The Trendsetter

Authors write fiction with goals in mind: they want the reader to read and learn something from their character’s experience. Additionally, the reader expects the story to be entertaining as well. It all sounds fairly easy and straightforward as it makes writing fiction interesting, but it is not. Any writer who’s published or attempted to write a short story or novel understands – writing fiction is easy; writing fiction that maintains the reader’s interest throughout is not.

So how do you present your story to hook the reader from beginning to end? Your ability as a writer is now challenged and you need to equip yourself with several plot devices. These devices help you to captivate your reader’s interest in your story. One type of plot device is suspense. Suspense is when the reader has to wait and worry about what will happen next to the main character(s).

In my previous blog, I wrote about plot, characters and types of conflicts that help you to create a credible story. In order to maintain the reader’s interest you need to create suspense. This will lead the characters to experience the tension. The element of suspense creates tension that permeates the entire plot. Your reader will be curious to know what transpires with the main characters and will continue to read further.

How to inject an element of suspense

Now you have your plot strategized for your characters to play upon. Say, your protagonist has interpersonal conflict with another protagonist and this friction creates an internal or intrapersonal conflict. In order to build the suspense you can use flashback technique. For instance, the man would like to get serious in his relationship with the woman character, but because he was hurt in a past relationship, he hesitates to make the move. Recalling his past experience is flashback.

In my short story Antara Dua Kota (Between Two Cities), the main character, Anita is reluctant to spend her summer by returning home. The reader wants to know what had happened. Through dialogue with her agent, Alice, she creates all sorts of reasons or excuses, but the real reason is shown through her monologue in a flashback technique: her parents weren’t appreciating her interest in becoming a fashion designer.

Another device is to use foreshadow. Foreshadow is a technique where the writer drops subtle hints about plot developments to come later in the story. In Antara Dua Kota, the male protagonist, David, who is a photographer, sends a bouquet of yellow roses to Anita to congratulate her when her college choose her as the best fashion designer of the year. It is also used as a hint to the reader where the plot will be going in the future. This technique needs to be use appropriately, otherwise, you might reveal too much and it will work against your plot. Your reader will lose interest if he/she knows in advance what will happen next.

The third technique you can use to create suspense and surprise is by using dramatic irony. It is defined as:

A relationship of contrast between a character’s limited understanding of his or her situation in some particular moment of the unfolding action and what the audience, at the same instant, understands the character’s situation actually to be.

If I can use my short story, David doesn’t understand why Anita got so mad during the photo shoot and he perceives her as a cantankerous designer. While Anita thought he is just like any other photographer – kind of snobby and not that friendly. The reader however, knows what happens and this peaks his/her curiosity to want to learn what happens next to these two main characters.

Next, bring your reader where they don’t want to go. Surprise them and you will get a fan.

So, there you go. If you think writing is easy, try writing a short story and see if you can build your plot using the devices of suspense and surprise to create an interesting plot. Let your friends read it. Ask for their opinion. What do they think?