Can you write without suspense?
I recently heard an academic criticising a book for using “suspense” as a device. I found that odd, but perhaps that’s because my definition of suspense is wider than hers.
The book in question is a non-fiction work that borrows from the skills traditionally associated with fiction – as all good narrative journalism does nowadays.
It is written in scenes, with dialogue and developed characters. And the author has cut off his scenes at moments of conflict or tension – which make us long for the story to be picked up again. So perhaps the academic was referring to this type of literary device.
I think it’s one of the things that make the book work. She was criticising on ideological grounds, of course: whether it was valid or “right” to present true stories of crime and violence in a suspenseful way. But surely there’s a certain absurdity to any argument that suggests a book should be made less readable.
And to imply that any book can be written entirely without suspense is nonsense. When we think of suspense, we tend to think of thrillers and murders and detectives.
But anything that draws us forward is actually a form of suspense. It might not be an event or action. It might be a minute change of attitude, a loss of love, the gaining of peace of mind.
I recently read a beautiful novel by Marilynne Robinson, which consisted of an elderly man’s letter to his young son. The canvas was small and there were no grand, sweeping events in his life. But it certainly drew me forward.
Readers are drawn onward by caring for the characters. If they care deeply enough, they’ll be drawn into their world – no matter how small that world is. And on the contrary, I often find high action movies boring. I start nodding off during the car chase – precisely because I don’t care a stuff what happens to any of them.
Ian McEwan protests at what he calls the “dead hand of modernism.” He writes in such a way as to “incite a naked hunger in readers.” He says the key to this is withholding information.
I think that withholding is one of the great secrets – and a skill that’s really hard to learn. When you first write, the temptation is to do the opposite. You want to spew everything out at once.
The reason withholding works is that it creates a tension or an imbalance. We keep reading because we want to see the imbalance righted and the tension broken.
In the end, it’s probably all to do with conflict and tension. If there’s no conflict, there’s no story – and certainly no suspense. This conflict can be with the environment – a plane crash in the Andes …
It can be person against person – or it can be inner conflict. I believe there’s always inner conflict, no matter what other conflicts exist. And these are often the most interesting.
These can be as big or as small as you like, but it has to be there. And suspense is a must, like it or not. If you don’t draw your reader forward, there’s little point in finishing the book – they certainly won’t.
Jo-Anne Richards muses on the challenges and excitement of a writer’s life.
