How to Create Suspense in Fiction

What is suspense in fiction? It is that feeling of uncertainty, that tension, that interest in what happens next. Suspense is what keeps many readers up late at night, turning the pages until the wee hours of the morning. Here are some tips on how to create suspense in fiction.

Create a feeling of urgency and immediacy. You do not have to write in the present tense in order to accomplish this. You can accomplish this by showing your characters' immediate emotions and paying close attention to the pacing of your novel.

You do not need to completely eliminate description, but you should learn how to use it sparingly. Large amounts of description can slow the pace of your novel, extinguish suspense, and bore your readers.

Astonish your readers by having the unexpected happen. There is little worse than a predictable story. That is not to say that the events taking place in your novel should not be logical. They should be logical yet unexpected.

At the end of the chapter is where you should concentrate on adding some extra suspense. This is where readers stop to dog-ear the page and go to sleep. Do not let them do that. Keep them reading long into the night by carrying over the suspense at the end of each chapter.

Use time to your advantage. Some stories that take place in a single night are the hardest to put down. Although not terribly well-written, Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code is a fine example. Long gaps in time - days, weeks, months - slow the pace of your novel and do damage to the suspense you have managed to generate.

Remember that your story should have highs and lows, not amount to one feverish race. A story that maintains a high pitch throughout can be as boring as one that has no high pitches at all. The tempo of your fiction should rise and fall and rise again.

Suspense requires some sort of danger. Indeed, a mystery novel where the sleuth operates to solve the murder without the distraction of danger would be quite boring. And remember, the danger need not always come from the killer himself.