How All Writing is Suspense

Why is my writing all about suspense? I think a better question is, is there any story that isn’t really about building uncertainty, making the reader wonder about what comes next, making them care? Suspense. And understanding that may be the perfect tool for any kind of writing.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

But suspense is only one genre, isn’t it? One Wikipedia page (since it’s probably the quickest source to go check; I’ll wait) lists 22 genres, and umpteen variations within them. I actually class my own writing as fantasy, urban fantasy and paranormal in particular, one of several genres that many people think of for its distinctive character types and weaponry (see also Science Fiction) or conflict (Crime or Mystery).

Except, many of those genres are about choosing tools. When a writer sits down to use them, Tom Clancy doesn’t have the same aims as Ian Fleming, and my battles aren’t trying to imitate Seanan McGuire’s. (Not that anyone could…)

What the idea of suspense can do is bring all genres and styles together—and show how each of us is making our own writing choices, even line by line, but all following the same cycle.

I call it a “suspense” flow, because I think that’s the word that captures the energy we want each part of a story to have—especially how it depends on balancing different parts of the flow to get the pacing right. You might argue for “action,” “mystery,” or other words, but I think “suspense” captures more in one word. And it all builds on what all writers do know is: conflict.

If #conflict is the 'engine' of a story, the #suspense flow shows which 'gear' the engine's in. Click To Tweet

How does that help us writing?

Partly, we can use the suspense model for a larger view of what any part of a story needs, whether it’s a single passage or a five-book plan. Such as checking for:

someone to root for
tone or atmosphere
complications, and a sense that these would be what he has to deal with
choices that are hard enough to reveal the character
pacing, not rushing or bogging down on the way to—
an outcome that means something

All of these are basic elements of writing and conflict, but this fits them all together to see them as part of the same cycle—and to ask whether they’re building the right kind of momentum, involvement, suspense.

“But my writing’s barely about suspense!” –If that’s what you’ve been thinking, consider this: the suspense flow is more than a way to find common needs in the genres and styles. It’s also a way to look at any part of writing, and to pick if you have any particular priorities for it:

If you want sensory mood or detail, you can start painting the picture right from the beginning, even before things happen.
To make your story more about its subject (anything from a neighborhood-specific tale to a political tale to SF and fantasy), you might define more of it by just what complications come out of it. Be sure the reader knows why it’s those problems those people have to face, and what that means.
A sense of mystery can mean playing up the contrast between choices about the subject, and of course stretching out how long it takaes to find that answer. Was it the vampire or the best friend that dunnit? Just why was the ruined city abandoned?
Or, classic suspense in its own right means extending the whole process, whether it’s building up more mood or looking for further complications to keep things up in the air.
Pure “drama” usually is code for making characters more important than what happens—not just important (we all want that), but focused on how they resist or interpret or put their own slant on the facts. Even in a whole sprawling war, nobody’s going to have the same PTSD as this one soldier.
Or an action story needs to do justice to the effect itself, the explosions at the end of the suspense cycle before the cycle starts up again.
(For that matter, comedy has the same need to stop there and enjoy the laughter. That same moment of release might well have explosions too, as long as fewer people are getting hurt.)

Naturally each point on the suspense flow is only as good as how the rest of the flow meshes with it. Only the crudest action story gets careless about why the danger’s there, or the hero’s choices in facing it; sensory description that shuts off once the complications appear would be absurd. And again, “suspense” is a reminder that it only works when the pieces have the right balance for the pacing we want.

Even a sequence that’s all mood or description can look at this pattern. By the time that boy finishes strolling out to the lake, what state of mind should the passage have nudged him to, and the reader with him? Do the bits of detail contrast with each other in ways that stir up preferences in us (looking at the open sky, and the gritty, tiring dust his feet kick up, before he’s finally rounding the corner), or give a sense of one thing disrupting another to demand our attention?

Can you look at these and see which part of the flow you want to give a bit more justification, a few more words, or an extra scene?

It’s all there, by one name or another. And if the combination of your words catches fire, it will do it partly because of what we call suspense.

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Writing for Five Senses – Combining Them All

Can you write a description with just sight and hearing? No, but those two can organize how all five senses fit together.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

Last week I wrote about the classic advice to “describe all five senses,” and how much easier keeping track of description is if we focus on alternating the main two. But of course writing isn’t supposed to be easy. Having two primary senses doesn’t excuse us from keeping all five in mind to cover a scene, or help weave them together to build the kind of high-powered suspense (or warmth, or humor, or whatever your own goals are) a story deserves.

Except, they do.

Sight and hearing aren’t just a shortcut, they’re models for writing all five senses. bit.ly/5SensesBy2 Click To Tweet

Two Models

Think about it: what’s the basic difference between eyes and ears? Different writers might think of points like:

Sight organizes our surroundings, with sound giving advance signs before something comes into view. (Or as we action writers call them, warnings.)
Sight gives a complete “picture” of surroundings; sound often adds feeling with someone’s tone of voice, or a noisy object’s “personality.” More poetic writers can savor this.
Sight shows everything (in theory); sound picks out which things are moving or active.

All true, and I think they all come back to one rule for organizing descriptions:

#Describing sight is about things’ positions; hearing is about their nature. #writing bit.ly/5SensesBy2 Click To Tweet

When I look out my window right now, I see everything from the parking lot up to the sky—which also means I have to (literally) focus on different parts of the view each moment, and it means that if I don’t see someone walking up to visit me, there’s nobody right there. Hearing is more selective; someone standing beyond my door is hidden until he knocks, and I still won’t know if he’s holding a package or anything else until he (or she) makes another noise with that.

–That position vs nature difference is nothing new to any of us, but how often do we really think about it, as writers? Especially one further effect of it: if there is a sound, my hearing might still pick it up through walls and behind my back, and even when I’m not paying attention. (Say when a car alarm goes off when I’m trying to write…) But sight’s power and limits might lead to me walking over to check what’s off on the side of my window frame.

Of the two, focused sight is the one we keep acting on to get a clearer picture of what we need; sound gets broadcast to us on its own. For a writer looking to follow the moment, that difference is pure gold.

And best of all, the other three senses fit right into these patterns.

Touch is as position- and focused-based as sight, the way we have to reach out to feel anything that hasn’t come to us; it even has the same similarity that we already have a skinload of cold air, tight shoes, and other touches we’re always half-aware of and trying to focus past. And taste only has the range of our tongues, except when memory or “the taste of fear” stir something up.

Meanwhile smell works much like hearing: certain things jump right out at us because they—but only they—give off much scent, and they pour those sensations right into the air.

There may be five senses, but all they follow these two plans… and so does a character using them.

Stepping through the Senses

Since I always look at my writing as a chance to build different kinds of suspense, I think my scenes only work if I can build them in the right order. So if I want to drop a reader deep into one moment, I might describe all five senses at once. But more often, I’ll tie it all to the process of how my character is living through that scene:

Step 1) First outside senses: Is there something he can hear, or smell, before what’s important comes within reach of the focused senses?

A crunch of boots on the snow made him whirl around.

Step 2) Surveying: What can he see, touch, or taste as he first tries to take in what’s there? And, which pieces matter most to him, and what patterns (like barriers or possibilities) do they form in his mind?

One of the thugs staggered from the door, blocking the alley. Dark blood soaked his shirt, but Mark shivered to see the “dead” man’s wild eyes gleam brighter than the knife in his hand.

As part of this, sound/smell components: check which few of those sensations would also create a sound or smell, and how those senses might “demand” a bit of our attention. So instead I could start those lines with:
One of the thugs staggered from the door, scraping dully against the brick wall as he blocked the alley….

Step 3) Act & React (focus+changes): As the scene goes on, keep tracking what the character and everyone else do, the same way as Step 2. That is, use sight, touch, and taste to do their best to follow everything worth noticing, but watch for which things are adding a noise or scent to the mix.

Mark edged back, watching his balance as his heels picked through the treacherous bags of garbage piled behind him. The stink of blood as the killer stumbled closer brought sour vomit to Mark’s mouth.

plus Background: For an extra layer, once and a while is there a sound or smell from outside the immediate area that could filter into the mix?
The police sirens faded in the distance.

—Or if those sirens were to turn around, that “background” sound could restart the cycle as a new Step 1 of the police starting to drive into view. (Even if they don’t, if you know my Lavine series, you know Mark has at least four ways to survive that scene.)

That’s how I build suspense, or poetry or warmth or any other mood, by playing up the differences in the “focused” and “broadcast” senses to work them each in at their own places. Because to me (and I make no apology for saying it)—

Losing that distinction would be… senseless.

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Writing for Five Senses – Description on the Run

It’s one of the most common writing tips: “Write the scene using all five senses.” But whenever I hear one writer give another that advice, I feel like one of my own trickster characters, and not just the ones with enhanced or extra senses. It’s more that I have to keep my smile in place while inside a part of me will wince.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

It’s a vital point; advice like Orly Konig-Lopez’s Unforgettable Writing: Use all 5 Senses to Add Emotion show how much it can add to a story. What I think it misses is—who’d have thought?—how that single line of advice describes it.

The problem with 'describe all five senses' is how it describes the idea. #writing Click To Tweet

Because… five, seriously?

I think we all cringe a little, at the idea of keeping that many of anything in our minds all at once, at least when we’re doing something as focused as creating an impression out of thin air. For favorite books or grocery lists, five is a small number; for senses to juggle in one description, it’s huge. (Plus, taste? In a chase scene?)

Yes, yes, the tip doesn’t mean every sense needs equal time. But it keeps us thinking about how hard it is to keep track of that many senses in writing, instead of how we could get more of them in by using how they relate to each other.

Quick Check: the Big Two

All five senses are not created equal. #description #writing Click To Tweet

We all know which two of the human senses do most of the work in a story. In fact, you can probably divide your scenes into “mostly hearing” (usually dialog) and “mostly sight” (everything else).

—Just don’t stop at that.

It’s the easiest way I know to bring description to life: keep some sounds mixed in with the sights.

Sight being what it is, it’s the main sense we use to organize our surroundings—especially if we’re trying to describe something and have the space to only mention so much. But it’s all too easy to see (there’s that word again) the scene just in terms of the eye.

When my hero was infiltrating an apartment complex in SHADOWED, I could have opened with:

Trimmed trees and brush lined the paths around the buildings, but Paul saw none of the families walking around it now that the sun had set.

Not too shabby, I think; in twenty-six words it shows different pieces of the place and conveys a larger picture, including how Paul has been waiting to make his move.

Except, all of it is that visual “picture.” This is the kind of one-sense writing it’s easy to slip into, that leaves the description a bit flat. So instead I used:

Trimmed trees and brush lined the paths around the buildings, and Paul could hear a baby crying, probably part of one of the families he’d seen walking when the sun had been out.

Six more words, but just having that second sense in there drops the reader into a more real place. You can start imagining how Paul would pass other sounds as he walks in, and you might even be halfway to filling in the hard concrete under his shoes or the fading smell of barbecue, because the description won’t let you settle back into seing the neighborhood as just a painting. Sound goes with sight like, well, thunder with lightning.

Sound #description goes with sight like thunder with lightning. #writing Click To Tweet

Naturally this works the other way too: dialog and other sound-focused passages can get the same depth by working in some visuals. A page of pure conversation never feels as complete as a page sprinkled with faces, background images, or a full “walk and talk” of what the characters are doing or passing by as the chat goes on. Imagine how much this line from the next page of SHADOWED would lose if it had stopped with the sound:

“Who are you?” Koenig gasped as he groped for the drawer.

(If you’re a dialog-centered writer, you may have worked out the sight-sound combination starting from this end. Add enough gestures to conversations and you start to see the need for noises in a landscape too.)

Writing would be easier if there were one rule of thumb about this—maybe one sound per paragraph or three sentences of sight and vice versa. But of course the real fun is each of us working out our own mix, and just remembering how much mixing in one other sense fleshes out the moment.

That’s my one-step tip for deepening descriptions. I hope you’ll keep it mind when you read, write, or you come across the flat “use five senses” statement.

Next week I’ll go further into how comparing those two senses can help all five work together in a description, and some of the patterns that can steer pacing and suspense. After all:

You can’t see everywhere.