User blog comment:BrutalCuriousity/Build Up/@comment-26030957-20160428013150

I recently read an interesting article about building suspense that said the key is to starve your children. In other words, only give your readers enough information that they keep asking questions.

Hmm, for instance, if I had to give an example off the top of my head, something like:

After the funeral Josiah kept seeing a black van circle the neighborhood.

This sentence makes the reader ask, well, who died? what's up with the van? If the sentence had been:

After his brother died of leukemia, Josiah first saw the black van that ended up just being the newspaper delivery vehicle.

There is no suspense because the questions have all been answered.

So, start with a great hook that gets your readers asking questions right away, and follow that with more questions, slowly revealing answers at a steady pace.

There is also foreshadowing, where you allude to an even that hasn't happened yet, making the reader guess when and how it is going to happen. This could be a very understated and minor statement like, "She would soon come to regret that she had done that," to something like, "little did he know this would be the last time he saw his brother." Sometimes subtlety is very powerful here.

You can also build suspense with a tone of dread where the reader just feels that something is going to happen. Of course pacing is the key to all of these techniques.

Good luck and I hope this helps. I would provide a link to that article but I can't remember where I read it.