Mysteries

Lesson 1: Introduction

Notable Authors Of Suspense

According to Gillian Roberts in her book, You Can Write A Mystery, "suspense asks the question ‘What is going to happen?'" While you are reading, you are anxiously waiting to see what the characters will do next. This builds suspense.

Patricia Highsmith mentions in her book, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, that suspense stories contain "a threat of violent physical action and danger or the danger and action itself." She further states "that it provides entertainment in a lively and usually superficial sense."

Reading suspense fiction does provide an entertaining plot as well as the intense desire to keep turning those pages. When you understand how plots are developed in the stories or books you read, you will be able to produce a well-developed plot yourself.

Writing Crime and Suspense Fiction and Getting Published by Lesley Grant-Adamson isn't available, but she has some great ideas about those genres. The "principle of 'let 'em laugh, let 'em cry, let 'em wait" sums up suspense fiction, even though laughter is normally reduced to the occasional smile at irony or wit. These novels can be as dark and brooding as the author feels the subject demands, and a grim humour will suffice. Character in decay is a familiar theme. Crime, or its aftermath, is usualy involved but isn't a prerequisite." (42) Reading Crime and Suspense fiction will cause readers to laugh, cry, and anticipate all subsequent plot actions. As a result, they are captivated by the plot and anxious to find out what happens to the villain and why he or she committed the crime.

The best way that Lesley Grant-Adamson describes suspense is "by the things it doesn't have to do. It doesn't, for example, have to offer reassurance, as the detective story does when the killer's identity is revealed. Neither does it have to involve crime, nor are there conventions to follow. It can be a quiet book, lacking the dash and flurry that peps up crime novels and especially thrillers." (42-43)

Sometimes it's difficult to determine if the story is suspense, detective fiction, or thrillers. Suspense keeps the reader intrigued in the story. Most Detective Fiction writers have a detective as the narrator. Sometimes the villain tells the story. Thrillers can be more intense for readers.

In the next section, we will discuss detective fiction. After that, we will discuss thrillers.

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