Elements of Suspense that Will Keep Your Readers Hooked

Suspense is the worry or anticipation that you feel when reading and you don’t know what’s going to happen next.

It’s one very effective way to hook a reader’s attention. Make them anxious. Make them worry. Make them curious. The end goal is to keep them flipping through the pages of your story to discover the ultimate outcome.

Even if you’re not writing a mystery or thriller novel, suspense is still a powerful ingredient for creating an engaging story.

Key Elements of Suspense in a Story

In order to generate suspense in your story, there a few things to keep in mind. Read on below to learn the most effective ways to create suspenseful narratives.

1. Reader Empathy

Give your character something that the reader can identify with. Get them injured. Make them scared. Have them struggle. These are all things most of us tackled in real life, so it’s easy to relate to.

The more human your characters feel (even if they’re not humans at all), the more your readers will relate to them, and the easier it is for readers to get emotionally invested.

2. Reader Concern

Effective emotional investment means giving your readers a reason to love your characters. Identify their dreams and desires, the obstacles keeping them from succeeding, and what will happen if they fail.

You want your readers to worry about your characters. The only way that will happen is if you show them what’s at stake.

3. Impending Danger

Introduce what’s at stake by bringing in impediments to your character’s development. They need to be obstacles that will have a deep effect on your character’s lives, something they’ll find hard to recover from if they fail.

It doesn’t need to be about life and death. It can involve situations that will damage or destroy your character’s physical, psychological, or spiritual well-being, and more.

4. Escalating Tension

The more they continue to struggle, the more threatening failure becomes. And the more threatening a situation is, the more your readers will worry.

Keep on raising the stakes by making the stakes more personal, time-sensitive, and devastating. There needs to be an upward movement when it comes to suspense, or else the momentum your building will dissipate.

Tips and Tricks for Building Suspense

There are several tried and tested techniques that writers have been using to create suspense in their stories. Here are just a few of them:

1. Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is a literary technique where you give the reader hints of what’s to come later on. It can be obvious or subtle. What’s important is to give the readers just enough information to wonder and worry.

Common foreshadowing techniques include:

Vague or cryptic phrases
Significant objects that keep reappearing in the plot
Revealing important information without giving the reader context

2. Time Constraints

One of the easiest ways to build up suspense is by putting time constraints on your characters. If the hero has to work fast and hard because of a time limit while the antagonist is free to move as they please, the suspense will naturally build and gain momentum.

3. High Stakes

Make it so that your characters can’t afford to fail. High stakes and high consequences equal high reader interest. No one’s going to read a book about someone who might lose five dollars. But five million? Now that’s something to pique their interest.

4. Pressure-filled situations

Similar to time constraints, you can put your characters into situations with seemingly unsurmountable odds. Push your characters near their breaking points without actually breaking them.

5. Red Herrings

A red herring is essentially a false clue you use to confuse your readers. Trick your readers into following a particular train of thought, only to reveal the deception later on. It’ll keep them on their toes as they read, wondering if the information you’ve given is true.

6. Pacing

Keep up the pace! Quickly move from scene to scene while adding new elements that keep hooking in the reader. Slow pacing destroys your reader’s need to keep on reading, lowering the atmosphere of your story.

7. Limit Violence

Violence is not your goal here, but the suggestion of violence could be. Acts of violence in a story can lead to your readers distancing themselves emotionally. Keep them on their toes by keeping them apprehensive about the future, where a potentially gruesome fate awaits your characters.

8. Flashbacks

Flashback is the opposite of foreshadowing. What you’re doing here is revealing previously unknown, but crucial information to the reader that can possibly change their perspective of the story.

9. Parallel Plotlines

Writing about two events or in two different character perspectives will immediately lead your reader to wonder what their connection is. They’ll be compelled to read on until the plotlines converge and everything is explained.

10. Cliffhangers

Cliffhangers are abrupt endings that keep the readers wanting more. They don’t need to come at the end of the book, but can also be written at the end of key chapters. The reader will want to know what happens next and will continue to the next chapter.

11. Isolate Your Characters

You can take away helpful items from them or isolate them by removing other characters. The key here is to make their already difficult tasks more difficult. Doing this forces your characters into dead-end situations that readers hope they can escape from.

12. Keep a Promise

Early in the story, make a promise to the readers that will keep them hooked. Make a character swear revenge, provide them a task with a reward, and so on. As the plot unfolds, the readers will wonder if and when you’ll fulfill the promise you made.

13. Make Characters Feel Real

Any good story needs solid, relatable characters that feel alive. Falling short of that means any brilliant plot becomes lackluster. Take time to build your characters, from their backstories, motivations, mannerisms, and speaking patterns.

14. Withhold Information

You need to be always a step ahead of your readers. Keep your readers guessing by leaving out important information. Add in a few twists and turns while you’re at it.

A good way to do this is by only letting the readers know what your characters know, making them crave more information. As the characters slowly reveal the plot secrets, so do the readers.

Suspense in Stories

Once you know how to build suspense, readers will find it hard to put down your stories. They’ll feel the need to race on to the end.

Don’t stop there though. When you’ve sharpened your writing skills and techniques, you’ll not only create a story that’s irresistible but also unforgettable.

What book made you feel extreme suspense? Share it in the comments below!

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