5 Ways to Build Suspense in Fiction

If you’ve ever read a good thriller or suspense novel, you’re familiar with that “edge of your seat” feeling — the one that makes you want to stay up all night reading and ignore all of your responsibilities so you can find out what happens next. Though it’s most often associated with genres like mystery and thriller, suspense has its place in all kinds of books, from a dread-filled horror novel to an action-packed fantasy or even a romance where readers just have to know how the love interests finally end up together.

No matter the genre, injecting a novel with the proper amount of suspense can mean the difference between a page-turner and a DNF. Here are a few ways to heighten the suspense when writing fiction.

Create a ticking clock

To develop an undercurrent of suspense throughout your story, try building in a deadline or time limit that your character must meet. Perhaps your detective only has 72 hours to investigate before their case is handed off to a federal agency, or your main character risks being evicted if they don’t find some way to pay rent before the end of the week. When the clock is ticking, scenes that might otherwise feel mundane now have an added level of urgency. The key here is to ensure that there will be real consequences if the clock runs out, also known as stakes. More on that in the next section.

Raise the stakes

From the outset, the stakes of your story — a clear sense of what will happen to your character if they don’t reach their goal — are crucial for helping the reader get invested in it. But you can also raise the stakes at pivotal moments in the plot to make achieving this goal even more pressing. For example, let’s say your character is trying to figure out how to defeat the zombie they accidentally resurrected when reading from an old spellbook. But when the zombie bites their best friend, infecting them with its zombie virus, your character will have to find a cure or risk losing their best friend forever. Now you’ve made an already sticky situation that much stickier, and your reader will be on the edge of their seat waiting to find out what will happen next.

Weave in foreshadowing

You can also build anticipation and suspense by leaving subtle clues and hints at what is to come later on in the plot, referred to as foreshadowing. One of my favorite examples of this comes from George Orwell’s 1984, when (spoilers!) one of the characters refers to the fact that there are likely bugs in the mattress in the secret room where she and her lover meet for their trysts. Later on, this turns out to be true, but not in the way the character meant — the room is bugged with listening devices that ultimately lead to our lovers being caught. Good foreshadowing emphasizes the hint, ensuring readers will remember it and be curious about it, without giving too much away about the rest of the story.

Leverage your setting

Much like pulsing music in a horror film tells us that something bad may be about to happen, your story’s surroundings can help give readers a sense of unease and building dread. If ominous storm clouds roll in just as your character knocks on the door of the mysterious house on the hill, your reader is more likely to be curious about what lies on the other side. That’s not to say that a sunny afternoon on the beach couldn’t be just as unsettling — it’s all about how you as the writer weave together descriptions, interiority, and action. Make use of the weather, the scenery, and even the light (or lack thereof) to create the ideal mood and reflect your character’s emotions as they hurtle toward danger or misfortune.

Use dramatic irony

When using a third person point of view or multiple points of view, one of the most effective ways to build suspense is by revealing information that your characters aren’t aware of (or only some of them are). If your reader knows there’s a bomb hidden underneath the car but your character doesn’t, each step they take toward the driver’s side door could feel like torture from the reader’s perspective. You can punch up the tension even more by using ambiguity or misdirection when revealing this information, making the reader think they know something that turns out to be more complex than it first appears. Just try not to be too misleading — you don’t want to leave your reader confused or dissatisfied with the final reveal.

These five strategies should help you take your story from potential snooze to suspense at every turn.