Columns: Tag – Suspense
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Writing Quips and Tips
Suspense is more than a shot ringing out at midnight
Richard and I ran a Writers’ Group last night at which one of our members read us a piece of her writing. She hoped it might form the start of a memoir; a story of the things she’s been facing in her life.
It began with her waking in the night and experiencing a sense of depletion.
“Could it be my unhappy marriage of 15 years, and my inability to escape? Or perhaps my teenage daughter who has dropped out and will no longer speak to me? Could it be my niece’s struggle with cancer, followed by her painful death, or my desperate attempts to help my sister through this terrible time?” (And so on.)
We explained that she had actually told us the entire book in a couple of paragraphs – too much at once. If you read those, there’s almost no need to read further. We now know what she’s been facing in her life.
Writing Quips and Tips
McEwan on suspense
After I wrote so much about suspense last time, I found an interview with the fabulous British fiction writer, Ian McEwan, in the New Yorker. He’s one of my very favourite writers, so I was excited to find the following extract on the subject – and to see that he also believes that suspense stems from withholding information, rather than giving too much:
Writing Quips and Tips
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.
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