Quotes About Writing Suspense

#1. I often will write a scene from three different points of view to find out which has the most tension and which way I'm able to conceal the information I'm trying to conceal. And that is, at the end of the day, what writing suspense is all about.

Dan Brown

#2. There are no rules. You can write a story, if you wish, with no conflict, no suspense, no beginning, middle or end. Of course, you have to be regarded as a genius to get away with it, and that's the hardest part - convincing everybody you're a genius.

Fredric Brown

#3. In my first novel the heroine didn't get her man, in my second the heroine was 64 years old, my third was a romantic suspense set behind the Iron Curtain, my fourth had no wedding bells, not even in the far distance.

Maynah Lewis

#4. You keep your followers confused when you begin very well and give up too early ... Suspense is useful in movies, but useless when writing your success stories!

Israelmore Ayivor

#5. I write what I want to write. Period. I don't write novels-for-hire using media tie-in characters, I don't write suspense novels or thrillers. I write horror. And if no one wants to buy my books, I'll just keep writing them until they do sell
and get a job at Taco Bell in the meantime.

Bentley Little

#6. Not writing is never an option. This is not words of advice. It's just literally never an option!

Lillian R. Melendez

#7. An outline is crucial. It saves so much time. When you write suspense, you have to know where you're going because you have to drop little hints along the way. With the outline, I always know where the story is going. So before I ever write, I prepare an outline of 40 or 50 pages.

John Grisham

#8. A quote is a story, suspended in a sentence and treasured through time.

Ryan Lilly

#9. Suspense is achieved by information control: What you know. What the reader knows. What the characters know.

Tom Clancy

#10. The shriek cut thinly though the drizzling dimness, holding for a long moment. At last it broadened and dropped to the old.

Natalie Babbitt

#11. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Kurt Vonnegut

#12. Breathtakingly real and utterly compelling, Immoral dishes up page-turning psychological suspense while treating us lucky readers to some of the most literate and stylish writing you'll find anywhere today.

Jeffery Deaver

#13. I don't believe in writer's block. Who can function working seven days a week at at job. It's the same with writing. Take a break and let the words come to you. It rarely comes if you force it and if it does, you'll probably regret what you wrote down on paper.

Lillian R. Melendez

#14. Delayed gratification hints that something terrible is going to happen, and then delays the resolution.

It's that interval between the promise of something awful and it actually happening, where suspense resides.

Sandy Vaile

#15. Writing is not always a writer's playtime. It's actually a work in progress. Few understand this and mistakenly believe we're wasting time. But it's never a waste of time when doing what you love.

David Lucero

#16. Suspense: the only literary tool that has any effect upon tyrants and savages.

E. M. Forster

#17. That's what you need to be writing about. Not the increased crime rate, but the increased tolerance for criminals to do whatever they want and not be held accountable.

Diane Moore

#18. She would keep playing the role of the winner as long as the audience believed her.

Mary Papas

#19. One key to the distinction between mystery and suspense writing involves the relative positions of hero and reader. In the ideal mystery novel, the readers is two steps behind the detective ... The ideal suspense reader, on the other hand, is two steps ahead of the hero.

Carolyn Wheat

#20. Mystery writing involves solving a puzzle, but 'high suspense' writing is a situation whereby the writer thrusts the hero/heroine into high drama.

Iris Johansen

#21. I did know that the book would end with a mind-boggling trial, but I didn't know exactly how it would turn out. I like a little suspense when I am writing, too.

James Patterson

#22. I like to believe my suspense novels marry the strong characters from my romance writing past, with the twisty, clever plots of my mystery writing present.

Lisa Gardner

#23. Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the detective's struggle to solve a problem.

Raymond Chandler

#24. Stephen King, by far, is the standard-bearer. I think anyone who writes suspense fiction and says that King isn't an influence is either lying or being foolish. I read his book 'On Writing' before I read pretty much any of his fiction.

Michael Koryta

#25. You need to take some acting classes to learn to hide your huge crush on my husband better

Mary Papas

#26. Ms. Taylor's writing style is clear, without frills, and so streamlined that her story flows and flows and flows, without taking a break, to its satisfying conclusion.
Maeve of Tara

Vicki M. Taylor

#27. Surprise is when a prime minister is assassinated during his speech. Suspense is when an assassin lurks while the prime minister speaks. Balancing surprise and suspense is the job of the thriller writer.

Ashwin Sanghi

#28. There is much to admire in Peter Brett's writing, and his concept is brilliant. There's action and suspense all the way.

Terry Brooks

#29. Suspense doesn't always have to be about physical danger. Making the reader worry is a universal concept that can be applied to any story.

Sandy Vaile

#30. The greatest compliments I've ever received were complaints from readers that I made them stay up all night reading.

H.E. Fairbanks

#31. For me, writing isn't about money and fame. It's about passion, an art form that I want to share with the world, expand the horizons to new worlds, new experiences, and new adventures.

Jason W. Blair

#32. Spend less time on social media and more time reading and writing.

James Gary Vineyard

#33. Packs a Huge Emotional Punch! Graceful Writing, Great Acting, Exquisite Direction, Suspense, Profound Subject Matter and It Rocks!

Rex Reed