiny thread of clues - bread crumbs - that leads from one little corruption to a bigger corruption, until the final reveal which show one huge corruption. That's the Outter arc.
Chinatown - what starts off as a simple case of adultery becomes, murder, incest, then political corruption on a grand scale.
The second trick is to have your sleuth personally involved into the Mystery. First, it's a just a job. Then it becomes a matter of saving oneself (or someone else) from the mess. At the climax, the sleuth has to choose between two version of "doing what's right". One path is Honor: do what cops do and make the arrest (ex: The Maltese Falcon). The other path is Moral: the sleuth finds a way (usually immoral or illegal) to neutralize the culprit at a personal cost (ex:LA Confidential). That's the Inner Arc.
Basic Instinct - Detective Curran falls in love with the very woman who could be the murderer he's after.
To sum it up:
> Is having everyone be a suspect not a good idea?
Which is more suspenseful? Multiple suspects that have to be investigated one by one? Or just one suspect, but make his/her guiltiness uncertain?
-cb
> around for clues, what else can you do to keep your mystery suspenseful?
The first trick in the Mystery genre is in the reveals. Have your sleuth follow a tiny thread of clues - bread crumbs - that leads from one little corruption to a bigger corruption, until the final reveal which show one huge corruption. That's the Outter arc.
Chinatown - what starts off as a simple case of adultery becomes, murder, incest, then political corruption on a grand scale.
The second trick is to have your sleuth personally involved into the Mystery. First, it's a just a job. Then it becomes a matter of saving oneself (or someone else) from the mess. At the climax, the sleuth has to choose between two version of "doing what's right". One path is Honor: do what cops do and make the arrest (ex: The Maltese Falcon). The other path is Moral: the sleuth finds a way (usually immoral or illegal) to neutralize the culprit at a personal cost (ex:LA Confidential). That's the Inner Arc.
Basic Instinct - Detective Curran falls in love with the very woman who could be the murderer he's after.
To sum it up:
Outter arc -- reveals with increasing corruption levels
Inner arc -- the sleuth is increasingly involved at a personal level into the mess
Note the underlined words. Note how the Outter/Inner arcs are intertwined, how finding the truth has a personal cost.Inner arc -- the sleuth is increasingly involved at a personal level into the mess
> Is having everyone be a suspect not a good idea?
Which is more suspenseful? Multiple suspects that have to be investigated one by one? Or just one suspect, but make his/her guiltiness uncertain?
-cb
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Add a time limit.
You have to do X... OR ELSE BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!
It will make your character rush, perhaps give you opportunities to have him miss something or mess something up, and so on. Add a ticking clock and you'll up the suspense.
You have to do X... OR ELSE BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!
It will make your character rush, perhaps give you opportunities to have him miss something or mess something up, and so on. Add a ticking clock and you'll up the suspense.
this
Good stuff. I can see you've thought about this. I've rarely seen it so clearly put for mysteries.
Good stuff. I can see you've thought about this. I've rarely seen it so clearly put for mysteries.
As mentioned above, a ticking clock helps. So does a slowly building extra layer as in Chinatown (great movie, by the way). But I think the main character's personality is really the key ingredient to a successful mystery. If you think about some of your favorite mystery novels, you may find that often it's the characters, as much as the mystery itself, which pulls you in. That said, I think a dilemma can help as well. For instance, does the hero/heroine stand to lose something important by pursuing the case? Lose not "just" his/her existence, but maybe lose the trust or the patience of a loved one? Might the hero/heroine worry about endangering someone else? Just some thoughts.