Building Suspense: Story Questions
Over time, I've got some wacky critiques. The one I really don't get is when someone someone expects me to answer a story question as soon as I pose it. For example, take this excerpt from the first issue of my news series, The Unification Chronicles:
---
She walked over to stand next to him. "You understand why we're here. You know better than anyone why terraforming a dead world isn't viable politically with the folks back home."
He sighed. "Yes, Robyn, I know."
"Hey," she said. "Mars wasn't your fault. You did everything possible to avert—"
"It wasn't enough, though, was it?" Jack said. "And now we're passing up any number of worlds suitable for terraforming, taking unnecessary risks—"
"We're soldiers, sir. We're doing what we've been ordered to do."
---
Now, we've learned some important information here. We know that something bad happened on Mars, that Jack takes it personally, even though Robyn thinks Jack did all he could. Do we know what happened? No,, but we don't need to just yet. We will find out eventually, but only when it makes sense for the characters to think about it.
This is why point of view is so important, and why, thankfully, third person omniscient has fallen out of fashion. One of the best things you can do to lend authenticity to your stories is have the characters talk about things that they already know about as if they already know about them. First person or third person limited gives you the ability to hold things back from the reader because the point of view character either doesn't know them or just isn't thinking about them right now.
When you're talking to your friends, you don't say, "When I was at work the other day, where I've worked for seven years, something happened. I got the job because..." Your friends already know where you work, how long you've been there, you don't need to explain it.
Yet that's probably the most common complaint I get. My characters don't spend enough time explaining what they already know to the reader. In the above story, Jack does eventually think about Mars and what happened there, and that's when we find out, but it doesn't make any sense to bring it up sooner.
But you know what? The fact that some of my readers complain about this means it's working. The idea of dropping little hints at backstory like this is to pose a story question. Get the reader thinking about what's going on behind the scenes, and getting them to read on to find the answers. Laying out a string of story questions is the heart of suspense, and suspense (sometimes referred to simply as "tension") is the heart of dramatic narrative. A story without story questions up in the air is predictable, boring and flat.
The flip side is Chekov's Law of Writing: If you have a gun on the wall in act 1 it must be fired by act 3. Pose all the story questions you like, but don't leave them up there forever. You have to pay them off eventually. I can't tell you how annoying it is to get to the end of a book and still think, "But what about the butler? The last time we saw him, he was creeping down the hall with a heavy silver candlestick, then he's never mentioned again! What gives?"
So look over your work and ask two questions. Are you posing enough story questions, and are you eventually paying off the ones you pose?
---
She walked over to stand next to him. "You understand why we're here. You know better than anyone why terraforming a dead world isn't viable politically with the folks back home."
He sighed. "Yes, Robyn, I know."
"Hey," she said. "Mars wasn't your fault. You did everything possible to avert—"
"It wasn't enough, though, was it?" Jack said. "And now we're passing up any number of worlds suitable for terraforming, taking unnecessary risks—"
"We're soldiers, sir. We're doing what we've been ordered to do."
---
Now, we've learned some important information here. We know that something bad happened on Mars, that Jack takes it personally, even though Robyn thinks Jack did all he could. Do we know what happened? No,, but we don't need to just yet. We will find out eventually, but only when it makes sense for the characters to think about it.
This is why point of view is so important, and why, thankfully, third person omniscient has fallen out of fashion. One of the best things you can do to lend authenticity to your stories is have the characters talk about things that they already know about as if they already know about them. First person or third person limited gives you the ability to hold things back from the reader because the point of view character either doesn't know them or just isn't thinking about them right now.
When you're talking to your friends, you don't say, "When I was at work the other day, where I've worked for seven years, something happened. I got the job because..." Your friends already know where you work, how long you've been there, you don't need to explain it.
Yet that's probably the most common complaint I get. My characters don't spend enough time explaining what they already know to the reader. In the above story, Jack does eventually think about Mars and what happened there, and that's when we find out, but it doesn't make any sense to bring it up sooner.
But you know what? The fact that some of my readers complain about this means it's working. The idea of dropping little hints at backstory like this is to pose a story question. Get the reader thinking about what's going on behind the scenes, and getting them to read on to find the answers. Laying out a string of story questions is the heart of suspense, and suspense (sometimes referred to simply as "tension") is the heart of dramatic narrative. A story without story questions up in the air is predictable, boring and flat.
The flip side is Chekov's Law of Writing: If you have a gun on the wall in act 1 it must be fired by act 3. Pose all the story questions you like, but don't leave them up there forever. You have to pay them off eventually. I can't tell you how annoying it is to get to the end of a book and still think, "But what about the butler? The last time we saw him, he was creeping down the hall with a heavy silver candlestick, then he's never mentioned again! What gives?"
So look over your work and ask two questions. Are you posing enough story questions, and are you eventually paying off the ones you pose?
3 Comments:
At 6:43 AM, Anonymous said…
Your points are valid, but no matter how valid and logical they are, if your readers are pointing them out as a problem, then they're a problem. Certainly your characters can talk about something without giving valuable information - as you said, this is natural and adds intrigue. But if you leave the question hopping around for too long, it becomes annoying and obvious that the author is trying to keep something from the reader. As an extreme example:
"Did you do it?"
"Yes. And I can't believe it."
"It had to be done. The freedom fighters will thank you."
"Yes, but it was so terrible."
"But you did it."
"Yes, I did it, but can you believe the cost?"
"Can you say it isn't worth the cost?"
"No. No, it's so important. I had to do it."
"Thank god you did it."
"Do you think what I did will end the war?"
etc., etc...
While this may be the way people would actually speak, it's annoying and the author's hand is obvious.
I'm not saying this is what you're doing, but a little withholding can be effective, while too much is boring. And if you're hearing a lot of readers saying the same thing, don't assume they aren't reading well. It's your job as a writer to convey the story to them. If the reader isn't getting it, it's your job to fix the prose, not the reader's to change their reading habits.
At 7:31 PM, Anonymous said…
I agree with the previous poster, for the most part. But you are right in that this can be a very powerful tool, and perhaps you are using it well. I can't really tell from the sample you give.
I recommend China Mieville's books for something that does a really good job with this. Perdido Street Station constantly had me guessing. It was a little annoying, but really suspenseful. I really couldn't put it down.
Thomas Wilburn
www.thomaswilburn.net
At 2:14 PM, Anonymous said…
My original critique stands. Listen to the other two posters here too. You are doing something WRONG. What you deem "suspense" is being seen as *confusing*.
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