Tips for Aspiring Writers

How do I Successfully Write Suspense?

Remember... if you need help with your book or want us to write a specific chapter for this book to aid your writing... leave us a comment or PM us whenever and we will do the best we can to help. Thank you.

Yay! Suspense is probably the most fun thing to write... in our - Spi and Lei's - opinion. I also love how people have to wait for the next chapter to come out and completely BEG for you to post it. Sadly, we don't really know how that feels, we can only wish...

(Haha) ANYWAYS, on a happier note, we love suspense, and with the right teaching, we can teach you how to...

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Haha, what I meant to say is that we can teach you how to write suspense. Writing suspense starts, main and formost with... Mistakes. Make the character think they saw something, or heard something, but it was actually a plastic bac flapping in the wind, or a mangy cat scrounging for food in the garbage. Make the character paranoid, and work up the audience for nothing.

Next... The grand reveal. For this step, let the character see whatever it fears, or is running from. Explain it so vividly that there is no mistaking that it is the real thing. Whether from close up, or faraway. They could turn around and have the thing right behind them... or just see it taunting them, stalking them from afar.

Step three... The chase. There should be a big adrenaline-filled chase which builds up the suspense in the audiance so much that they want to skip to the end and see what happens... but the end won't feature the result... Hence the suspence. The chase should involve the panicked character running, but still hearing, seeing, smelling, felling... (and anything else) ... the character.

Step four... The delay. This step is called the delay because you need to delay the ending. make the character get stuck or ingured, giving the thing time to slowly walk up to them, evil grin spread across their face (that example is from our book, Afraid of the Dark - but we may change the title soon).

Step five.......... Never end the chapter properly - don't end the conflict. That can happen in the beginning of the next chapter.

That's basically all you need to know in the form of steps... but we still have a few tips for you...

Tips:

-Be descriptave!!!!!!!!! It prolongs the sentence and builds suspense, making the story come alive. You want your readers to really feel like they're in the situation, like it's them that's about to get eaten by a gigantic hippopotamus.

-Make it overexcessive. Add noticable details like the wind, and how hard the person's heart is beating.

-Never end the conflict at the end of the chapter. Leave your readers wondering what is going to happen next. If your chapter is too short and you abolutely must end the conflict... Still don't. If you want suspense, start a new chap instead. If the person is looking for someone, make them find them... the end.

Last but not least, HAVE FUN. If you find yourself stressing, don't. Don't write for anyone but yourself.

Oh! Almost forgot! The last key ingredient to writng suspense is -

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