Rules for Writing Romantic Suspense

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Writing Romantic Suspense is a delicate dance of balancing the thrills and chills of suspense with the heightened backdrop of blossoming love. It’s like being a juggler keeping the various balls in the air. Some writers of romantic suspense do this best when using a formula where certain events have to happen at certain times in the manuscript. For me it’s more of an intuitive thing, probably absorbed by osmosis from having read romantic suspense for decades before attempting to write my own. Every now and then, I confess, I will occasionally glance at the charts or graphs to make sure I’m on track, but mostly it’s a gut feeling that guides me as to when to raise the tension and when to pull back so the reader can take a breath—both in the love story and the thriller plot.

My gut-voice is very stubborn and very loud, so my writing process is a constant two steps forward, one step back. I write and then am forced to re-write, re-read, and then rewrite some more until the pacing and rhythms feel natural and true. Only then am I able move forward with the story. Some chapters take multiple attempts, and circuitous side-trips and dead ends before I finally land on the solution that feels right in my belly, moves the story forward in an exciting way. When this happens, it feels like magic has occurred after thrashing my way through bramble bushes. Plain words on the page transform into worlds that live and breathe, and tug forth emotions that entertain and thrill and ultimately lift the heart.

It’s exciting for me as a writer, this high-wire act. I adore giving my readers the experience of hurdling at neck break speed on a roller coaster, arms thrust high in the air whilst tucked cozily into their armchairs. It is something that brings great pleasure to me reading a trusted author, living through hair-raising experiences all the while knowing that the antagonist will get their comeuppance and that my safety bar is solidly in place.

Life isn’t like that. People who have done unspeakable things to me and my loved ones have gotten away with it. There was no reckoning in their final hours. They had comfy cozy deaths and were not writhing in the fiery pits of hell.

It pissed me off.

However, life has an interesting way of making amends, because now I write romantic suspense where at the end of the novel, love triumphs and good wins over evil. Every. Single. Time.

Ahhh…

So you might be saying to yourself, “Yes, please, that sounds like fun! Sign me up! And by the way, Meg, how does one write romantic suspense?” And I say to you, “The same way any novel is written, butt in the chair, fingers on the keyboard or pen to paper, daily.” Personally, I generally write seven days a week, however, there is wiggle room in that. If my children are in town, or if family or a friend is in need, or if I just need a day off, I give myself the out of a minimum of five days at my desk. So that is the first requirement. Butt in the chair.

Here are some other helpful hints that I hope will be helpful to you when crafting a romantic suspense novel.

—Give us a taste of the danger lurking right at the start of your novel. It sets the stage and needs to be there to draw us in with the first couple of pages, first couple paragraphs, even better. Your first chapter should pull the reader in and encourage them to want to read more. Imagine your first page or two, it should be like an amuse bouche, delighting the taste-buds and tempting the reader with the promise of more deliciousness to come!

—Don’t overwhelm us by giving too much description and explanations at the start. You can drop the relevant information little by little as the story progresses. Plunge us into the world you have created right off the bat.

—This next note is relevant no matter which type of fiction you are writing, but it’s important and helpful so I’m including it. You want to know your characters inside and out, not just the main ones, but the minor characters should sing to you as well. If visualization is difficult for you, you are in luck. We live in the age of computers. You can find a million photos online, of people, of homes in various locations, price ranges, rentals, to buy. You can call up a map and look up a small town off the beaten track and click on “street view” and actually explore the community remotely. You can use these photos as a kicking-off place to make it real to you. Once you have done the research, it is easier to dive into your characters’ lives, their thoughts, their skins; to discover their strengths and weaknesses; and to make the characters and the locations as real and specific as you can. If a setting or a character’s motivation isn’t clear to you, it definitely won’t be clear to your readers. You need to know, not only what a place/person looks like, but what they sound like, feel like, smell like, etc.

—In romantic suspense, the romance and the suspense must be equal partners. Think of it like a good marriage, both partners must pull their weight. You need to weave the suspense and romance inextricably together, so that if either element was removed the whole story would collapse. Readers of romantic suspense want a love story they can root for, however, just as important are the thrills and chills and the sense of danger and tension that the suspense elements can provide.

—The romantic relationship is vitally important. In order for it to bloom, the protagonist couple should be put in a situation that places them together early on in the manuscript. They can’t just be plunked together willy-nilly, there needs to be a reasonable “why”: otherwise you will lose the trust of your readers, and rightfully so.

—In romantic suspense, momentum is vital. It’s very important to keep the reader guessing. I think of it like puzzle pieces dropping into place. The reader can’t yet see the whole picture, but knows each bit is important. You want to have unexpected twists and turns, it makes the journey to the end way more exciting!

—As the story progresses, it needs to pick up steam. By one third of the way into the book it should be clipping along at a good pace.

—Around the middle point, again the screws need to be tightened on all fronts. On the suspense/mystery side: the antagonist ups the stakes, stalking ever closer, and there seems to be no way for the protagonists to possibly get out of this mess. On the romance side: growing attraction and simmering heat underneath the protagonists’ interactions needs to be present. They should be deeply attracted to each other, and we should care enough about them to root for their union, even if they are fighting it tooth and nail. By this point in the story they should be seeing each other differently than they did at the start. Whether they want to or not, they are more invested and emotionally involved, and there is a growing intimacy and understanding of who the other person really is underneath their public persona.

—Now you’re getting toward the climax, and it better be a doozy. You made promises to your readers at the start of the manuscript, they stuck with you, and it’s got to pay off. Which brings us back to my roller coaster analogy. Tension is building, building, as you are carried higher and higher to the ultimate crest of the roller coaster… How would you feel if—just as you are just getting ready to let go of the safety bar, thrust your arms in the air, prepared to scream your head off as you relish the exhilaration of the drop down…—and INSTEAD of that last thrill, someone stopped the cart and said, “Thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed your ride. Please exit to the left and make your way through that door and down the stairs.” That would SUCK! So, you don’t want to be that author, who takes people’s money, makes big promises and then poops out on the delivery, hoping nobody notices that they have to quietly slink out a side door and tromp down a million stairs. They will notice.

—And finally, we need the antagonist to get their just desserts and a deliciously satisfying happy-ever-after. It is a must. A requirement. Seriously.

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