what is the element of suspense that is build up
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Complete ur ques!!!..
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It’s all the same: Building apprehension in the minds of your readers is one of the most effective keys to engaging them early in your novel and keeping them flipping pages late into the night.
Simply put, if you don’t hook your readers, they won’t get into the story. If you don’t drive the story forward by making readers worry about your main character, they won’t have a reason to keep reading.
Think: Worry equals suspense.
The best part is, the secrets for ratcheting up the suspense are easy to implement. Here are six of the most effective. There are 6 most effective but I can't give here more than 5000 characteristics.
1. Put characters that readers care about in jeopardy.
Four factors are necessary for suspense—reader empathy, reader concern, impending danger and escalating tension.
We create reader empathy by giving the character a desire, wound or internal struggle that readers can identify with. The more they empathize, the closer their connection with the story will be. Once they care about identify with a character, readers will be invested when they see the character struggling to get what he most desires.
We want readers to worry about whether or not the character will get what he wants. Only when readers know what the character wants will they know what’s at stake. And only when they know what’s at stake will they be engaged in the story. To get readers more invested in your novel, make clear: 1) What your character desires (love, freedom, adventure, forgiveness, etc.); 2) what is keeping him from getting it; and 3) what terrible consequences will result if he doesn’t get it.
Suspense builds as danger approaches. Readers experience apprehension when a character they care about is in peril. This doesn’t have to be a life-and-death situation. Depending on your genre, the threat may involve the character’s physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual or relational well-being. Whatever your genre, show that something terrible is about to happen—then postpone the resolution to sustain the suspense.
We need to escalate the tension in our stories until it reaches a satisfying climax. Raise the stakes by making the danger more imminent, intimate, personal and devastating. So, if the moon explodes in Act 1, the entire galaxy better be at risk by Act 3. If tension doesn’t escalate, the suspense you’ve been developing will evaporate.
It’s like inflating a balloon—you can’t let the air out of your story; instead, you keep blowing more in, tightening the tension until it looks like the balloon is going to pop at any second.
Then blow in more.
And more.
Until the reader can hardly stand it.
Incidentally, this is one reason why adding sex scenes to your story is actually counterintuitive to building suspense. By releasing all the romantic or sexual tension you’ve been building, you let air out of the balloon. If you want to titillate, add sex; if you want to build suspense, postpone it.
*
2. Include more promises and less action.
Suspense happens in the stillness of your story, in the gaps between the action sequences, in the moments between the promise of something dreadful and its arrival.
When I was writing my novel The Bishop, I began with the goal of letting the entire story span only 52 hours. I thought that by packing everything into a tight time frame I would really make the story suspenseful.
As I worked on the book, however, I realized that there was so much that needed to happen to build to the climax that if I kept to my 52-hour time frame, events would need to occur one after another so quickly that there wouldn’t be space for suspense to happen among them. Finally, I added another 24 hours to the story to create the opportunity for the promises and payoffs that would make the story suspenseful.
If readers complain that “nothing is happening” in a story, they don’t typically mean that no action is occurring, but rather that no promises are being made.
Contrary to what you may have heard, the problem of readers being bored isn’t solved by adding action but instead by adding apprehension. Suspense is anticipation; action is payoff. You don’t increase suspense by “making things happen,” but by promising that they will. Instead of asking, “What needs to happen?” ask, “What can I promise will go wrong?”
Stories are much more than reports of events. Stories are about transformations. We have to show readers where things are going—what situation, character or relationship is going to be transformed.
Of course, depending on your genre, promises can be comedic, romantic, horrific or dramatic. For example, two lovers plan to meet in a meadow to elope. That’s a promise.
But the young man’s rival finds out and says to himself, “If I can’t have her, no one can.” Then he heads to the field and hides, waiting for them, dagger in hand.
The lovers arrive, clueless about the danger …
Milk that moment; make the most of the suspense
it offers.
And then show us what happens in that meadow. In other words …
Simply put, if you don’t hook your readers, they won’t get into the story. If you don’t drive the story forward by making readers worry about your main character, they won’t have a reason to keep reading.
Think: Worry equals suspense.
The best part is, the secrets for ratcheting up the suspense are easy to implement. Here are six of the most effective. There are 6 most effective but I can't give here more than 5000 characteristics.
1. Put characters that readers care about in jeopardy.
Four factors are necessary for suspense—reader empathy, reader concern, impending danger and escalating tension.
We create reader empathy by giving the character a desire, wound or internal struggle that readers can identify with. The more they empathize, the closer their connection with the story will be. Once they care about identify with a character, readers will be invested when they see the character struggling to get what he most desires.
We want readers to worry about whether or not the character will get what he wants. Only when readers know what the character wants will they know what’s at stake. And only when they know what’s at stake will they be engaged in the story. To get readers more invested in your novel, make clear: 1) What your character desires (love, freedom, adventure, forgiveness, etc.); 2) what is keeping him from getting it; and 3) what terrible consequences will result if he doesn’t get it.
Suspense builds as danger approaches. Readers experience apprehension when a character they care about is in peril. This doesn’t have to be a life-and-death situation. Depending on your genre, the threat may involve the character’s physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual or relational well-being. Whatever your genre, show that something terrible is about to happen—then postpone the resolution to sustain the suspense.
We need to escalate the tension in our stories until it reaches a satisfying climax. Raise the stakes by making the danger more imminent, intimate, personal and devastating. So, if the moon explodes in Act 1, the entire galaxy better be at risk by Act 3. If tension doesn’t escalate, the suspense you’ve been developing will evaporate.
It’s like inflating a balloon—you can’t let the air out of your story; instead, you keep blowing more in, tightening the tension until it looks like the balloon is going to pop at any second.
Then blow in more.
And more.
Until the reader can hardly stand it.
Incidentally, this is one reason why adding sex scenes to your story is actually counterintuitive to building suspense. By releasing all the romantic or sexual tension you’ve been building, you let air out of the balloon. If you want to titillate, add sex; if you want to build suspense, postpone it.
*
2. Include more promises and less action.
Suspense happens in the stillness of your story, in the gaps between the action sequences, in the moments between the promise of something dreadful and its arrival.
When I was writing my novel The Bishop, I began with the goal of letting the entire story span only 52 hours. I thought that by packing everything into a tight time frame I would really make the story suspenseful.
As I worked on the book, however, I realized that there was so much that needed to happen to build to the climax that if I kept to my 52-hour time frame, events would need to occur one after another so quickly that there wouldn’t be space for suspense to happen among them. Finally, I added another 24 hours to the story to create the opportunity for the promises and payoffs that would make the story suspenseful.
If readers complain that “nothing is happening” in a story, they don’t typically mean that no action is occurring, but rather that no promises are being made.
Contrary to what you may have heard, the problem of readers being bored isn’t solved by adding action but instead by adding apprehension. Suspense is anticipation; action is payoff. You don’t increase suspense by “making things happen,” but by promising that they will. Instead of asking, “What needs to happen?” ask, “What can I promise will go wrong?”
Stories are much more than reports of events. Stories are about transformations. We have to show readers where things are going—what situation, character or relationship is going to be transformed.
Of course, depending on your genre, promises can be comedic, romantic, horrific or dramatic. For example, two lovers plan to meet in a meadow to elope. That’s a promise.
But the young man’s rival finds out and says to himself, “If I can’t have her, no one can.” Then he heads to the field and hides, waiting for them, dagger in hand.
The lovers arrive, clueless about the danger …
Milk that moment; make the most of the suspense
it offers.
And then show us what happens in that meadow. In other words …
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