Behind the Science of Writing Good Suspense
There is a science to writing good suspense. Most readers and audiences know it the moment they see it; it crawls up their spines and drags them to the edge of their seats.
(5 Ways to Surprise Your Reader Without It Feeling Like a Trick.)
But the “scientific method” for creating this suspense relies on many of the same steps as creating a chemical reaction: Specific ingredients need to be implemented in a specific order, because the chemical reaction for a great thriller like Silence of the Lambs or Gone Girl takes place within the human mind. Epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin are just a few of the hormones that are stirred up and what I attempt to elicit in a Marvel series writer’s room or in my novel, Androne.
Oxytocin occurs naturally in the body, and just like cortisol or adrenaline, these bodily chemicals are drugs. Natural highs are a real thing, and there’s an addiction some of us have, myself included, to the genre of conspiracy, thrillers, and high tension, stories that drill down into the brain and spin. Putting characters that we love into perilous circumstances is a surefire way to create the sort of “avatar empathy” that raises those adrenal levels.
Oxytocin, the empathy hormone, that’s step one. Fashioning a character that readers can step into the shoes of, and see through their eyes, is the first necessary component to create tension. Or else who cares what happens to them?
In writing for Marvel or Disney+ there are many things the studios won’t allow the writers to do with their characters. Writing for existing IP is its own perilous journey filled with studio and network interference. Their legacy characters are protected at all costs and that places certain shackles on the hands of the writers. Especially for me, because when writing characters, I often think to myself: What is the worst possible thing that I could do to this person?
Sadistic? Maybe, but I don’t always go down that road. But I like to consider a situation so perilous that not even I as the writer believes that this character could escape. Now I’m curious—now I want to know what happens next. I lean into the story, and if I feel the adrenal glands starting to pump, then odds are the reader has a similar feeling.
Check out Dwain Worrell’s Androne here:
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In writing Androne I corner my main character, Paxton, in one such situation. Where there’s no way out—no good solution except for one unthinkable decision. Think a Sophie’s choice-type quandary, a dilemma that will define the character going forward. There is a price to escaping the dilemma, moving both the story and, more importantly, the character going forward. The character grows through suspense, and there’s no better solution than that.
Character change is also a great solution in these no-way-out scenarios because it avoids the nuisance of empty suspense. In weaker suspense stories the readers feel like the writer cried wolf. When there is a scenario where the stakes are that high, that is precarious for the characters, but there is no consequence—zero ramifications, then the dilemma feels hollow.
If I create some deus ex machina solution, then the reader will likely feel cheated and any subsequent suspense may be dismissed as a fake-out or narrative jump scare. The best type of suspense has consequences.
This leads me to another favorite way to create great suspense: Kill without remorse. In the television series Game of Thrones, characters die, and not tenth on the call sheet characters, we’re talking main characters—the protagonist dies in the very first season. That’s ballsy, but it’s done for a good reason; it creates stakes. Every time there is a battle or some suspenseful intrigue, viewers are on the edges of their seats because they know that no one is safe. Anyone can die at any moment and that’s scary.
I try to carry that philosophy into my writing, keeping the stakes high for every character. No one my protagonist cares about is safe, and neither is the main character. Consequences are not always death, in fact, there are fates worse than dying, but knowing that the sword can drop at any moment is terrifying.
My life at times can be a bit monotonous, as tedious as a librarian on a slow night in many ways, where my biggest adventure is picking a book off the shelf that is outside my accustomed genre. I stick to a regular schedule, drive the speed limit, and avoid gluten. At the end of the day, I need my drugs, my epinephrine, dopamine, cortisol, my natural highs. These chemicals in our bodies evolved to facilitate running from monsters in the middle of the night so that we could go from sleeping to 60 miles an hour instantly.
Nowadays we sleep on memory foam and wake up to peaceful ringtones, and all of our miracle chemicals go unused. I love telling stories that boil and bubble the adrenal glands, and many fans of thrillers, horror, crime, conspiracy—suspense, are also looking to score some of those sweet natural drugs in all of our minds.