Keep ‘em Biting Their Nails: A Case for Suspense

Keep ‘em Biting Their Nails

A Case for Suspense

By Kristin Kisska

I have a confession to make. 

As a reader and writer of suspense and thrillers, I didn’t set out to write a Women’s Fiction novel. 

So, then how did my debut novel, The Hint of Light, come into existence? 

The manuscript was my project during NaNoWriMo a couple years ago. It was inspired by two things: my DIY therapy of processing my grief from the sudden passing of a young man who was very near and dear to me, combined with the age-old question of What if…

What if he’d left behind a child that we—his loved ones—didn’t know about?

The premise started off as an improbable wish, then morphed into my passion project. 

My intensive, fast-drafting NaNo boot camp resulted in a manuscript that explored the nuances of family relationships through my characters: Mother-son, mother-daughter, father-daughter, siblings, and ultimately, grandmother-granddaughter. In fiction, as in real life, family dynamics can be inherently fraught with as much conflict and power struggles as they are with secrets and unconditional love. 

So, while I never intended to write a women’s fiction novel, the genre found me. This realization was a big surprise to this self-proclaimed #SuspenseGirl. Over the past decade, I’ve written a dark academia suspense novel, two international thrillers set in Europe, and published a dozen short stories of suspense in mystery anthologies.

Reconciling my women’s fiction versus my suspense writer’s hats gave me an ah-ha moment, a glimpse of big-picture clarity applicable to all commercial fiction. 

Suspense is a core pillar of fiction. 

While suspense fiction exists as a thriving subgenre of mysteries, every novel—albeit historical, contemporary, or futuristic, happily ever after ending or not, comedic or dramatic, fantasy or reality—must incorporate suspense. Whether it be tension, conflict, unanswered questions, obstacles, or, as my teens would call it, spilling the tea, suspense is critical to make readers care.

Does every novel need a dead body? Nope. 

Does a novel need a life-or-death moment? No, though questions of survival usually imply high stakes.

But what every novel does need is for its readers to make an emotional investment in at least one character and to care about their outcome. Did they score the interview? Did they make it to the wedding? Were they finally able to adopt a child? Did they get back together after breaking up? 

The same thing happens in real life. Anyone who has ever attended an uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner knows firsthand the angst of wading through their family’s field of landmines. And here’s the payoff: the vaguer the problem, the deeper the emotional scars, resulting in a more intense reader experience. 

In other words, without suspense, there is no hook.

As fiction writers, it’s our job to keep our readers turning pages. So, keep those burning questions unanswered. Put our characters in awkward situations. Throw new obstacles in their way. Hide secrets. Stack the odds against them. Make their goals all but impossible to achieve. 

In other words, it’s our job to make our readers care enough about our characters’ journeys to bite their nails. And as is the case of The Hint of Light, it was my job to keep the reader wondering if Margaret will ever find her rumored granddaughter.

You can find me at the nail salon near you. Happy reading!  

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Kristin Kisska is a native of Virginia, where she currently resides with her family and their moody tabby, Boom. She holds a BS in commerce from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Northwestern University. She is the author of a dozen short stories published in anthologies. The Hint of Light is her debut novel. Kristin loves hearing from friends and readers at www.KristinKisska.com.

THE HINT OF LIGHT

In this heart-wrenching exploration of unconditional love, what a mother finds in the aftermath of her son’s death could put her family back together—or tear them apart for good.

In the wake of her son’s sudden death, Margaret Dobrescu struggles to keep it together in the face of her grief…and her guilt. She can’t help but blame herself for Kyle’s own lifelong struggles—namely, the alcoholism that plagued him.

But within mere days of his funeral, secrets and suspicions begin to surface, and Margaret’s husband admits that Kyle once confessed to having a daughter. Clinging to the hope that some part of her son is still out there, Margaret embarks on a search to find her rumored granddaughter.

What Margaret hasn’t prepared for, however, is the deluge of secrets that keep coming. And as she digs deeper and deeper into her son’s life to find the truth, what she finds instead is that her own secrets can’t stay buried forever.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers