  Horror/Scary
This week: How to Garner Suspense Edited by: Sara♥Jean  
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How to Garner Suspense
You've all watched those movies where the music changes suddenly, even if the scene hasn't yet shifted. Your brain goes, "Uh oh. Something's about to happen." You shift to the edge of your seat, glue your eyes to the screen, and wait anxiously for whatever it is to jump out from behind the tree, or the corner, or the wall, or the furniture. Sometimes it will surprise you, and sometimes it won't. And sometimes, cruel people, they're just fooling you, and they get you all worked up for something little.
How can we accomplish this in our writing, however? We don't have scary music to set the mood.
Many times, when people don't set the mood in their writing, the guy jumps out from behind the wall with a big huge meat cleaver, and it doesn't make sense in the story at all. There have been no hints that something is about to happen, nothing to set our readers on the edge of their seats, and nothing to engage them in the action at all, so it's just BOOM! Here it is! Guy with a knife! But... no one was in suspense about it, no one was anticipating it, and yet no one is surprised over it either.
Description is key. Description can make or break a scary scene in a book. Was there a sound that went unheard? A crash in the adjacent room, or a rustle of clothing, the smell of an unfamiliar perfume, or even the passing of a shadow just out of the sight of those in the scene. Maybe even something they did hear or see, but dismissed as "the cat", or "the wind", or simply as nothing. If you want to hook your readers into the scenes and push them to the edge of their seats, peaking their curiosity is the absolute guaranteed way!
Let THE READER see the shadow, but not know what it belongs to. Let them hear the sound, but don't tell them what it is. Indicate in the conversation of the characters that there is the scent of a different perfume, but have them dismiss it. Give the reader some sort of narrative hint, and let them wonder. (Now, I didn't say foreshadow - that's completely different, and was talked about in my very first WdC newsletter a long time back. Garnering the reader's curiosity and foreshadowing should be two very separate things.)
Description can be the key to setting MANY scenes in a horror story. The gory murder scene needs vivid description so the reader can truly understand exactly what the person standing there sees, and the reactions to it. Describe everything - scent, visual, auditory, touch, taste - use all of the senses to pull the reader in, and not let them go.
Is there the smell of blood in the air? How about the sick scent of a body laying dead for several days? Does it make the characters gag? Are they so used to it, that they simply continue on with no reaction? Are they so prideful that they hide their reaction from the others, but secretly actually never eat anything before going to a scene? Is there blood everywhere, or is it centralized to one place? How does the body look? Are there any strange sounds around them - the sound of an animal, or nearby traffic, or even the rustling of leaves when nature is calm despite the recent happenings? Is the ground sticky; are the gloves dry? So many questions can be answered with description, and that very same description can drag the reader in, even if they weren't fascinated with the story before. And if they were already hooked, well, you've just garnered more curiosity from them, and pulled them in further.
 Write on! |
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Horror/Scary: May 18, 2011 Issue [#4397]
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