Part X Suspense - Goals and Motivation

For believable characters, all readers need to understand the character’s motivation for committing or solving a crime. Suspense tends to be fast paced and depends on action and psychological tension so a clear motivation provides reality for the reader.

A novel offers two significant ways to provide information different from a movie or TV.
• Time - The character has the advantage of multiple scenes to show motivation.
• Introspection - The character can reveal motivation, goal and attitudes in his thoughts.

Goals are best understood when the reader understands the motivation. Why does he kill children? Why is he stalking the woman? Why does she marry and then kill her spouse? Why does he steal?

Goals and motivation are important for all main characters in the novel, especially the antagonist and protagonist. The victim may also have significant backstory to help explain the crime.

Protagonist
While the protagonist’s goal in suspense is usually to punish the criminal, stop the villain from following through on dire threats, or squelch a dangerous situation. His backstory will reveal if he is only doing his job or if he has a greater motivation that causes him to strive for success. Has the incident affect his life or a loved ones? Does he feel threatened? Is it a moral or spiritual issue? Does the crime go against a deep value? The motivation of the goal can be a complex blend of reasons.

Antagonist
A villain needs to be believable, and the author does that by providing him with at least one redeeming quality and reasonable motivation, even if it is skewed or wrong. The most despicable person may love his dog or is kind to his parents, but he will strive to harm someone who has disgraced his family’s name.

Suspense has many sub-genres that affects the types of goals and motivations of he characters. Use a search engine to review the specifics for each genre. As an example of differences, I will review psychological suspense and romantic suspense.

Psychological Suspense
Psychological suspense involves moral danger, and usually two plots run through the story for the protagonist. The first plot is stopping the crime or catching the criminal. The second plot line is a personal weakness, dilemma or conflict in the life of the protagonist—sick child, failing marriage, money problems, or an variety of issues.

The villain also needs motivation that makes sense. Often it is revenge or power, and usually a goal or motivation warped by a twisted worldview.

Romantic Suspense
A popular form of suspense involves romance. The focus is on both the hero and heroine, usually one is in trouble and the other is trying to solve the problem. The story often leads to suspicion placed on one or the other and the character begins to view the person as a threat.

In romantic suspense, the antagonist can be a sexual predator, a character with an obsession or a person out for revenge against the individual or her family.

When dealing with goals and motivation, remember:
• Goals are unique for each character.
• Motivation comes from backstory and/or the result of a recent action.
• Both protagonist and antagonist have strengths and weaknesses that affect goals & motivation.
• Ask yourself I the action is realistic. Would you react this way under the same circumstances?
• Readers want excitement and reality.

Part IX Suspense - Backstory

Backstory is the part of a character’s life that has passed before the story begins. As in all fiction, backstory motivates action, emotion, and attitudes of the character based on past experiences. In suspense, the character’s past sets up ways he thinks and responds whether he is the protagonist, victim or antagonist in the story.

When creating backstory, create a life for your major characters back to their childhood--family discipline, birth order, family dysfunction, family social status, education and experiences, successes, failtures, romantic experience, family health, personal health, career choice, regional influences, religion, hobbies, traits, and everything else that might be important. Then use this information to build who your character is today and how it affects him in the suspense situation.

In suspense, do not neglect the antagonist. What happened in the life of the villain to make him who he is today and why he functions as he does. Follow the same procedures for developing his characterization. The villain will be covered more fully in an upcoming blog.

In suspense, backstory can provide details that explain specific character elements needed in the novel .
• ability in solving puzzles
• determination to succeed or win
• ability to manipulate or camouflage
• reasons for revenge
• unique talents or traits vital to the plot
• emphasis phobias or fears
• reveal reaction patterns
• can foreshadow experiences that parallel future or present event

Besides dialogue, suspense often provides backstory elements in flashbacks or detailed memories to set up past experiences in vivid detail so the reader can understand the motivation for the crime and the character’s motivation and goals to commit or resolve the crime.

Some basic rules to keep in mind is use backstory:
• On a need to know basis to reveal characterization or provide tension.
• To arouse a readers curiosity
• In small portions through introspection
• For the most part, in active delivery through dialogue or action.

The next blog will cover goals and motivation as related to suspense.

Part VIII - Suspense and Point of View

The rules for point of view follows the same criteria as it does for most fiction. Point of view is the character through which the scene is viewed. The scene can only offer the sights, sounds, tastes, touches and smells that can be provided by the POV character. It is that character’s perceptions and attitudes that are reflected throughout that scene. The POV character can only assume what another character is feeling or thinking.

The POV character’s thoughts, the introspection, can provide a depth into the POV character’s struggles, goals, and motivation, but as in real life, the POV characters’ can skew their thinking at times. They think it’s real but it’s a deep cover for the true emotion they’re dealing with. Perhaps they know the truth, but they won’t admit it to themselves.

The most common POV for suspense in popular fiction is third person, past tense. He ducked into the dark room. And most often this POV includes multiple third person. This allows a voice for the criminal or antagonist as well as the protagonist. If the story has romance, it also opens the door for the opposite sex main character.

First person narrows the scope and adds intimacy to the story line since the reader focuses on one person. For detective stories, first person POV is a common choice. I ducked into the dark room, my hand on my pistol. This means that the story is told totally through the eyes of the detective. We see his personal life as well as his life solving crimes. This allows us to focus on his flaws and weaknesses which adds tension to the novel when we realize that he could fail in his attempts to catch the perpetrator as well as to resolve home issues because he cannot control his flaws or rise above his weakness. This adds a distinctiveness to the story because we cannot guess what others are thinking. We only see them through the detective’s eyes.

The novel Wait Until Dark by Karen Robards, also a movie and stage play, is a suspense written in first person POV. The story involves a blind woman and takes place solely in her apartment where she is terrorized by a group of criminals who believe she has hidden a doll used by them to smuggle heroin into the country. Unbeknownst to her, the doll is in her apartment brought in as a favor to a woman her husband met in the airport. This amazing story is totally through Suzie’s blind eyes.

To decide which POV is best for your novel, ask yourself who needs to relate the story for the greatest suspense impact. Does the story need multiple POV to show the total scheme of drama to the reader? Does more than one have the most at stake in various scenes? Will your antagonist have a POV? Is he or she known to the reader or do you prefer to have an unknown force behind the suspense issues? Your decision will come after much thought and weighing what is best for your novel. Remember first person is most intimate and only that character’s eyes will share the entire story. Third person limited can provide an intimate feeling, a story using he or she but again focusing on one character only. Or in third person multiple, a variety of characters can own their individual scenes as the plot line focuses on their concerns and issues in which they have the most at stake. This allows the antagonist to have his voice in the story.