How to create suspense when writing in the first person.

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SamanthaDrake

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Specific situation MFC on a boat with a killer. the MFC is the narrator relating a past event so narrator knows he's the killer. Audience probably knows. But MFC on boat does not know its the killer. How would you create suspense. Should the narrator relate her knowledge that he is the killer or should she withhold that information until the MFC in story finds out? There are two people out in the middle of a lake. Think 'cape fear.' How to create that kind of suspense in a narrative.
 

lizmonster

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I'm not clear on the setup here - your MC is the narrator relating a past event when they didn't know something but do now?

I think what you need to do here is make it credible that your MC wouldn't know, even though you've given the audience enough clues. But first person past tense is tough if you're trying to spin a life-or-death situation. Unless you're going to pull a Looking for Mr. Goodbar - and the reader will probably have a sense by this point of whether or not they're reading that sort of a book - your suspense can't come from whether or not your MC survives.
 

be frank

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Okay, I've read this ~ 10 times now, and I'm still completely confused.

I'm going to guess "MFC" means main female character? (It's not an abbreviation I've ever seen used before.) Why is there a narrator in your first person pov? And the narrator is the same character as the main character, but ... in the future? Or they're in the present and the main character is the same character in the past? I'm lost.
 
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Roxxsmom

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I'm also unsure of what you're asking. You're in first person, but there's a narrator other than the protagonist--who knows who the killer is--telling the story? This sounds like first-person omniscient you're describing, which is not a common narrative viewpoint, but there are some examples out there.

Or are you saying you have more than one first-person narrative and you alternate between chapters or story sections?

In general in first person, when there is just one first-person narrator, the element of suspense doesn't come from the reader not knowing whether or not the protagonist will survive until the end of the story (though there are tricks around this). It stems from not knowing how the character is going to survive, or from anxiety over other negative consequences (there are even fates worse than death), or from the dangerous experience being narrated so convincingly that the reader temporarily forgets the protagonist has to get through the dangerous situation somehow.
 
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SamanthaDrake

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I'm also unsure of what you're asking. You're in first person, but there's a narrator other than the protagonist--who knows who the killer is--telling the story? This sounds like first-person omniscient you're describing, which is not a common narrative viewpoint, but there are some examples out there.

Or are you saying you have more than one first-person narrative and you alternate between chapters or story sections?

In general in first person, when there is just one first-person narrator, the element of suspense doesn't come from the reader not knowing whether or not the protagonist will survive until the end of the story (though there are tricks around this). It stems from not knowing how the character is going to survive, or from anxiety over other negative consequences (there are even fates worse than death), or from the dangerous experience being narrated so convincingly that the reader temporarily forgets the protagonist has to get through the dangerous situation somehow.
Thank you for that. It is a tricky situation and so far it fell flat the way i wrote it.
 

be frank

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Is there any particular reason you've decided to write this through the framework of someone recounting the story rather than just ... telling the story? (I'm genuinely curious.)

eta: I mean, is it an "If I Stay" kind of thing? (It's just unusual for first person books to have a narrator.)
 
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SamanthaDrake

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I tried to create suspense with the dialogue and physical gestures that could be threatening. It made the situation feel more sexually charged than tense. I keep thinking if ican find the right keywords to use but i don't know. I'll try to think of a way to create an implied threat. I guess that's what the whole point is. Ugh! I don't know.
 

SamanthaDrake

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Is there any particular reason you've decided to write this through the framework of someone recounting the story rather than just ... telling the story? (I'm genuinely curious.)

eta: I mean, is it an "If I Stay" kind of thing? (It's just unusual for first person books to have a narrator.)
I'm confused i thought every story was a narrative just from different pov's.
Being a wiser person than you were back then can invoke a feeling of regret or even laugh at yourself when you are relating a story with hindsight. You can tell the story in a tone you would if you were telling a story to a friend. I struggled with the first person until i did it that way then i wrote a prologue around it.
 

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I'm confused i thought every story was a narrative just from different pov's.
Being a wiser person than you were back then can invoke a feeling of regret or even laugh at yourself when you are relating a story with hindsight. You can tell the story in a tone you would if you were telling a story to a friend. I struggled with the first person until i did it that way then i wrote a prologue around it.

Sorry, tbc, I mean a separate external narrator. In first person, the narrator is generally the person telling the story, whether in past tense (this happened to me) or present tense (this is happening to me right now).

You can of course frame a story around someone recounting events that once happened to them, but (to me, anyway) that adds distance. Which I personally would find jarring, because the beauty of first person is its closeness. For the duration of that book, you are that person.

Basically, there's regular past tense, where your boat showdown would play out in real time. The narrator (your MC) doesn't know who the bad guy is. Then there's your framework where the narrator is essentially a different character; someone who does know who the bad guy is while the in-the-moment MC doesn't.

eta: Honestly, the best advice I can give you is to read. Read lots. Read widely. Read thrillers and suspenses and whatever else and really think about how the authors manage to convey tension (and POV!).

eta 2: Yes, time and distance colours events differently. The problem is, you're not trying to evoke regret etc, you're apparently trying to evoke tension. And that is something that generally fades over time. Does that make sense?
 
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SamanthaDrake

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Sorry, tbc, I mean a separate external narrator. In first person, the narrator is generally the person telling the story, whether in past tense (this happened to me) or present tense (this is happening to me right now).

You can of course frame a story around someone recounting events that once happened to them, but (to me, anyway) that adds distance. Which I personally would find jarring, because the beauty of first person is its closeness. For the duration of that book, you are that person.

Basically, there's regular past tense, where your boat showdown would play out in real time. The narrator (your MC) doesn't know who the bad guy is. Then there's your framework where the narrator is essentially a different character; someone who does know who the bad guy is while the in-the-moment MC doesn't.

eta: Honestly, the best advice I can give you is to read. Read lots. Read widely. Read thrillers and suspenses and whatever else and really think about how the authors manage to convey tension (and POV!).

eta 2: Yes, time and distance colours events differently. The problem is, you're not trying to evoke regret etc, you're apparently trying to evoke tension. And that is something that generally fades over time. Does that make sense?
Yes. I meant evoking regret as an answer to why i would write it as someone relating a story. I'm used to writing in the close third person so maybe that is why it feels more natural to me to write it as someone relating a story. I like how she can at times shake her head at how foolish she was.


I was thinking that you might be able to use hindsight to create suspense. Maybe by saying something like. 'Out there it was just us and placid water as far as i could see. There wouldn't be an easy escape for me there.'
 

be frank

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I was thinking that you might be able to use hindsight to create suspense. Maybe by saying something like. 'Out there it was just us and placid water as far as i could see. There wouldn't be an easy escape for me there.'

But that hindsight makes it detached, not suspenseful. Tension and fear are immediate emotions. Think about a time you were stressed out or scared--when was that feeling strongest? I'm guessing it wasn't after the fact, it was during it.

Nutshell: Regret comes with time. Suspense does not.
 
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mccardey

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Very difficult to create any real suspense, if the reader already knows the mc has survived and is okay enough with the event to be able to recount it with clarity.
 
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Bufty

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Yes. I meant evoking regret as an answer to why i would write it as someone relating a story. I'm used to writing in the close third person so maybe that is why it feels more natural to me to write it as someone relating a story. I like how she can at times shake her head at how foolish she was.

I was thinking that you might be able to use hindsight to create suspense. Maybe by saying something like. 'Out there it was just us and placid water as far as i could see. There wouldn't be an easy escape for me there.'

It might be interesting, but how much suspense would you feel sitting in front of someone who said exactly that? They've obviously survived. And how much longer you could listen would depend entirely upon how they related events. Shaking their head at how foolish they were isn't going to create suspense for the listener.

Hindsight doesn't create suspense.

Suspense is the immediate anxiety of not knowing what lies ahead.

Your normal Third Person Limited POV could work well here. Remember, the narrator in Third Person Limited is not the POV character - it's you, relating what is seen (and experienced via the POV character's senses) through that camera lens on the POV character's shoulder. Minimize all filters such as she felt, saw, heard, etc., and just relate directly what it was that was felt, seen or heard.

You are the one linking everything together but remaining as inconspicuous as possible so the reader hopefully accepts the illusion he is experiencing whatever the POV character is experiencing.

Happy suspense creating.:Hug2:

First Person suspense/tension is hard to pull off and maintain for a whole novel. Have you read Papillon? It's about thirty years old, but...
 
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I think you can create suspense in first-person writing, but it probably won’t be suspense of the “does the character survive or not” variety. There are other bad things that can happen to a character besides getting killed, and bad things ought to be happening to your protagonist throughout the book—at least, her goals should be thwarted throughout the book—so what you need to do in first person is create suspense about what the bad thing will be, how she will recover from it to get back on the path to her goal, what lasting the consequences of it will be, and so on.

In practice I don’t think this is such a terrible limitation on first-person narration. Main characters usually do not die in the middle of books—it’s not unheard of, but it’s not that common either—so even in a third-person narration, if your main character is on a boat with a killer, your reader isn’t really going to wonder whether she survives, but rather how she survives. (Not too long ago I read third-person suspense novel in which the protagonist dies violently at the end of the book, and even that I found that a very shocking result—I really wasn’t expecting it.)

So I don’t think you have to give up on narrating this scene in first person. Try to focus on boosting the character’s predicament and creating anxiety for her in the mind of the reader, not about whether she will survive, but about the terrible and harrowing experience she is presumably about to have.

:e2coffee:
 

SamanthaDrake

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Thank you for all the great feedback. I agree that you can imply a threat that may be harrowing but survivable. And i also liked the point you made about how even in the third person if it's in the middle of the book(and it is) it's hard to imply the threat of death. There are things worse than death. She is going to have to face some of those things before the story is over anyway. Maybe I can use that with hindsight to create tension.
 

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Honestly, I read first person novels all the time. This is possibly a UK thing? Or that this forum has a lot of fantasy writers?

I'm a huuuuuuge fan of first person. There's very little it can't do. And this intimate, immediate voice is great for building tension :scared:

Hunger Games.

The stunning, supernatural Wuthering Heights (my favourite novel of all time).

Life of Pi (that's set on a boat, like yours, and its middle - and most important - section is first person).

Eleanor Oliphant.

The Great Gatsby.
 

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I love first person, too - and I write it. But I got mixed up in first reading the OP’s post, by the MFC/narrator identity question. In fact I am still a bit befuddled by it.
 

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I love first person, too - and I write it. But I got mixed up in first reading the OP’s post, by the MFC/narrator identity question. In fact I am still a bit befuddled by it.

I'm not certain, either, but I think the story is essentially in-the-mind-of-a-killer.

In which case, the Dexter novels would be a possible reference (although I don't believe they're told in first person). The Talented Mr Ripley was one of the first to have a murderer-hero (and also involves row boats), although again it's not told in first person. But both might help the OP with commiting to the idea of an MC who is a killer.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis...

And lots of crime novels, of course, use occasional in-the-mind-of-the-killer chapters.
 
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Roxxsmom

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Honestly, I read first person novels all the time. This is possibly a UK thing? Or that this forum has a lot of fantasy writers?

I'm a huuuuuuge fan of first person. There's very little it can't do. And this intimate, immediate voice is great for building tension :scared:

Hunger Games.

The stunning, supernatural Wuthering Heights (my favourite novel of all time).

Life of Pi (that's set on a boat, like yours, and its middle - and most important - section is first person).

Eleanor Oliphant.

The Great Gatsby.

It's not just a UK thing. I've always lived in the US, and many of my favorite works are in first person. I like SF and fantasy too, and I tend to prefer narratives in first person or a closer limited third. I can think of plenty of examples of these that have done well in recent years.
 
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