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Setting up Act 2 of your Suspense Novel

By on October 10, 2011 in Limelight – Sample Novel, Managing the Muddle (keeping your story moving!), Story Crafting, Susan May Warren, Suspense, Want to see a book in Action? Read the Blog-a-Book Series, Writing your Suspense Chapters

It’s time to set up Act 2 of your Suspense novel, and I’m going to show you how by moving onto  Act 2 of Limelight, our MBT Romantic Suspense novel today. In Act 1, we’ve set up the foundation for the suspense – the players, what’s at stake, where the game will be played (the Cherokee forest). I’ve also set up sympathy, competence and greatest fears – those things that we’ll start manipulating in Act 2. As I begin chapter 4, and the start of the Second Act, I need to balance a number of threads and ignite the story to keep it flowing into what I call the Fun and Games of Act 2. Suspense Thread:  First, I need to keep the suspense thread running by bringing the threat […]

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Ten Common Author Mistakes. #1

By on July 14, 2011 in Author Mistakes, Editing Basics, Story Crafting

I hate to even start down this road. Author mistakes? Really? Is there such a thing? I read all kinds of books that defy craft rules and guidelines. They sell well. They win awards. But for new authors, it’s really important to watch a few key things. Writing pitfalls we easily fall into. I found this web site talking about author mistakes, but the author talks about small things that can easily be overlooked and fixed. An editor probably won’t reject a manuscript for most of these reasons. Nevertheless, the site highlights good things to watch. If you Google “author mistakes” you’ll find a plethora of sites. Last weekend I taught at the Minnesota NICE  ACFW chapter’s retreat. I went through the “ten common mistakes” from a craft point of […]

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Act 2: Getting to the Good Stuff

By on May 9, 2011 in How to write a Romance, Managing the Muddle (keeping your story moving!), Story Crafting

Getting to the good stuff: Act 2    Writing a suspense is all about the adventure, romance, suspense and disasters that happen in the middle of the novel.  A great suspense should pick up speed as the hero/heroine launches into the second act.   All the great stuff happens during the Guts phase – confronting fears, reaching out in the darkness for the girl’s hand, stealing a kiss, failing big, learning something new about yourself and summoning your courage.    The overall concept is Make it Worse.  At the start of every chapter, the character will have choices.  He’ll contemplate these choices, weigh them against possible outcomes, consider his motivations and then move forward into the danger, during which something bad will happen he didn’t expect, and will cause him […]

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Writing a Suspense: The basic elements

By on May 2, 2011 in Plotting, Story Crafting, Suspense

Over the past four months, we’ve been covering the basic elements of Act 1 of a Suspense.  Before we take a little romance rabbit trail (for all your romantic/suspense novelists!) let’s review the basic Act 1 elements:   The first act consists of the setup, or what I call: The Game:  Players, the Goals, the Rules, Board/Playing field.    G =  Let us meet the Guys and Gals.  Who are they?  What makes them common/sympathetic?  What makes them extraordinary?  We’ll be talking in coming weeks about developing the romance of a romantic/suspense novel, also, but for now, there are a number of elements a suspense hero/heroine should have.   If you took my plotting class, you’ll know I spend a lot of time on developing my characters, and making a […]

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