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If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
- Mary Shelly, Frankenstein
"When dealing with the frightening, translucence is more effective than transparency,
just as glow is more revealing than glare."
- Alfred Hitchcock
LET ME TELL YOU OF THE MECHANICS OF FEAR:
All of us will have to write a suspenseful, scary scene no matter in what genre we write.
Films have great aids for creating scary scenes:
music, weird camera angles, editing, music cues, performance, special visual and makeup effect.
In prose all we have to work with are words, and our readers’ imaginations.
The good news is that those are powerful tools.
The ways you arrange words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs
can activate your readers’ psyches in ways you may not have thought possible.
When you’re building suspense, evoking a feeling of impending doom or the terrifying fear of the unknown,
get your reader to hold her breath.
Stop her from taking her next breath for longer than normal.
And though it may seem impossible to do this with words on a page,
be aware that we unconsciously breathe as though we’re reading aloud even when we aren’t.
EXAMPLE:
{McCord and the brilliant Lady Ada Byron Lovelace are visiting the imprisoned Vampiric Benjamin Franklin
who is bound painfully to a bed of pure silver.
McCord is telling Franklin that he believes the vampire might have been cured of the revenant curse.}
“I believe King Solomon's dagger
severed DayStar’s and Abby’s hold on you.
In life, I’ve found it wise to believe in what works and leave theory to
those safe behind ivory walls of universities.”
He laughed
bitterly. “How long can I go without …
feeding?”
“Do you feel the
thirst now?’
His face went
blank, and he became as still as only the dead can be. “No.
No, I cannot. Am I free of the
Thirst at long last then?”
“I believe you
are. I also believe that should you
decide to … feed for the pleasure of it, you would become an animal … with no
intelligence or humanity at all. You may
even go on all fours.”
Franklin had always
prided himself on his intellect.
“No! If I should feel myself
weakening, I shall come to you. If that
ever occurs, sir, kill me on the spot.
On the very spot! No
hesitation. I must never become that. Never!
Promise me you will kill me.
Promise!”
“I promise,” I said
softly.
Ada rasped, “As do
I, Mr. Franklin.”
He stiffened. “You call me mister. A term of respect. You feared what you would see within my
cell. Yet you entered. You detest what I tried to do to your
friend. Yet, seeing my imprisonment, you
declare to contend with that friend on my behalf. You pledge to end me though I know that would
cost you greatly.”
His eyes bled tears
of blood. “Lady Lovelace, you are a
treasure for me to behold. If I could
but rise, I would kiss your hand. As it
is, I shall remember the lovely fragrance you are wearing during the long, dark
hours after you leave.”
Ada’s face went
leper pale. “Th-That is a … wonderful
compliment, Mr. Franklin. America is the
country it is due to your dedication and force of will. Those two traits I am sure will see you
through this dark season.”
“Will you return to
visit me on occasion?”
Ada went still, and
then smiled, “Certainly, I will. Of
course, Samuel will insist on coming. He
is such a stodgy traditionalist.”
Franklin nodded to
me, his eyes unreadable, and turned back to Ada. “I will look forward to those visits,
Madame.”
Ada was silent
until we were some distance down the dark passageway leading away from
Franklin’s cell. She stopped suddenly and
began to shiver. She gripped my arm
tightly.
“Oh, Samuel. I am wearing no perfume, none at all. He was smelling my blood. My blood!”
***
McCord finds himself married to an alien capable of horrific acts. Can he find a path through the darkness that is his love?
As you said, placement of words can raise suspense in a reader. Certain images in a setting can also do this. And pacing helps create the "soundtrack".
ReplyDeleteIt is a skill upon which I am still working, :-) Good to see you here again -- recovering from Covid-19 while still trying to work keeps me near exhausted all the time. Whew!
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