Creating Tension with Claire McGowan

AN EXCELLENT LECTURE/ WORKSHOP ON CREATING TENSION... hope you find these notes helpful.  I certainly did...

Vanessa :)

The Art of Suspense...

• to hang
• to be in abeyance
• a state of mental instability

1) WHAT HAS HAPPENED?

Suspense is about waiting...

* The Secret Keeper - the character, not the reader, knows...
* The locked room puzzle

a)

• traumatised narrators
• Unreliable narrators (The taming of the shrew)
• young narrators (The Curious incident of the dog in the night time)

Consider... Tokyo, Room, Every vow you break...

Also, take into account 1st/ 3rd person variants

The "There or Not?" & "When and Where?"

b) Hercule Poirot's Christmas

2) WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?

a) 

• Jeopardy
• Loss
• High stakes
• Posing big questions

E.g. Jurassic Park, One Day

b)

• Reader knows, character doesn't 
• race against time
• race over distance
• the killer speaks

3) CLIMAX

• Start with the setting (opening scene, chracter introductions)
• Set up (initiating event)
• Rising Action (Conflict, sub-climaxes, turning points, attempt)
• CLIMAX
• Falling action
• Resolution

4) TOOLS

• PROLOGUE
• OPENING PAGES
• CUTTING BETWEEN STORYLINES
• TWISTS
• USE KEY WORDS - "Blood", "death", "body"
• CLIFFHANGERS
• CHANGE BETWEEN POV'S OR CHARACTERS
• PACING
• ESCALATION (layers ... think Jurassic Park)
• PACING
• ESCALATION
• CONFLICT
• DILEMNA'S
• HURT YOUR CHARACTERS
• USE OF DIALOGUE TO CREATE "DRAMA"
• ACTION/ SITUATION - Is it necessary?

BUT THE MOST USEFUL...

• CHARACTERISATION - Give them something to lose...

***CAVEAT***

The Art of withholding something forever...

E.g. The Little Friend, Something Might happen, Int the woods, The Little Stranger

5) BOOK LIST

• A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Every Vow You Break by Julie Crouch
• Relentless by Simon Kernick
• Killing Floor by Lee Child

6) EXERCISE

The story starts with...

It was a Monday when I decided to kill Mary...

...continue - you have 1 minute!

This is what I wrote...

It was a Monday when I decided to kill Mary because I was tired.  I was tired of Mary. I don't feel bad about it. She deserved it. What I did wonder was whether I could have dealt with the body another way.  I was foolish and naive.  It should have been another way.