Alfred Hitchcock drew a useful
distinction between shock and suspense. Shock, he said, would be a bomb going
off without warning at the family breakfast table. But if you show your
audience the bomb in advance, and if you intercut that with images of the
oblivious family breakfasting — juxtaposing the normality with the horror in
store — then you have suspense.
Here are six ways in which I created
suspense in No Other Darkness.
#1
Be visceral
This is about engaging the reader senses
— taste, touch, sound, smell — but it’s also about pulling the reader headlong
into the story, getting under their skin, making their pulse race. In No Other Darkness, I trapped Marnie Rome
underground with a trio of dangerous people. I kept the chapters short. I
ditched conventional sentence structure. Got right inside Marnie’s head. We’re
as scared as she is that she might not make it out alive.
#2
Keep it real
Having horrors in store for your characters
is all well and good, but take care not to go too far away from what a reader
can easily imagine. You’re after empathy. If your hero’s suspended over a tank
of snakes (say) then can your reader reasonably imagine this sort of danger? If
not, you’ll have to work twice as hard at the suspense. Lots of readers have
told me that they find both Someone
Else’s Skin and No Other Darkness
scarier than serial killer stories precisely because the books contains dangers
they can imagine. It feels as if it could happen to them.
#3
Don’t be afraid of the dark
Hitchcock was one of the first
mainstream directors to use darkness as a motif. He knew that the darker the
fate in store for his characters, the closer his audience would sit to the edge
of their seats. Darkness is your friend. Use it. But know when to switch to #4
below, for contrast and effect.
#4
Turn on the lights
Have you ever watched a horror film and
found yourself laughing at a moment when you’re damned sure the director meant
you to scream? Relax, it’s not you. The director got it wrong. It’s a normal
human reaction to prolonged stress. The director should have given you a break,
a scene where there was a chance to gather your breath. A moment of light will
make the dark more effective.
#5
Go around again
Hitchcock was the grand master of the
motif, using staircases or fairground rides or simply shadows to signal his
intention to scare us rigid. Look at how few of us can watch a shower scene
without hearing screeching music and fearing for our lives. No Other Darkness opens
underground in a pit where two small boys are trapped. When, towards the end of
the book, Marnie finds herself in similar straits the tension is immediately
doubled because we remember the fate of those boys.
#6
Keep secrets
We all want answers. It keeps us turning
the pages, to find out what happens next. If you give the reader too much
information too soon, or if your information is always on the level, your
reader will lose a little of that motivation to keep reading. No Other Darkness is a book about
secrets, so in a sense I cheated. But not all secrets are the same. Marnie Rome
is an expert in uncovering secrets and at keeping them. You’ll have to read to
find out why.
More information about Sarah Hilary and her Marnie Rome series can be found on her blog. You can also follow her on Twitter @sarah_hilary.
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