Building and Maintaining Tension in a Thriller Novel
One of the key ingredients to any good thriller is tension. It is that necessary element that keeps a reader flipping through the pages, tapping their e-reader screens, or listening anxiously in anticipation of a novel’s resolution. Without tension, a thriller fails to do its job.
(25 Plot Twist Ideas for Writers.)
So how do we build tension and maintain it throughout the course of a novel? Here are a few tricks that have helped me along the way.
Hook Them in From the Word Go
The first few lines of any novel are, in my opinion, the most important. They should offer enough mystique and curiosity to keep the reader’s eyes scrolling over the following sentences, but it should also have the reader mentally reaching for more. I’m a firm believer that the tension should start on the opening page and create a palpable sense of unease throughout the rest of the book.
If possible, your opening paragraph should unbalance the reader, to let them know that they aren’t entering a safe space; something bad is going to happen in this story, perhaps to a character you might connect with, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can hope for the best, but you won’t know where you stand until you’ve finished the novel—or when the novel is finished with you.
The first two lines of my new novel, Honeycomb, reads: “James Moshida was becoming obsessed with the rats. Though, if asked, he would have used the word beguiled.”
It immediately poses three questions almost subliminally: Who is James Moshida, why is he obsessed with rats, and why would he prefer to use the word beguiled? Also, the concept of a man becoming obsessed with rats—plural!—is probably strange enough to lure a potential reader in, to get them wanting a little more, while simultaneously unmooring them from their comfort zone.
Don’t Let the Reader Settle
Once you begin to establish the core elements of your story—introducing characters, setting, and scenarios, you will want to eventually get the reader in a constant state of anticipation. A reader cannot ever feel completely comfortable, nor safe in the knowledge that they know the outcome of a story, or the fate of the characters.
If a reader gets to the end of the chapter and feels happy enough to put the book down, then they will eventually drift off into a state of indifference toward the story, or worse, give it up entirely. There must always be something at the end of a chapter to tempt them to read on; a cliffhanger, an unveiling, some secret that the reader knows but that their main character does not. The author’s temptation to the reader doesn’t have to be a twist or something overly dramatic—it can be subtle, but it must unsettle to some degree.
A good example of this that sticks out in my mind is in The Silence of the Lambs. While Clarice Starling is desperately trying to claw information from Dr. Lecter in the hope that it will lead to the apprehension of the serial killer known as Buffalo Bill, Lecter takes delight in teasing her with his extensive knowledge. However, at the end of one of the chapters, Lecter informs Starling that “Buffalo Bill has a two-story house.” It is a vital piece of information that suggests that Lecter knows where Buffalo Bill lives, but we have to read on to find out how Starling utilizes it.
Check out S.B. Caves’ Honeycomb here:
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Intimidate the Reader
Whenever I’m thinking of a story idea, I like to envision scenarios that place ordinary people in threatening or extremely uncomfortable situations. The characters have to use their wits, willpower, and any skills they have to struggle through whatever trials they encounter in the plot. The aim here is to set up a sense of morbid intrigue and pose the question to the reader: What would you do if you found yourself in this situation?
With Honeycomb, the question I pose to the reader is: What if you were desperately broke and someone offered you a life-changing amount of money to take part in a social experiment with a group of strangers? Of course, the question is simple enough, but the caveat is, Oh, by the way, every day you have to take a drug. Except, you might just be taking a placebo, or you might be taking a drug that apparently has no adverse side effects.
The reader should be intimidated by the very idea of having to go through any scenario you set forth for your main character, whether it’s setting out to solve the disappearance of a loved one, stumbling across a dead body, or something much simpler. You must put the reader in a fictional space that they would never want to encounter in real life. They may like the idea of going on the journey, safe in the knowledge that they are only in the back seat, but they should never want to take the wheel. A reader should always be intimidated by the plight of your protagonist.
The Rollercoaster
How do we then manage the flow of tension? How much is too much? How do we know when there isn’t enough? Any writer who feels that they are a good judge of their own work will know then the tension has dipped or dissipated completely. If you’re honest with yourself, it becomes obvious upon a re-read; the plot begins to meander, and the work will become boring.
Sustaining a steady cord of tension can not only be extremely difficult, but it may also be draining on the reader. A few years ago, after handing in a draft of a novel, an agent gave me a great piece of advice. Toward the end of the story, after all the chaos had just ensued, the characters take a reprieve from the action (I can’t recall exactly what the scene was, but I’m sure it was mundane—a few pages for the reader to catch their breath).
The agent told me ‘You have to cut that scene out. You’ve gone too far to slow down now. The time for slowing down is long behind you.’ He then went on to elaborate, ‘The tension should be like a rollercoaster. It should go up, and then go down,’ meaning the reader should feel incredibly anxious, and then less anxious (but never safe). ‘But,’ he stressed, ‘there comes a point in the novel when the rollercoaster car keeps climbing—up, up, up—and it has to crest the highest summit. When it gets to that point, it can’t ever go backwards.’
The climb is the final act, a rush of adrenaline as you take the reader to the last page.
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A Trail of Breadcumbs…and the Promise of a Reward
It is important to provide your characters with enough jeopardy to make the stakes of the plot seem worth a reward. The conclusion that your character reaches, good or bad, doesn’t really matter, providing you pack enough of a punch once you get them across the finish line. With a thriller novel, the reader’s reward will usually be a twist of some sort. If it’s a good thriller, then a reader should expect (or not, as the case may be) more than one twist along the journey.
The expectation of a twist works to keep the reader constantly on-guard, questioning whether they can trust the motivations of the secondary characters, or whether they are indeed being led down a slippery path by an unreliable narrator. To that end, the author should always keep the reader in the dark.
But what constitutes a good twist? Well, I’m of the opinion that any twist—no matter how big or small—can have a lasting impact if done correctly. You don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel (after all, how many times have you seen a classic twist repeated until it becomes a cliché?) but you do have to keep the reader looking the other way, using your literary sleight of hand, until it’s time for the reveal.
The reader will know they are being deceived, and they want to be deceived, but the twist loses its magic if they work out how the trick is performed. A final twist can have twice the impact if the reader realizes that they have been shown clues to the reveal throughout the novel but hadn’t worked it out for themselves. The author can leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the reader to follow, foreshadowing certain events, before they happen.