Writing Suspense; How to Keep Attention

Suspense and the art of tension is a brilliant skill to have in your toolbox as a writer. It helps you keep people’s attention, keep them turning the pages, or interested in what you have to pay.

The art of suspense is the art of holding attention.

I’ve been reading Dracula by Brahm Stoker recently, Stoker has a lot of tension just within the first 100 pages.

Throughout this post, I am going to use Dracula as an example of how to capture and keep attention.

Here we go!

The Foundation of Suspense

In literature, suspense refers to the uneasy feeling that a reader gets when they don’t know what is going to happen next.

It’s the unpredictability of the situation that grips people’s attention.

For the reader, suspense creates anticipation for the events that will happen next.

Adding suspense to your writing is making a promise to your reader that something interesting is likely to happen.

Similarly, you keep the reader engaged, fostering interaction and sympathy towards the characters in your narrative.

If a writer could harness the ability to grip the reader’s attention consistently would be the closest thing they could get to a superpower.

Therefore, suspense is ultimately the use of setting the stage of the story and giving promises to the reader of interesting things that are to happen.

The majority of the suspense you create is a result of the way you condition your readers to look at the story you’re telling them.

Establishing Atmosphere: Lessons from Dracula

Stoker released Dracula in 1897, infusing the narrative with archaic and spooky language reflective of the era’s linguistic nuances.

Which is the basis for Stoker’s excellent tension-building.

Stoker adopts the epistolary format in Dracula, constructing the narrative entirely through diary entries, telegrams, letters, and memos.

The first 100 pages or so describe how Jonathon Harker an English lawyer travels to Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania to assist him with legal business.

Mr Harker’s journey to the castle is an odd one for our current time. Gothic imagery permeates, and archaic transportation, like riding a coach pulled by four black horses to Dracula’s castle, is present in the narrative.

On the way, Harker and the coach driver have an encounter with some wolves after the escort stops the coach and travels into the forest looking for some sort of treasure.

The characters’ actions and encounters with perils, like aggressive wolves, flawlessly set the stage for a world where the fantastical and gothic are commonplace. This elegantly establishes the foundation for the suspense novel’s acclaim.

Stoker’s Dracula teaches us that to evoke suspense and unease in readers, masterful use of setting and tone is paramount.

Develop your story from the base up, the setting/ environment of your story quite literally sets up what will happen in your story from the aspects of the surroundings. Tone does the same by giving promises of the sort of events that will take place.

Make promises to your reader of what will happen with tone and setting, you’ll not regret it.

Character Development and Intrigue

Another important aspect of establishing tension in your writing is the reader has to care about the characters you’re showing them.

This means your characters NEED to be compelling.

You can make characters compelling by establishing motivations, goals, and conflicts in their lives. These three aspects make them feel more real, like an actual person.

Writing is the art of understanding.

Both you and your reader NEED to understand how the setting and tone will affect your character by comparing it with their motivations, goals, and conflicts.

Take Mr. Harker as an example of a compelling character. In his initial diary entry, he raves about the exquisite train food, planning to secure the recipe for his wife. This simple insert by Stoker establishes Mr Harker as a dedicated husband who pays attention to the little things.

The narrative structure further solidifies this personality. Being diary entries, Harker’s words are intriguing and paint a picture of the odd little things he notices about his time in Transylvania.

Harker’s compelling nature stems from our knowledge, as readers, of Dracula’s identity and the inherent fear associated with that name.

Thus we sympathise with the clueless Harker as he willingly travels to almost certain demise.

Characters such as Harker keep readers on the edge of their seats because they care about what happens to them.

Create compelling characters and expose them to the scary thing, that WILL create suspense.

Mastering Pacing For Maximum Impact

Pacing and the speed at which information is fed to the reader is another effective way to create suspense for the reader’s experience.

The way reading works is that the reader starts with a blank canvas and every word they read is a piece of information that colors some part of their mind.

This color can be bright and happy creating joy or prickly and bleak causing fear.

This is why you as the writer must point out the colours you want to show to create tension for the reader.

In writing suspense this is best done by pointing at lots of little things and the unnerving parts about them, but leave them at that.

This creates a picture for the reader of what those objects COULD mean but not necessarily what they mean.

Chekhovs Gun

Another way of explaining promises to the reader is through Chekhov’s Gun;

Chekhov’s Gun is the way the playwright Anton Chekhov repeatedly characterized writing in his letters to his fellow writers. The most famous version is the quote;

If in the first act, you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.

Anton Chekhov

This concept reveals that we need to be giving the readers promises by drip-feeding information that you eventually tell them the meaning of.

In Dracula Stoker’s pacing is excellent, he very slowly but surely builds up his gothic environment and the fears of Mr Harker being in unfamiliar territory creating great suspense.

To control the tempo of your writing you should be consciously aware of the length of your sentences.

Short sentences in succession convey a sense of speed and ease.

Carefully placed lengthy sentences slow down the reader’s feed of information. This forces them to be engaged with one piece of information for longer.

The longer you pay attention to one subject, the greater the suspense for the reader.

Use Chekhov’s Gun and pacing to imbue a sense of tension in your reader.

The Art of Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is the act of a warning or indication of a future event.

Understanding how foreshadowing is used can be tricky.

Foreshadowing is things that your reader can look back at after rereading your writing that was indicative of a major plot point.

Effectively employing this technique conveys to the reader that every detail holds significance, compelling them to draw connections and conclusions from the provided information.

Several signs foreshadow Jonathan Harker’s imprisonment in Dracula’s castle and the revelation that Dracula is indeed a vampire.

The people Harker encounters on his trip to the castle repeatedly hint that something is wrong. A landlord and his wife cross themselves and look frightened when he tries to speak about Dracula, and later the landlady bids him to take a crucifix.

As he departs for the castle, he hears a crowd of people using a word that translates as “either werewolf or vampire.” Later, Harker’s traveling companions offer him additional protective tokens.

All of these aspects are quite obvious to the reader but just seem odd for Harker, this gives us readers a feeling of fear as Harker is oblivious to the signals of what Count Dracula is actually like.

Once again to effectively foreshadow use Chekhov’s Gun.

What you are foreshadowing has to have some meaning for the plot.

Furthermore, most commonly the information needs to be subtle, not too out there as to be a dead giveaway but enough to trigger the reader’s subconscious to be wary.

Timing is important as well, with your pacing under watch slip your foreshadowing into the longer parts of your pacing in subtle ways.

Use these techniques to use foreshadowing to unnerve and grip your audience.

Unveiling Secrets: The Power of Mystery

Mystery and holding things from your readers on purpose creates a sense of trickiness for the readers that they are being tricked in some way and they’re aware of it.

Secrets kept from your readers excite them to discover the answer with the information you give them, creating engagement.

Upon being welcomed into Castle Dracula Harker notices things about the Count that are odd and reason for alarm.

He notices there is no one else in the castle even though every time he goes to eat with Dracula the food is already prepared.

Dracula disappears from the Castle for long lengths of time and returns at odd hours.

Harker notices slowly that most of the doors in the castle are locked and out of access for him.

All these little nods and information feeds the mystery around Count Dracula’s true intentions and grips the reader with suspense.

Mystery is done best by balancing the revelations of the characters with your concealment.

Be careful of when and how you reveal your information, do it with great consideration and the reader will be in suspense of your mystery.

Tension Building Dialogue

Crafting tension in dialogue doesn’t always require overt mentions of unnerving elements. The art lies in subtly heightening reader tension through dialogue.

Stoker uses dialogue excellently in setting up his story.

The start of Dracula sees Harker talk to various individuals who are slightly off in some way or disturbed in others.

The use of wariness and fear in the characters of the novel activates the reader’s emotions as well.

Creating compelling dialogue can be challenging. I often grapple with it. A valuable tip: remember, dialogue differs from everyday speech.

Characters engage in a dance through dialogue, harboring truths they yearn to express. However, as a writer, direct revelation is forbidden.

This gap between characters, laden with unspoken truths, becomes fertile ground for interactions, fostering tension and intrigue for the reader.

Utilizing Cliffhangers Effectively

The art of tension is also the art of leaving readers hanging.

You should not show your readers your entire hand, there should always be pieces of the puzzle missing.

Dracula does this by mixing the doubts of Mr Harker with the events of the castle.

The gap serves as an effective cliffhanger, leaving the reader hanging in suspense as they grapple with the uncertainty of the situation.

Creating irresistible hooks for both the beginning and end of your story is a key strategy for executing effective cliffhangers.

Your beginning NEEDS to hook the reader’s attention and your end needs to raise your reader’s attention even more.

This technique leaves the reader on the edge, creating a cliffhanger by implying that the story holds more than what is revealed.

Conclusion. . .

In our exploration through the world of suspense, we’ve uncovered invaluable insights inspired by the timeless masterpiece, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Let’s quickly recap these tips;

Establish Atmosphere
Character Development and Intrigue
Mastering Pacing for Maximum Impact
The Art of Foreshadowing
Unveiling Secrets: The Power of Mystery
Tension-Building Dialogue
Use Cliffhangers Effectively

Please remember that these tips are not rigid rules but rather stepping stones to help you discover your unique narrative voice.

Don’t be afraid to experiment, to push the boundaries of convention, and to infuse your work with your flair. Your individuality is what will make your stories truly memorable.

In the grand tapestry of literary history, Bram Stoker’s Dracula remains an enduring beacon of suspenseful storytelling.

Its enduring influence echoes, emphasizing that keeping readers on the edge remains crucial, from the 19th century to today.

Hone your craft, drawing from masters, yet craft stories uniquely yours — destined to captivate audiences for generations.

Happy writing!

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Consistency Over Quality to Progress as a Writer