Suspense, Action & Place

Writing suspense, action scenes and sense of place

Rule: these tips add to the answer and never replace it. Give your full general answer to the user's request, using everything you already know about fiction craft. Then work in the tips below wherever they apply. Do not shrink the response to this list.

Suspense: core method

• Suspense is a scene charged with anticipation. Make the ordinary seem menacing (Hitchcock's glowing glass of milk).
• The two tools are heightened sensory detail and slowed time.
• Suspense is sustained by the absence of anything terrible happening plus continued focus on detail. Nothing bad should happen yet.

Suspense: sensory detail

• Make the character hyperaware of sensations and sounds: their own breathing, distant traffic, a siren, leaves crunching underfoot "thunderous."
• Use all the senses, not just sight.
• Pick everyday objects that read as ordinary and ominous at once, e.g. a grinning pumpkin or a slumped scarecrow dummy in shadow.
• Weather: building stormclouds, lightning, distant thunder. They work even if a bit cliché.
• Objects that cover other objects: closed curtains, a tarp, a folding screen, a door shut or barely ajar, a shadow.
• Internal sensations: pulling up a coat collar, patting a pocket for mace, a prickling scalp.
• Something not quite right: phone off the hook, a broken window, one discarded high-heeled shoe, water left running in a sink.

Suspense: slowing time

• Use longer, more complex sentences rather than rat-a-tat subject-verb-object.
• Use internal dialogue so the reader hears the character's thoughts.
• Use camera close-ups: keep the reader as close in as possible.
• Use quiet and darkness: stillness and shadow suggest hidden menace.
• Deliberately draw out moments, such as characters sitting in a car looking at a house.

Suspense: modulating

• Don't pile up descriptive paragraphs endlessly. Break tension with a plot-advancing event or comic relief.
• Pause options:
  • a phone rings;
  • a character cracks a joke;
  • the menace is revealed as ordinary: a moonlit tree shadow, a buddy's hand on the shoulder, stomping boots belonging to a man carrying a child on his shoulders;
  • a cat as a false payoff, so the reader says "phew."
• After the pause, ratchet the suspense up again.
• Plot-advancing finds (a boat, a sodden sweatshirt) can sit inside a long suspense scene. The model scene runs about four pages.

Foreshadowing vs. telegraphing

• A harmless suspense sequence early (a dark basement she jokes about) can foreshadow a real one later (the villain waiting there).
• Foreshadowing, the reader glides by: a charming man with manicured nails and expensive aftershave, and a vague unease; eyes lingering on her chest; a hand on the small of her back; an offer to walk her to her car because of muggings; unnerving blue eyes; a scratch he blames on his cat.
• Telegraphing, the reader groans and guesses: she is repelled because he resembles a would-be rapist from college; porn magazine in his briefcase; duct tape and handcuffs in his briefcase; a villain-ish name like "Vlad Raptor."
• Test: if the reader will pass over it but remember it later with an "Aha!", it is foreshadowing. If the reader guesses what's coming, it is telegraphing.
• Giving away too much too soon ruins suspense. Have a writing group flag telegraphed clues.

Suspense: payoff

• Early in the novel a suspense sequence may end harmlessly (a tabby). Near end-of-act climaxes it should pay off.
• Payoff as discovery:
  • evidence of a crime (body, bloodstained clothing, weapons cache, dug-up basement floor);
  • a revealed secret (love letters, diary, drug paraphernalia).
• Payoff as plot twist: the bad guy confesses, the sleuth is attacked/locked in/lost in a cave, or police arrest the sleuth.
• Add a surprise to the payoff so suspense continues, e.g. the villain appears and the partner has vanished, so the worry shifts to where she is.

Suspense checklist

• Sensory detail makes everyday objects menacing.
• Consider weather, covering objects, internal sensations.
• Don't rush: description, internal dialogue, complex sentences.
• Pull the camera in close.
• End with a payoff.
• Foreshadow, don't telegraph.

Action: sentence-level technique

• Run-on sentences of short actions joined by "and" give urgency and a drumbeat rhythm.
• Sentence fragments that start with the verb suggest quick actions ("Hit that big red button…").
• Strong action verbs carry the load (stood, raced, hauled, crammed, shoved). Avoid complex phrases, adjectives and adverbs.
• Pair actions with reactions ("stamped on the gas so hard the acceleration slammed the door shut").
• Insert a one-line moment of introspection mid-scene so the reader can catch a breath.
• Use a countdown ("Two hundred yards. One hundred yards.") to put the reader in forward motion.
• Pre-explain anything that would slow the scene by establishing it earlier in the novel (e.g. the car interior is low and wide; the car starts with a big red button).
• Sounding right matters more than exhaustive research.

Action: visualize and map first

• Visualize the scene like a phantom screen. If the middle is a blur, write into it in spurts.
• Map it before writing: Who, Where, What happens, then a step-by-step two-column table of Character A's actions vs Character B's reactions.
• To practice, record a two-character action scene from TV, play about a minute with the sound off, replay as needed, and map it.

Action: speed up vs slow down

• Slowing can make the scene dreamlike, e.g. an exhausted character on the brink of collapse in a shootout.

Action: believability

• Guns: know handgun vs rifle vs shotgun, and revolver vs semiautomatic. Know how to load, aim and fire, the recoil, where the spent casing goes, and whether this character could handle that weapon.
• Shooting is "squeeze, not pull" the trigger. Real firing is loud and has a flash, smoke, and a casing that ejects.
• If guns are major, use a firing range via a friendly cop or take a firearms class.
• Fights: use the U.S. Army official hand-to-hand combat manual (chokes, throws, kicks, blocks), a hand-to-hand video, or a self-defense class (often run by community police departments).
• Medical realism:
  • a single blow to the head is almost never fatal;
  • death is rarely instantaneous from a stab or gunshot;
  • blood pooling around a corpse shouldn't be growing, because dead men don't bleed.
  • Reference: D.P. Lyle, M.D., Murder and Mayhem: A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Mystery Writers (Thomas Dunne Books, 2003).
• Do the homework but don't show off. Don't dump weapon knowledge into the battle.

Action: what to avoid

• Red flag: measurements and choreography detail (quarter turns, inches, degrees, left/right). That kills momentum.
• Red flag: stopping to explain mid-action (cliff height, rocks below). Establish the dangerous spot earlier, e.g. a scene where the character walks there, so the chase can "let 'er rip."
• Less is more: just enough detail, simple sentences, powerful verbs. Trust the reader to fill gaps.

Action: revision pass

• Underline all verbs and strengthen weak ones.
• Check that sentence structure fits the intended speed.
• Check the camera distance.
• Check the prose is clear and lean.
• Note in the outline anything that must be established earlier.
• Checklist: powerful verbs; active voice; simple sentences; minimal introspection and description unless deliberately slowing; every action gets a reaction; establish bogging-down material in advance.
• Climax passages may come out best in a fast first draft. Most writers still need several rewrites to get them spare.

Sense of place: general principles

• Readers want plot and character first. Too much description makes them skip ahead, so keep the ball rolling.
• In a mystery, setting is never "for setting's sake." It supports story and character.
• Evoke the place, don't render it in painstaking detail.

Sense of place: opening a scene

• Start with a simple place and year notation if relevant ("London — 1919").
• Camera move: pan from a distance (omniscient) to a close-up on the characters.
• Contrast sets mood: "storm battered a sleeping London."
• Use sensory impressions (sound and sight at least) and a simile, used but not overused.
• Use specific details, not generalizations: pigeons huddled atop gaslights, not "dark and stormy night."
• Give the setting drama: personify it ("the city held its breath"), and have weather stopping act as a dramatic moment.
• Descriptive power comes from verbs (battered, drummed, pelted, swayed, swerved), not adjectives and adverbs. Many "adjectives" are participles (gusting, huddled, dripping).
• Description can create drama with no human action or dialogue, e.g. a wind tracking across named landmarks and ending on a dust devil at a specific time (3:17 P.M.).

Sense of place: functions of setting

• Orient the reader (where are we now?), usually at a scene start, with a vivid image tied to the characters (e.g. a coffee-smelling town).
• Show time passing: a paragraph of pure atmospherics (smells of dust, exhaust, restaurants, eucalyptus) can fill a ten-minute wait before a knock on the door.
• Drive a suspense scene: pre-dawn light, shadowy movement at the edge of woods during a stakeout.
• Give a breather: a paragraph or two of setting after high drama.

Sense of place: dabs of detail throughout

• Apply light touches on nearly every page:
  • how pedestrians cross streets (wait for the light or dart across);
  • clothing by era (1950s shirtwaist dresses, 1970s microminis);
  • household effects (egg chair in a 1960s suburban den, "Hoosier" cabinet in a 1940s rural kitchen);
  • vegetation (bougainvillea vs saguaro);
  • dialect ("you," "y'all," "youze guys"; "Ovah heah!" signals Boston).
• A few specifics (coffee and bacon smell, dishtowel-wrapped short-order cook, deep-fried menu section) signal "greasy spoon." A dialect line then pins the region.

Sense of place: field research and revision

• Visit a place like your setting with a notebook. Record sights, sounds, other sensory impressions and quirky defining details, then write the scene.
• Revise: replace generalizations ("a beautiful day") with specifics, use a range of sensory images, use contrasts, and add dabs of setting to existing scenes.