: Problems about making a story suspenseful I've been writing my first story for almost one year, and I am facing problems in working on suspense and that's why I'm slowing on it..I just present

@Vandalay250

Posted in: #CreativeWriting #Suspense

I've been writing my first story for almost one year, and I am facing problems in working on suspense and that's why I'm slowing on it..I just present ideas, kind of explicitly and I don't know how to left the chance for the reader to think and to be excited ?
This fact unfortunately make me sometimes give up and think about stopping writing
How do I overcome this problem ?

Vote Up Vote Down

0 Reactions   React

Replies (2) Report

Login to post a comment!

@Murphy332

@Murphy332

Suspense is created through anticipation of events outside of characters' control.
Suspense is most common in horror/thriller genres, but generally, suspense can be positive or comedic and be suitable in any kind of plot.
The higher characters' stakes are for the event, the bigger is the suspense. However, the reader must be "invested" in characters in order to feel the suspense.
The more obscure is the event, the bigger is the suspense. If the character is scheduled to be executed by hanging, this is dramatic, but not very suspenseful. But if the character is anticipating a visit by a mysterious horror creature, suspense would be much higher.
The more unstable and fragile current situation is, the bigger is the suspense. A character may build one-story card house or five-story card house, with equal stakes and equal clarity of the expected outcome. In case of a five-story card house, suspense would be higher.

Vote Up Vote Down

0 Reactions   React

Replies (0) Report

@Kristi637

@Kristi637

You have to realize that we do many types of writing for a book, and only some of those are meant for the reader. What you're doing right now is called worldbuilding. It's a very important part of your process, but it's only the first step. Once you completely understand all your characters, settings and plot, choose a point-of-view character, and go back through the story, only writing into the final book the things that the character personally observes or experiences.
You'll also want to give that character strong goals and desires, make sure he or she is growing and changing through the events, and conceal some information from them. That will lead to a suspenseful book. If this part of the process doesn't seem clear, I recommend Story Genius as a good resource that can help you plot out a character-driven throughline.

Vote Up Vote Down

0 Reactions   React

Replies (0) Report