 For Authors: December 07, 2016 Issue [#8007] |
  For Authors
This week: Suspense and Adventure Go Together Edited by: Vivian  
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I personally have a problem with "action and adventure" which is all action, little plot, and no suspense. Even set up, make believe wrestling matches include some suspense, whether observers realize it or not.
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Suspense in Action Adventure
When I taught, I discovered a website created to help teachers teach creative writing. Two sections deal with writing suspenseful action-oriented passages. Suspense in action/adventure? Yes, suspense in needed in action and adventure stories and novels.
According to Creative Writing Solutions.com, more than one type of suspense is needed in action scenes: physical fighting scenes, verbal fighting, emotional suspense, fast-paced chase scenes. The opportunity and need for suspense is endless in action/adventure writing.
The first place to build suspense needed in any writing is the first few sentences. According to Bill Reynolds, The Writer, August 2005, page 7, 'A proper opening picks the reader up by his collar and throws him into the story.'
The art of suspense means giving the reader something to worry about. In Latin suspendere means to hang, thus suspense, which avoids boredom and losing readers. The reader is compelled to turn pages, the cure for boredom.
Suspense (uncertainly, doubt, anxiety) is a must for all fiction. It should start from the very beginning of a story or novel, should be built into the premise and structure of any fiction writings.
According to William G. Tapply, The Writer, August 2005, the essential elements for suspense are as follows:
1. State story's plot as a question (not in the story itself), one that can be answered yes or no. Make a list of all the possible reasons why the answer could be 'no.' Those 'no' answers become the focus of problems and obstacles - suspense.
2. Create a likable and competent - but flawed - protagonist. (Protagonist = hero, good guy/gal) If the reader doesn't care about the protagonist, then suspense is meaningless. The flaw or flaws will help create needed suspense because the outcome will be in doubt.
3. Give the protagonist a powerful motivation. He/she must have strong desires, needs, wants. The basic and powerful human needs and drives are essential: Love, ambition, greed, survival are examples. Something vitally important must be at stake or readers can't believe the protagonist would never abandon the quest.
4. Give your protagonist highly motivated antagonists (opponents, villains). 'All stories need strong villains. Suspense rests on the possibility ' even the likelihood ' that the villain will defeat the hero.'
5. Keep raising the stakes and creating disasters. The formula for building suspense is a bad start that gets worse. Suspense is about problems and obstacles, disasters and failures, small triumphs and big reversals. As Tapply says, 'Never make things easy for your protagonist.'
6. Choose your story's point of view to maximize suspense. The objective POV allows the attention of the reader to shift from character to character. We, as readers, are allowed to interpret and imagine, to wonder and worry. We are drawn into the story by the changing of point of views from one character to another. The single POV limits only to one character's experiences and thoughts. Anything else is speculation, imagination, and worry.
7. Wind up the ticking clock. Tapply's words express this point best.
Suspense depends on urgency. Build a zero hour into your story's arc:
Antagonists of all kinds ' kidnappers, terrorists and assassins, of course
but also teachers and parents and editors, not to mention tides and storms
and seasons ' create time pressures and constraints.
Your story's momentum might build gradually at first, but soon it
becomes a race against the clock, and it accelerates as it rushes towards
its fateful climax.
Let's look at Creative Writing Solutions suggestions for suspense in fight scenes.
1. Keep sentences short. "...keeping your sentences short and direct will add to the feel of the piece immensely."
2. Pare the description down to basics. "When a character is fighting for his life, his entire life shrinks down to that survival instinct."
3. Know how characters move in a physical scene. "Planning out the movements of our characters for a fight scene is very important if we don't want to have to do a lot of rewrites."
The result of the use of suspense in any action/adventure story is a riveting story that the reader cannot put down until finished. |
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Words from Our Readers
papadoc1
Thank you once again, Vivian, for an informative article on how to start out writing about espionage, including same in short stories or long, and nevertheless, understanding that doing so involves quite a bit of difficulty and challenge.
I always wondered what made Tom Clancy such a successful writer of military escapades, and he mentioned more than once that he would pore of things like Janes Defence Weekly etc, and all told, it was all about the information that was already out there that we simply needed to find, digest and - safely - divulge. Sometimes there is a fine line in that last segment of that last sentence. Today, military matters are ever-so-closely-guarded, and I would not mind writing this 100 more times if needed: our lives are at stake when we realize that ISIS has populated every single State in the USA today. We think because we might live far away from cities that we are safe, and yet I have it on fairly good authority that terrorists have known that our food supply was the easiest "mark" in the playbook. I say, "keep your eyes and ears open at all times" - which is good practice for things like Neighborhood Watch, etc etc. One never knows if danger is in the form of foreign and/or domestic capacity. Our police forces face a growing danger with every passing month. It is time to turn the pendulum against lawlessness, and focus it more on bringing about family values back into the home. This NL on espionage and writing about it in a believable way was truly remarkable, and most helpful. Keep on writing these NLs, Vivian!!
Thank you. I always want my newsletters to help someone in his or her writing.
Dandelion Man 
Good article but the link is broken.
I'm sorry. Apparently he started a different site: D.S. Kane (http://dskane.com/).
Elfin Dragon-finally published
question regarding intelligence agencies. If you're creating one (or more) from the ground up for world building scenario - would you look at the same books? or would books like C.J. Cherryh's "Foreigner" series be more appropriate which looks at an alien race of assassins and intrigue?
I would read the same books because all foundations of intelligence agencies are the same, whether in the real world or an imaginary one.
some 
Hi. This has been helpful. I now know how to go about writing one of prose work. Thanks.
I'm glad you found it helpful.
Since this will be my last newsletter before the holidays
Merry Christmas
Happy Holidays
Vivian |
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