Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense (27 page)
Read Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense Online
Authors: James Scott Bell
So we are on to the discovery of some important clue that will help Roger. There will be many places in your manuscript that are like this. Think of them as Point A to Point B to Point C sequences. A logical order.
But why let the Lead off so easily? And, it should be added, the reader as well?
Let’s add an interruption:
He took her shoulders. “Do you know where those papers are? The Baxter papers?”
“Yes. And if they are what you say they are, then you have nothing to worry about.”
“Show me!”
“This way.”
She took a step but a pounding on the door stopped her.
“Open up!” It was the cop’s voice, the one he’d heard before.
“What is it?” Eve said.
“Somebody saw him come in there. Why is the door locked?”
Eve motioned for Roger to get into the next room. But that was a problem. There was no way out of that room. Not that he’d seen anyway.
“Open the door now,” the cop said.
And on we go. Will Roger ever get his hands on the Baxter papers? That’s up to you, but now he has to wait.
Don’t ever waste a minor character. They can do many things for your novel—add spice, extra beats, comic relief (see chapter seven). And suspense.
These minor characters can have lines or be, in theatrical terms, a spear-carrier (referring to the extras in a Greek drama who had no lines and merely took up space).
In either instance, look for ways to use these characters to
delay
matter for your Lead and increase suspense.
What if your Roger Hill needs to find a document he’s lost? And he needs it
now.
He thinks he lost it at Union Station. So he hurries back to talk to the security desk, in charge of lost and found items. There’s a guard who looks about twenty years old sitting at the desk:
“Excuse me,” Roger said.
The guard looked up from what looked like a comic book.
“I lost a package,” Roger said.
“Join the club,” the guard said, tossing the comic book on the desk. “What sort of package?”
“It was an envelope, a big one, you know the kind—“
“Manila?”
“That’s it, manila.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Could you look?”
“What was in it?”
“Why do you need to know that? If you have—”
“Hey! You know what they put in envelopes? You heard of anthrax maybe?”
“Do I look like a terrorist?”
“We don’t profile here, pal.”
“Please just look. I’m in a hurry.”
“So what is supposed to be in this envelope?”
“Just some papers I need, right now as a matter—”
“You a writer?”
“Excuse me?”
“We get a lot of writers pass through here.”
“I’m not—”
“I’d like to be a writer. I got ideas. You get a lot sitting at this desk.”
Meanwhile, the killers are getting away.
A minor character can and should be either an irritant or an ally, someone who frustrates or helps the Lead. Even in the case of the ally, there can be suspense built in depending on the moment.
Remember the scene in
It’s a Wonderful Life
when the chronically absentminded Uncle Billy loses the bank deposit? He tries to find it but can’t, and time is of the essence. Not having the money means ruin. And George reads him the riot act, screaming at him to remember.
They are allies. They are on the same side. But the clock is ticking and Uncle Billy provides the means for added suspense.
Twists and turns are nice subsets of conflict and suspense. By definition, they take the writing out of the ordinary and predictable. They work only when they add complications to the narrative, increasing the tension. In that way, they help us with our number one goal: Keep the reader turning pages.
We all know the experience of that breathless surprise in a book or film. Creating these moments is one of the pleasures of writing any kind of fiction.
So let’s make some.
A twist is an event that changes the trajectory of the narrative. It puts an immediate stop to the expected direction and sends the reader off the road.
The twist may completely alter the story line, or it may add huge complications to it. In other words, the reader may be sent down a new stream toward an unknown destination. Or he may be on the same river, but with rocks and rapids—or even a waterfall—to suddenly contend with.
A twist can come in the middle of the story or near the end. It can create plot problems, character problems, or both.
A twist can be defined as a surprise that is unanticipated but justifiable.
That means the reader can’t see it coming, but once it does come it makes sense. At least, once all the information is revealed.
A few examples below illustrate. I’ll give the titles of the works, and if you don’t wish to know the twist, don’t read what follows—go experience the books for yourself.
Fair enough?
One of the most mind-blowing—and for the men in the audience, seat-squirming—twists in the history of film. It happens in the middle, as you recall. IRA soldier Fergus has fallen for a beautiful black hairdresser. Things get hot and heavy between them. Removing the clothes of his soon-to-be-lover, Fergus comes across an anatomical piece of information that sends him reeling with massive shock.
This is an example of a twist that happens in the middle of things and changes the trajectory of the story. And how.
The Sixth Sense
The famous twist in this film happens at the very end. Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, works with a boy named Cole who sees dead people. On and on it goes, until we discover that Crowe himself has been dead all the way through the movie.
This twist explains everything else that happens in the movie:
Star Wars
“I am your father!”
The Maltese Falcon
Sam Spade loves the lying, murdering Brigid O’Shaughnessy, but that is not enough at the end. He calls the cops and turns her over to them because:
“When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it …. I won’t play the sap for you.”
Rebecca
“I hated her!”
Murder on the Orient Express
All the suspects did it.
Gone With the Wind
Surely Scarlett and Rhett will end up together, after all they’ve been through. But then: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
The Gift of the Magi
A young husband without much money sells his most valuable possession, his gold watch, so he can have enough money to buy his wife a Christmas present—a set of jeweled combs for her beautiful long hair. But then he finds out she has cut her hair and sold it, so she could buy him a beautiful watch chain.
Chinatown
“She’s my daughter.”
Slap.
“She’s my sister.”
Slap.
“She’s my daughter
and
my sister.”
Twists are fun to play with, harder to justify. It’s like that old Seinfeld moment when Jerry is miffed that the rental car company doesn’t have the car he reserved. He castigates the woman at the desk: “You know how to
take
the reservation. You just don’t know how to
hold
the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can take ’em.”
We might say, then, that anybody can create a twist. But it’s the justifying that’s the most important part of the twist.
So what can you do?
As you write, even if you’re writing to an outline, allow your subconscious writer’s mind to deliver a message to you every now and then.
Sometimes that will happen without any prodding on your part. You’ll be writing along, minding your own business—which means creating business for your characters—when all of a sudden you’ll get this wild idea about the scene. It’ll just happen, usually through the characters.
This is what some writers describe as the characters “taking over.” That’s a bit of an overstatement (you are free to remind those nettlesome creations that
you
are the one who taps the keys), but it holds a grain of truth.
When that happens, stop immediately and play with the idea.
Once I was writing a novel about a lawyer and his family, who get threats. I had planned a scene where the husband convinces his wife to move out of town to a safe location until the trouble is resolved.
When I got to that point in the dialogue the wife said, “No.”
I blinked my eyes a couple of times and hit the backspace key.
She still refused to go.
I stopped and sat back and thought about it. I listened to her argument. She didn’t want to leave her husband, wouldn’t leave, and wasn’t going to be forced.
I kind of liked that about her.
So I let her have her way, and both she and the book were the better for it. I had to do some new planning on the upcoming scenes, but it all worked out.
Sometimes it may not work out, though. Still, give it some rope. Let it play out a little in your mind and on the page. You can always go back to that point and reassert control.
But it pays to listen.
At certain points in your writing you should stop and ask yourself a very important question: What will most readers expect to happen next?
This is the anticipation game, and to play it well you must find ways to un-anticipate.
So make a list of all the things a reader might expect to happen. For example, your Lead character has just been shot at in the street in broad daylight. What might he do next?
- Duck into a building.
- Run down an alley.
- Find someone with street smarts to help him.
- Get a gun himself and go looking.
And so on. Playing off that list, what are some things that a reader would not anticipate? Put some alternatives down:
- Steal a car.
- Get hit by a car trying to get away.
- Bump into a guy who decides to beat him up for it.
- Get help from a guy who then steals his wallet.
Play around and you’ll come up with the new development you like best.
Make lists. That’s how you get material to choose from.
So now you’ve come up with a great twist. Very nice. You will have the reader’s attention. And also raise a question in their minds, namely, “How can this be?”
In other words, they will be seeking a justification for the fabulous surprise you’ve sprung.
Now comes the hard part.
Your twist may have changed the entire complexion of the novel. It may require that what you thought you were going to write is going to have to be reimagined.
And it will have to make sense. Few things frustrate readers more than unanswered questions or answers that stretch credulity.
If a justification does not immediately occur to you, germinate on it. Let it stew in your writer’s mind. Think about the problem just before you nod off. Give it a few days.
The answer will almost always come.
The best way to get the loose ends tied up is by layering in the answers as you move toward the end.
That is, if you can avoid it, don’t wait until the last chapter to dump all the answers in one spot.
Sometimes that is unavoidable. Remember
Psycho
? All the analysis of Norman Bates was contained in a long expository speech by a psychiatrist at the end of the film. But there would have been no other way to do it, since the big shock twist happened just moments before.
If you have to put in a lot of explanatory material at the end, put it in a scene with conflict and tension. Don’t give up conflict when you’re almost done! If you have one person with the explanatory power, turn it into an argument:
Let me explain. You see, Bosley was regicidal. He believed it was his duty in life to assassinate as many kings and queens as possible. This is traceable to his childhood. When was four years old, he had found his sister’s Pretty, Pretty Princess set and took a tiara. He thought that would make him look like a king, and he put it on. But when his father saw him, he ripped it from Bosley’s head and made him watch ten straight hours of
Tractor Pull
. All the while, his sister was taunting him, telling him he would never be the king of anything except his own little mind. To top it all off, she held him down and poured chocolate sauce on his hair.
Instead, make this a scene with tension:
Dr. Flywheel said, “Bosley was regicidal.”
“In English, Doc,” Roger said.
“He wanted to assassinate kings and queens.”
“Come on!”
“It’s true. A look at his childhood—“
“You’re going to go Freudian on this?”
“Do you want to know about the incident with the chocolate sauce or don’t you?”
“I’m not sure I do.”
Modulate your major twists according to your needs and your genre. If you have too many you face the tremendous challenge of tying them all up in a justifiable way. There is nothing readers hate more than amazing story turns that aren’t adequately explained. Or, on the other hand, require pages of explanation by some character at the end.
If the explanation is too outlandish, there are going to be complaints.
On the other hand, one well-placed major twist is often all you need to make the reading experience truly memorable.
Another way to increase suspense is to remove the capacity of the Lead to do something essential.
Like walk around.
In Hitchcock’s classic
Rear Window,
James Stewart plays a photographer who has one whole leg in a cast. He’s bound to a wheelchair in his apartment looking out into the courtyard. He can see the other windows and sometimes what goes on in those apartments.
