Rachelle J. Christensen gave a talk at LTUE 2014 titled: Plots to Die For. It was filled with tips and tricks on how to add more mystery and suspense to your plots & story-lines. You can find Rachelle’s website and blog here:
http://www.rachellechristensen.com/
Rachelle lead a discussion in our session where we brainstormed a plot in realtime and worked to increase the suspense and mystery within that off-the-cuff plot. Her presentations (I attended both) were very well prepared and organized and she provided a detailed powerpoint that illustrated the concepts she taught. Here’s some of my notes from the session:
Typical Story Cycle
What should happen in the first chapter to really draw the reader in?
Thrust the reader into the storyline
Make sure you are starting right when the story begins and not before. Pick the most interesting event that starts the story and get right to it.
Introduce the characters
Help the reader get to know your characters by their actions, not backstory.
Inciting incident within the first three pages
The protagonist’s circumstances need to change in a compelling way within the first three pages.
Character forced into action
The character must not have an easy way out. They need to be moved to action.
End chapter on a cliffhanger
The chapter should end with a story question that the reader is dying to get answered, drawing them into turning the page.
If this is how chapter one should go, then the question is:
Why should any other chapter be different?
No boring chapters. No filler scenes.
Apply pressure to your characters, then ratchet up that pressure until it looks like there is no hope.
Elements of Suspense
Setting – make sure there is a reason your story is set in the place you have chosen. It should factor into the plot.
Characters – show small intimate details that leave the reader with a sense of wonder, wanting to turn the pages to explain what the writer has just shown them.
High Stakes – the only person that should feel helpless in the story is the reader themselves. Make sure your crisis is important to the reader.
Questions – create questions your reader wants answered.
Foreshadowing – hint that something might happen. Even better, throw in a twist where the hinted is different than what the reader expected.
Problems – make some of the character’s problems gray with no easy choices. Choices can be lose-lose so there isn’t a good option.
The Movie Analogy
My favorite idea Rachelle brought up is the comparison of your story’s scenes to film scenes:
Apply movie budgeting to your story. If one scene in a film costs (on average) $300,000 to produce, then ask yourself, is your story’s scene worth $300,000? Would it be cut if the story were adapted for film because it wasn’t interesting enough?
Thank you so much for your write-ups on LTUE 2014. I love being able to look at these topics now that some time has gone by.
Suspense it such an art form. I love the question about whether a scene is worth big bucks. Sometimes writers forget to think cinematically. Awesome inspiration in this article!
Ya, it’s funny how different my notes look after a couple of weeks. Things that seemed to resonate then are old news now and other things I didn’t totally understand now have new weight. Thanks!