How To Know You Should Write Suspense

by Ronie Kendig

Years ago (we won’t mention how many decades I’m referring to) when I first got serious about writing, I explored many different genres. One of my favorites back then was historicals. But I quickly shifted into romantic suspense/military suspense and speculative fiction with suspense. In an interview recently, I was asked how I started writing suspense. Admittedly, that simply made me shrug. I’ve always been writing suspense in some form or fashion. But I wondered how other authors would answer that. 

So, I asked some of my suspense-writing friends how they knew they should write suspense. Here are their responses: 

Jodie Bailey 

When you're walking through a hotel at a theme park thinking, "A terrorist could hide out here for years..." 

Zachary Bartels

I knew I needed to write suspense because I'd been doing it in my head since I was about 15. Twenty years later, I decided it was stupid to waste all these exciting stories on an audience of one (me) and started writing them down! 

Melody Carlson

So . . . I take a road trip to 'get away from writing' and fall into a Stephen King like scenario that is screaming 'write me!' I am writing it now.

Coleen Coble

I have no idea how to know if you should write suspense. It’s just what sticks in your brain. Funny story. Diann Hunt was writing RV There Yet and was going to have a moose poke its head in the RV. I said, “Di, moose are dangerous! They kill a lot of people every year.” She was thinking of Bullwinkle, and I was thinking of a person trampled to a bloody pulp, probably egged on by a killer. 

Brandilyn Collins

You look at your hot tub cover folded halfway open and think how you could hide a body in the water under the remaining half. 

and/or

Nothing excites you more than learning the man standing next to you at your kid’s soccer game is an experienced homicide profiler.

and/or

You hear of a poisonous plant and wonder who you could kill with it.

and/or

You guess the twists in all suspense books and movies.

and/or

You greet your young daughter’s new boyfriend (whom you immediately know is a weasel) by saying, “I’m her mother—and I kill people for a living.”

Amryn Cross 

I've always been partial to suspense, but I knew I'd found my calling when I woke up the middle of the night and saw a man standing in my bedroom...or rather the silhouette of a man. I froze, immediately awake, wondering if I could be quick enough to reach my gun before he pounced on me. We were at a stalemate for what seemed like an eternity before I dared move. I flipped on the lamp and realized what I'd thought was a man was actually the dark outline of several pairs of shoes hanging on my over-the-door shoe hanger against my white closet door. I laughed at myself, but it took a long time to be able to go back to sleep. 

Mike Dellosso

If you're a criminal at heart but don't have the guts to actually do the deed. Or, you'r quite the hero in your own imagination. You know, those who can't do. . . uh, write. 

Elizabeth Goddard

You quickly survey the best escape plan in case someone with deadly intent shows up---EVERYWHERE YOU GO! (TRUE for me!)

Linda Hall  

When you can’t stop reading it. 

Steve Hyde 

Let me tell you, I can keep people in suspenders for days! OH! You mean suspense! Well, ever since I was a child, I loved telling stories, beginning with writing in my dream journal. I took classes and refined my craft. In 1984, I had a sci-fi dream that I wrote out and decided to make into a full story. Thus, the "Da Guv" was created and began the "Tales of the Interverse Faire" series. 

Ronie Kendig 

How do I know? Because I fall asleep writing romance. Seriously. And no matter where I went, I worked out tactical plans for safe ingress/egress, and what could go wrong. I say I don’t like theme parks, but it’s really the crowds and the innumerable scenarios that hit me while trapped in hour-long queues. 

Rachel McMillan 

When you have a brain that wonders what would have happened if Anne Shirley arrived in Avonlea and found a dead body en route to Green Gables. (Thereafter she launches Carrots Investigations and ropes in Gilbert Blythe as her Watson)

DiAnn Mills

When a writer realizes the world is a dangerous place, and you want to show readers there is hope.

Cara Putman

Everywhere you look you think about everything that could go wrong. 

There’s a kidnapping or murder happening behind every bush. 

Gayle Roper 

From the days of Nancy Drew I've loved reading suspense and mysteries, so it was natural I'd write them. It's the only way I get to be part of frightening situations that would paralyze me in real life. 

Sandra Robbins

When you take notes while watching every true crime drama on the Investigation Discovery network.

Colleen Scott 

I realized I should write suspense when I took a hard look at my life. Thoughts that every white conversion van contained a kidnapped child...or a dead body. A good look at my bookshelf loaded with books on "how to poison" or "how to murder someone and get away with it" was also a clue. 

Carrie Stuart Parks 

No choice, with my background. :0 

[Carrie has an extensive background in forensic art and instruction.]

Are you a suspense writer? Or do you have a quip regarding How to Know You Should Write Suspense? Share it with us in the comments! 

TWEETABLE

How To Know You Should Write Suspense by Ronie Kendig (Click to Tweet)

Ronie Kendig is an award-winning, bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. She grew up an Army brat and seeks to honor our military heroes through her stories. Now, she and her husband, an Army veteran, have an adventurous life in Northern Virginia with their children and a retired military working dog, VVolt N629. 

Her newest release, Conspiracy of Silence (12/6), is receiving rave reviews. 

Kendig keeps the tensions high and the pace lightning fast, with military action scenes worthy of Vince Flynn.--Publishers Weekly

"... fast-moving, roller-coaster thriller..."--Booklist

"... an explosive, action-packed global journey .... Kendig has pulled out all the stops in this highly entertaining read that has plot elements of a Tom Clancy or Dan Brown novel. ... Kendig has out done herself."--RT Book Reviews Top Pick

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Sharing the Wisdom ~ Six Tips I Learned From Frank Peretti ~ Carrie Stuart Parks

Six Writing Tips I Learned from Frank Peretti.

by Carrie Stuart Parks

Between 2004 to 2015, I was blessed abundantly by having the New York Times bestselling author, Frank Peretti, as my mentor. He’d never mentored a writer before, and I’d never written fiction before, so it was a learning experience for both of us. Frank, in his forward to my first book, A Cry From the Dust, wrote this:

“From then on, every few weeks, she hollered at the back door, “Knock knock?” then brought in a case full of pens, highlighters, post-it notes, her computer, and pages of manuscript - her homework, a copy for her, a copy for me.  She read aloud, I followed.   I commented, she listened and scribbled notes all over her work.  She dubbed me “Master” and herself “Grasshopper” after that old Kung Fu TV show, but we were both new at it: she’d never written fiction and I’d never taught it.  The learning was mutual.  

And I guess it worked out.

Her perseverance alone was deserving of success, but she became a writer because she knew - and I knew - she could do it.  She had the flair, the imagination, the whimsical, inventive, sometimes zany ability to go to other places in her mind and come back with the unexpected.  She was a creative explosion sure to go off somewhere; all I had to do was aim her.”

Wow, heady words of encouragement to a newby writer! So let me share some of the great writing tips from the mouth of the master himself: Frank Peretti.

1. Slaying Dragons. Your protagonist must face the bad guy. I recently read a suspense/thriller where the protagonist was rescued from the villain. That’s a weak resolution, and I threw the book across the room. The protagonist must defeat his/her own dragons.
   
   
2. Hero. Your protagonist must be a hero, not just someone that gets beat up. Add the first two ideas together and you’ll find the bones of a great story. The reverse: defeated protagonist who has to be rescued is an unsatisfying novel.
   
   
3. Action. If something doesn’t move the story forward, delete it or rewrite it so it does. You can’t stop and smell the roses in a novel—you’ll lose your readers. Descriptions, backstory, setting and so on must always be propelling the novel forward.
   
   
4. Proactive. You really want the protagonist to figure out who the villain is, not wait for the villain to reveal himself. Your protagonist needs to be proactive.
   
   
5. Elastic mind. The first book I labored over for six plus years had originally had a murder in the third chapter. Frank said to have the murder in the first chapter. What? I had no idea how to do this. I worked and worked, finally moving the body to chapter two. Nope. Frank wanted it in chapter one, preferably on page one. Be elastic in your thinking about your story.
   
   
6. Nothing in stone. Frank didn’t teach me this by telling, but by showing (a little writer’s humor…okay, so very little humor.) Print out your working novel on recycled paper. I remember he gave me something in writing that was printed out on the back of one of his stories. OOOoooooohhh! Aren’t his words written in stone and sacred? Nope. Anything you write can be re-written. There are other, and probably better ways to say something. This is an application of tip five-elastic thinking.

BIO

www.carriestuartparks.com

Carrie Stuart Parks is a multiple Christy finalist as well as a Carol and Inspy award-winning author. An internationally known forensic artist, she travels with her husband, Rick, across the US and Canada teaching courses in forensic art to law enforcement professionals. The author/illustrator of numerous books on drawing and painting, Carrie continues to create dramatic, award-winning watercolors from her studio in the mountains of Idaho.

Mentored by New York Times best-selling author, Frank Peretti, Carrie began writing fiction while battling stage II breast cancer. Now in remission, she continues to encourage other women struggling through the effects of cancer.

Animals have always been a large part of her life. Her parents started Skeel Kennel Great Pyrenees in 1960. Carrie inherited the kennel and continues with her beloved dogs both showing and as an AKC judge.

Book’s blurb.

Gwen Marcey takes death in stride. Until she’s faced with her own mortality.

Forensic artist Gwen Marcey is between jobs when she accepts temporary work in Pikeville, Kentucky—a small town facing big-city crime. But before Gwen can finish her first drawing of the serial rapist who is on the loose, the latest witness vanishes. Just like all the others.

Gwen suspects a connection between the rapist and the “accidental” deaths that are happening around town, but the local sheriff has little interest in her theories. When her digitally-obsessed teenage daughter joins her, Gwen turns her attention to a second assignment: going undercover in a serpent-handling church. She could get a handsome reward for uncovering illegal activity—a reward she desperately needs, as it seems her breast cancer has returned. But snakes aren’t the only ones ready to kill. Can Gwen uncover the truth—and convince anyone to believe her—before she becomes a victim herself?

In a thrilling race against time, When Death Draws Near plunges us into cold-case murders, shady politics, and a den of venomous suspects.

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