Characters make the difference in suspense

Some suspense/thriller stories revolve around famous or important people. Abraham Lincoln has become a vampire slayer, for example. I prefer the stories where ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances. These stories make you feel like, hey, that could be me facing a space alien, psycho killer, vampire, or worse. What would you do? Do you have that deep down intestinal fortitude to jam the stake through the vampire’s heart, after he wakes up?

Characters you can relate to help you enjoy reading the story. It’s one thing for the characters to be sexy like Hollywood stars. These characters are attractive, of course. But the characters that hold your interest are more like your brother or sister. Or the kid next door. Or your cousin Iva from Cleveland. They have acne scars. Their hair never seems quite right. He ought to really just shave the mustache because it doesn’t work for him… or her. Regular just plain folks grab our attention and hold it in ways that Hollywood sex queens cannot.

Main characters usually can be counted on to be reasonably attractive. Otherwise, you wouldn’t keep reading the story. But there also needs to be that element of everyday folk about them. As you’re reading your next suspense/thriller novel, watch for the way the author describes the main character. How does that description attract you to the character? Consider how the author makes the character real for you. Is it the pretty girl’s sexiness? Or is it her lonesome quality because her mother abandoned her at a young age? What makes the character work for you?

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The Suspense Journey as Quest

Bang, bang, shoot ‘em up adventure… or… Why are The Birds behaving that way? … or I’m your father, Luke.  Or how about… Let’s go to Troy and steal Helen back… or Hey, King Arthur, I bet I can find the Holy Grail if I ride around England long enough… Suspense keeps you on the edge of your seat and turning the page… at least the good ones do. How do authors move you as a reader through the plot of their story?

One common plot device is the quest journey. The quest is a complicated plot form that would require a book to fully explain. As a reader, you can keep it simple. There are three phases to a quest that you should be aware of. The first is the “Let’s get going” phase where something happens to motivate the hero or main character to take off on a journey of discovery. One fun thing to look for in this section is the hero almost always turns down the invitation or is reluctant to go on the journey. Think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying that the Father would remove this cup from him. Or Luke Skywalker telling Obi Won Kanobi that he has to stay home and help his uncle.

The second part of the quest is the journey itself. Sir Gawain heads off in search of the Green Knight. The private eye sets out to find the killer. The boyfriend sets out to find his missing girlfriend last seen at a nearby motel. During this part of the story, our hero keeps running into obstacles, gets beat up and left for dead, or simply loses his or her way until the final, climactic scene.

The final act is the “Ta-Da, We did it!” section. Dorothy and friends kill the wicked witch. Luke turns his father back from the dark side. The private eye figures out whodunit.

The quest is a clean story with a beginning, middle and end. Not all stories work this way. In Hitchcock’s The Birds, the birds attack for no reason to spoil a perfectly good romantic comedy and turn it into a horror story. Instead of a journey of discovery, there is only hiding and running away. And at the end, when you expect that “Ta-Da” moment, there is none. Instead, you’re left with the birds waiting for the right moment to attack again with the main characters trying to escape in a convertible. The Birds works as suspense, although the slow build up at the beginning may be too slow for modern movie goers.

The old movies used a plot device where they built the story slowly until the big crash when the monster is revealed and the movie heads into a roller coaster ending. Today, you are more likely to go straight into the roller coaster just as it starts down that first hill. That old style helped the movie viewer forget that the movie was a thriller in the first place. You hear about the new suspense movie, you buy your ticket and popcorn. You plop down in your seat and find yourself staring at a romantic comedy that’s not particularly comic but you sort of forget that it’s really a suspense horror story until wham the birds strike and you wake up, jump out of your seat, and enjoy the ride.

Bringing this home to the suspense novel, look for elements of the quest in the stories you read. If you spot a reluctant main character in the beginning of the story, chances are you are reading a quest-based plot. If so, you may want to Google “quest story” and learn more about what this method of storytelling is all about. The more you know about the quest, the more you will enjoy your reading and the easier it will be for you to figure out what will happen next before it happens.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

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Reading the Quest Story

Suspense/Thriller fiction is often built around the quest. A quest requires the main character to solve a mystery, find something that's missing or solve a problem. The quest teaches the main character something about life so that he or she is a new person at the end. My video goes into this topic.

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Not Exactly Hardboiled Noir

In noir fiction, you have a fatally flawed main character who ends up dead or worse. The writing is cynical and dark. Most of my fiction gives you the hard hitting, cynical style of a noir drama, but my stories end up in a good place. It’s not possible for a noir story to have a happy ending, so my novels are not true noir.

So why bring this up?
Noir fiction tells a compelling story about life’s losers and ne’er-do-wells. My characters pass through a loser phase but then find redemption. I’m taking the loser and saving his soul by dragging him or her through some muddy places.

I like to lighten the mood with humor. In Fulfillment, humor relieves the tension in an otherwise dark world of the first century C.E. In Faerie Tale, which I’ll release this summer, humor again provides the necessary relief from a frightening world.

In my current work in progress, which shall remain unnamed for the moment, I’m using a heavy amount of humor to the point where I may lose the deep noir darkness, but I’ll keep some of the gray tones. So you may say that I’ll be reversing the style from noir with a touch of humor to humor with a touch of noir.

Style distinguishes an author’s work. Once you have read a few novels by the same author you will be able to pick out the author’s writing even if the name is not given. Style is one of things that makes your favorite author your favorite.

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You Noir What You Noir

In this video I talk about my dark, mysterious "noir" writing style. Enjoy.

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Watch How the Author Deals with Good Vs. Evil

Suspense stories invariably deal with the battle of good versus evil. Modern suspense writers often make it difficult or impossible for the reader to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Yet, the conflict of good and evil is at the heart of western literature. The way the author handles the moral conflict indicates how he or she views the world, or at least the world of the story.

Is your vampire good or evil in the book you are reading? What about the terrorist? One country’s terrorist is another country’s national hero. Same is true of the spy. Is King Kong good or evil?

In Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense movies, you can tell the good guys from the bad guys. Hitchcock created his films during an age when making this distinction was important to the art of film making. Today’s film makers and suspense authors seem unconcerned about the moral implications of their work, yet it is impossible for them to leave their moral stamp out of their work.

As a suspense novel reader, you have an opportunity to learn about the moral compass that guides the writer. Understanding the moral climate of a work gives you a deeper insight into the action. You'll gain a better understanding for why the characters behave the way they do. And you'll make better guesses as you try to predict what will happen next.

You also gain a richer reading experience by considering the author's moral viewpoint in light of your own. How does the novel affect your own sense of morality? For example, is it really okay for the main character to cheat on his spouse? Did the main character do the right thing when she blew the villain’s head off with a shotgun in the last scene? Just because a vampire makes a good lover, does that make it right for him to turn his love interest into a vampire?

Considering the moral implications and values reflected in the suspense novels you read helps you evaluate your own moral compass. If the author’s moral viewpoint seems out of kilter with your own, is it your morals or the author's that need adjustment?

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Suspense Often Mixes in Other Genres

As you're reading a suspense/thriller novel, stay alert for elements of other fiction genres. Authors like to mix in their choice of mystery, sci-fi, horror, romance or other genres. Mystery and suspense go hand-in-hand. The main action will be about what happens next in the story, but the characters also may be trying to solve a mystery that occurred in the past. By mixing suspense and mystery, the author creates a sense of foreboding as you worry about whether the killer will strike again. And you worry about which of the characters is the killer.

I like to include an element of romance in my suspense stories as do many of the authors I read. Just because the world is about to explode doesn’t mean you can’t take time out to fall in love. Suspense stories add an element to the romance as you become concerned if the bad guy is going to kill the girl before she realizes he’s the killer. It may be a match made in heaven, but that doesn’t mean the author can’t kill off the young beau before the wedding.

Sci-fi almost always includes a big element of suspense so there’s no reason not to mix a little sci-fi with a suspense novel. A new technology may be the very thing the terrorist needs to blow up New Jersey before the lovers meet on the beaches of Wildwood.

And what would a good suspense story be without a monster? While we’re mixing in the monster, let’s make him a lover like King Kong or your favorite vampire. The werewolf can be a romantic interest during the day and the villain at night. It’s all up to the author. The more mixing and matching of genres and characters, usually the better and richer the story.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

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