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alive despite Nature's worst treatment, but he must identify the agents and keep them from killing
whomever Nature doesn't dispose of.
Or, in MacLean's H.M.S. Ulysses, a British supply ship is making the Murmansk Run along the Arctic
Circle, during the Second World War. The heavy seas, ice, wind, and cold present a challenge that makes
for plenty of narrative excitement, but the secondary plot, concerning the attacks on the convoy by
German ships, planes, and submarines, gives the piece that final touch that makes it a thriller readers will
pay for. The writer does not always need to characterize the enemy in a war-adventure story because, if
they fight from planes and ships and submarines, they may never make person-to-person contact with the
heroes; they become, in some ways, the same kind of omni-present but mindless threat that Nature
herself is.
Once you have familiarized yourself with suspense fiction, have settled upon a sub-type that interests
you, have read heavily in the field to learn what other writers are doing, and have chosen a background,
thoroughly researched it, and developed a plot against it, you are almost ready to begin writing. Almost.
People greatly enjoy being unsettled, frightened, and even terrified out of their minds by art. The movie
industry goes through periodic slumps, but horror films are perpetual breadwinners, as are movies
crammed with wild chase scenes (Bullit, The French Connection, Vanishing Point, Dollars). In a
carnival, the most popular rides are those which threaten, however superficially, injury or death: the
rollicking, giant roller coaster, the plummeting "dive-bomber," the spindly-looking Ferris wheel. Also in
carnivals, the funhouse is always well patronized, and its express purpose is to terrify its paying
customers. Alistair MacLean, Hammond Innes, Donald E. Westlake, and dozens of other suspense
novelists have made careers out of frightening the public. Most any suspense writer can earn a good
living if he can learn to supply these vicarious thrills.
Basically, narrative tension is achieved through a combination of three techniques: the chase, the race
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against time, and the anticipation of a violent event. The suspense writer must understand how to use all
three methods to keep his reader on the proverbial edge of the seat. Let's look, first, at the chase scene.
THE CHASE SCENE
The antagonists will pursue the hero for only one reason: he has something which they want. This
"something" may be vital information, or a commodity of more immediate value such as jewels or
money, or it may be knowledge which would incriminate them if he were to release it to the proper
authorities. If the last is the case, their only reason for giving chase is to catch and kill him. Even though
the hero's death is not implicit in the first two circumstances, the threat of death is desirable, for it will
strengthen his motivation for flight and put an edge to the tension that will make the reader more
concerned for his welfare than he otherwise might be.
Occasionally the protagonist will be the pursuer, usually in those cases where the protagonist is some
form of sanctioned public official, like a spy or a policeman. However, in this sort of story, the writer
must match his antagonist and protagonist evenly, so that the possibility always exists that the villain will
turn the tables and start pursuing the hero. In Brian Garfield's Relentless, the hero is a policeman with
Indian heritage, forced to track government-trained mercenaries now civilians, gone bad and become
bankrobbers through Western wildlands in order to retrieve their loot and hostage. Throughout the
story, one expects the villains to turn, unexpectedly, and take the initiative. Indeed, at certain points in
the story, they do. In short, even if your hero is doing the chasing, the threat of a reversal must be there,
so tension can be generated concerning his own personal safety.
Depending on the suspense plot-type, the chase may be established between these factions: A spy will be
pursued by enemy agents or by members of his own bureau, depending on the nature of his
trespasses and he may do the chasing of these same people, depending on your story. A detective will
be pursued, if at all, by the killer he seeks usually, he will pursue. A criminal may be pursued by the
police, by other free-lance criminals anxious to relieve him of his loot, or by the Mafia, which frowns on
individual effort within its territory or he may pursue a crooked cop or another criminal. An ordinary
citizen may find himself the subject of a chase by police who have wrongly accused him of a crime, by a
psychotic killer from whom the police cannot or will not protect him, or by enemy agents he stumbles
into by accident. A soldier will be chased by other soldiers in enemy uniforms. The scientist while
rarely pursuing anyone himself may be chased by an enemy who seeks his secrets, or by his own
people who want a secret that he doesn't believe any nation should possess. (The scientist, though, is the
one type of suspense hero who is rarely involved in a chase story, of any kind.)
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