Okay, raise your hand out there if you watch ER or Grey’s Anatomy. It’s okay, no one can see you. And, not like I’m raising MY hand or anything, but hypothetically, let’s just say that if you are familiar with these particular medical (and I’m using that term a bit freely) dramas, then you know that they are really big long soap operas. Greys is, essentially, the on again, off again, hopefully on again (not that I would know) romance of Dr. Derrick McDreamy and Dr. Meredith Grey. Inside all this romance are the daily (read: episodic) events of a hospital in Seattle. What makes Grey’s kinda cute are the running monologues of the lead heroine, the thematic nuances she puts into the story, usually centered around the events of […]
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Tricks or Treats
So you’ve figured out your BIG EVENT, and made it believeable and compelling and immediate and threatening. But to really create a great suspense, you new a few TRICKS! Here’s the first one: Grab ‘em with a HOOK from the first line. The suspense Hook is essential for a great story. Your hook should, set the tone, start with your hero/heroine in action, hint at the stakes and raise a story question. However, there is one key that every suspense hook needs to have: Intrigue. Why? How? What? It needs to raise one of these questions right at the beginning. Here are some of my hooks: The past had picked the worst time to find her. (What?) from Flee the Night Out of all FSB Agent Yanna Andrevka’s bright ideas, masquerading […]
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