Create Suspense and Drama

Once you’ve developed your protagonist, you need to bring him into conflict.

The dramatic question is probably the single most important element in an entertaining story. Even if you are a terrible writer, if you can use the dramatic question effectively, people will read your work.

The dramatic question lies at the heart of suspense, and, as my father-in-law told me recently, the rewards for writers who do suspense well are disproportionate to all other writing skills.

The dramatic question is why Twilight is selling millions of copies and the average literary fiction novel is lucky to sell a few thousand.

The dramatic question centers around the protagonists central conflict. Here are a few examples of dramatic questions:

Is Odysseus going to make it home from Troy?
Will Romeo and Juliet ever be together?
Is the old man, Santiago, ever going to catch a fish again?
Will Michael Corleone save his family?
Is Captain John Yossarian ever going to be able to go home from WWII?

How to Create Suspense

The writer’s job is to pose the dramatic question, to make the reader want to answer “yes” to the question, and then to create suspense by posing obstacles to the question.

For example, “Is Odysseus going to make it home from Troy?”

No, because there’s a cyclops in the way.
Odysseus and his men escaped the cyclops but now the cannibals are after them.
They avoided the cannibals but the Sirens are calling to them.

And so on.

Even if the the audience knows the outcome of the dramatic question is certain, even if they know the boy is definitely going to get the girl, or the famous detective who always catches the killer is going to catch this one too, or the good guys are going to defeat the bad guys, they will still read on just to know for sure, and enjoying every minute of it.

7 Steps To Create More Conflict

Posing a good dramatic question in the minds of your readers is the best way to create suspense and keep people reading. But how do you use the dramatic question effectively?

Here are seven steps to create suspense with the dramatic question:

1. Make the Reader Care About the Answer

You’re writing a thriller about a spy who puts herself in constant danger to fight her arch enemy for the sake of her country, posing the dramatic question, “Will she survive and save her people?” Pretty standard stuff.

However, if your heroine is whiny, annoying, and mean spirited, if we don’t find her sympathetic in some way (even if she’s not likeable), then your readers aren’t going to care as much about whether she survives or not. On top of that, if your villainisn’t a hateable mastermind, but actually a weakling guy that’s actually pretty nice, no one is going to root for your heroine to defeat him. And worse, if the country she’s fighting for is full of whiny, annoying, mean spirited people, then we might even root against her.

Before you pose the dramatic question, spend time introducing your characters:

Introduce your protagonist (show don’t tell us why we should root for her)
Introduce your supporting cast (other interesting and / or likeable characters on your protagonist’s side we can root for)
Introduce your villain (if they aren’t incredibly interesting and powerful, it makes your protagonist less interesting and powerful)

2. Pose It In Time

If you pose the dramatic question too early, the audience won’t care about your cast enough to care about the dramatic question. If you pose it too late, your readers will get bored and set your book down.

Most people I read say the right time to pose the dramatic question is between 1/6 and 1/3 of the way into your story.

3. Build Tension With Small Losses and Small Wins

You don’t want to answer the dramatic question right away. That would be boring. Instead, build up tension by creating a series of minor battles, with small losses and wins.

For example, let’s say your dramatic question is, “Will Inspector Peugeot solve the murder mystery?” To build tension, insert a red herring by having the Inspector find a clue that leads to a chase scene with a suspect. Then, when they finally catch him (win!) it turns out he isn’t actually the killer (loss!).

4. Foreshadow

In the best stories, you can look back and see clues to the outcome of the dramatic question all through the story, so that everything leads up to that final climax where the dramatic question is answered.

For example, in the Sixth Sense, the dramatic question is, “Can Bruce Willis help Haley Joel Osment with his craziness?” The answer is, of course, (spoiler alert if you somehow have not seen this movie in the last thirteen years and still want to be surprised) no, but Haley can help him. Of course, as soon as we learn the truth that Bruce is actually dead, we see the clues, the foreshadowing, all through the story.

5. If the Dramatic Question Were a Test, Make Your Protagonist Think They Passed

One good way to build suspense is to have a false success, where the protagonist thinks they’ve solved the dramatic question, they save the world, they helped Haley Joel Osment, they solved the murder. Let your protagonist revel in their success for a while. Then, pull the rug out from under them.

Hard.

6. If the Dramatic Question Were a Test, Make Your Protagonist Fail

After you make your protagonist think they passed, make them fail.

This is a time honored technique, used by Homer himself. Odysseus is within sight of home when his men, driven by greed, open the bag containing three of the four winds, blowing their ship back most of the way they came.

This creates the dark night of the soul, the death which is necessary in every story in order to create change in the protagonist.

7. Don’t Give Away the Answer—Until You Do

The key to supense is not to answer the dramatic question too soon. Think of it as a dance, a tango. You’re dancing with the reader, twirling around their emotions, bringing them close and then pushing them away, allowing them to think they’ve got you and then slipping through their grasp. This is what drama is all about, whether you’re writing thrillers, mystery, or romance.

The surprising truth reader may even know where the dance is going to end up. They may already know the answer to the dramatic question. Still, they’ll stick with you because in the end, it’s not even about the dramatic question. It’s about the dance leading up to it.

The Secret to Great Conflict

We often think that to create conflict we need to show spectacular events. For example, a car chase, an argument between lovers, a fistfight, or the threat of a nuclear explosion. Or we think of conflict as some kind of internal suffering: depression, longing, or pain.

But the truth is that if events and emotions were the only elements of conflict in our stories, we’d have some pretty flat stories.

Conflict, in good stories, is not about spectacular events or painful emotions. Good conflict is about values.

What is a Value

When you hear the word value in this context, you might think of “family values,” or in other words, morals. While morality is crucial to storytelling, morals aren’t what I mean by value.

Let’s simplify it. A value is something you admire, something you want. If I value something, it means I think it’s good.

Here are some examples of things you might value:

Money / Wealth
Friends
Your little brother
Getting good grades
Organization
Justice
Compassion
Ferraris
The Environment
Productivity
Power
Humility

Think about a few of your favorite protagonists. What do they value?

For example, Elizabeth Bennet, our heroine from Pride & Prejudice, values honesty, humility, intelligence, kindness, and her family (am I missing any?). Her conflict with Mr. Darcy was on the basis of these values. She thought he was dishonest, prideful, rude, and worst of all, he “ruined the happiness of a most beloved sister.”

When Good People Create Conflict

You don’t need a villain to create conflict. Most conflict comes about between two positive values that conflict.

In our example of Pride & Prejudice, looming above the whole story is the value of marriage and love. Mrs. Bennet wants all her daughters to get married. The daughters want to get married too, but only if they’re in love… and preferably in love with someone wealthy (another central value in the story).

Marriage, love, and wealth are all positive values. They’re values most of us would agree with! However, figuring out how to adhere to all of those values at once is incredibly difficult, and in Pride & Prejudice, we get to watch the characters try, fail, and then finally succeed at achieving all of these good but conflicting values.

There can even be conflicts within a single value.

All of the Bennet daughters value love, but what does love even mean? Does it count when the object of your affection isn’t respectable? Is foolish passion still love? What if you love knowledge and books more than people? What if you make a marriage of convenience and end up loving your lifestyle but not your spouse? Is that okay? Those are all conflicts raised within the single value of love.

How To Create Conflict in Your Story

To create conflict within your own story, ask yourself the following questions:

What does your main character value?

Do any of his values potentially conflict?

How can you reveal the conflicts in those values?

Do any of his values conflict with themselves?

How can you delve into the complications of that single value?

A Note About Villains

While your story may not need a villain to have conflict, it’s always fun to have one.A villain is a character who has the opposite values as those of your main character.

For example, Batman values justice and order. Joker values crime and chaos. Frodo values his friends and the peace of the Shire. Sauron values power at the cost of relationship and beauty.

To create the perfect villain, figure out what your main character values. Then, wist those values into some hideous shape and set the characters loose on each other.