Here’s another strong example of a situation that triggers both attention systems.
It’s from I, Alex Cross by James Patterson, probably the best-selling fiction writer in the world today.
As you read, look for whether the situation presents threat, hardship, or opportunity for the point-of-view character.
Also look to see if anything surprises you or opens up a gap in your expectations.
Example 1: Hopes and Fears
ONE
HANNAH WILLIS WAS a second-year law student at Virginia, and everything that lay ahead of her seemed bright and promising—except, of course, that she was about to die in these dark, gloomy, dismal woods.
Go, Hannah, she told herself. Just go. Stop thinking. Whining and crying won’t help you now. Running just might.
Hannah stumbled and staggered forward until her hands found another tree trunk to hold on to. She leaned her aching body into it, waiting for the strength to take another breath. And then to move another burst of steps forward.
Keep going, or you’ll die right here in these woods. It’s that simple.
The bullet lodged somewhere in her lower back made every movement, every breath an agony, more pain than Hannah had ever known was possible. It was only the threat of a second bullet, or maybe worse, that kept her on her feet and going at all.
God, the woods were almost pitch-black back in here. A quarter moon drooping over the thick forest canopy did little to light the ground below. Trees were shadows. Thorns and brambles were invisible in the underbrush; they pierced and raked her legs bloody as she pushed through. What little she’d been wearing to begin with—just an expensive black lace teddy—now hung in shreds off her shoulders.
None of that mattered, though, or even registered with Hannah anymore. The only clear thought that cut through the pain, and the panic, was Go, girl. The rest was a wordless, directionless nightmare.
Finally, and very suddenly—had it been an hour? more?—the low canopy of trees opened up around her. “What the…” Dirt turned to gravel underfoot, and Hannah stumbled to her knees with nothing to hang on to.
In the hazy moonlight, she could make out the ghost of a double line, showing the curve of a country road. It was like a miracle to her. Half of one, anyway; she knew she wasn’t out of this mess yet.
When a motor sounded in the distance, Hannah leaned on her hands and pushed up off the gravel. Summoning strength she didn’t know she still had, she stood again, then staggered into the middle of the road. Her world blurred through sweat and fresh tears.
Please, dear God, don’t let this be them. This can’t be those two bastards.
You can’t be so cruel, can you?
A red truck careened around the bend then, coming at her fast. Too fast! Suddenly, she was just as blind as she’d been before, in the woods, but from the truck’s headlights.
“Stop! Please stop! Pleee-ase!” she screamed. “Stop!”
At the last possible second, the tires squealed on the pavement. The red pickup skidded into full view and stopped just short of flattening her right there into roadkill. She could feel heat coming off the engine through the grille.
“Hey, sweetheart, nice outfit! All you had to do was stick out your thumb.”
The voice was unfamiliar—which was good, really good. Loud country music was blasting from the cab too—Charlie Daniels Band, her mind vaguely registered, just before Hannah collapsed onto the pavement.
The driver was down there on the road a second later as she regained consciousness. “Oh, my God, I didn’t… What happened to you? Are you—what happened to you?”
“Please.” She barely mustered the word. “If they find me here, they’ll kill us both.”
The man’s strong hands wrapped around her, grazing the dime-sized hole in her back as he picked her up. She only exhaled, too weak to scream now. A cluster of gray and indistinct moments later, they were inside the truck and moving really fast down the two-lane highway.
“Hang in there, darlin’.” The driver’s voice was shaky now. “Tell me who did this to you.”
Hannah could feel her consciousness slipping away again. “The men…”
“The men? What men, sweetheart? Who are you talking about?”
An answer floated vaguely through Hannah’s mind, and she wasn’t sure if she said it out loud or maybe just thought it before everything went away.
The men from the White House.
How to Trigger Emotional Suspense
Patterson transports us to a situation of threat and hardship. Threat because her life is in immediate danger. Hardship because she’s already been shot.
Did Patterson tell us how it would all turn out at the beginning?
No. That would have ruined the effect.
What he did do was use the powerful technique of naming the possibilities—the hopes and fears—directly. This is one of the power moves these best-selling authors make to guide the reader in their experience. Remember: readers don’t want to know what will happen immediately. They want to know what might happen and worry about the possibilities.
Look at these lines and how many of them clearly state the possibilities:
- everything that lay ahead of her seemed bright and promising—except, of course, that she was about to die in these dark, gloomy, dismal woods.
- Whining and crying won’t help you now. Running just might.
- Keep going, or you’ll die right here in these woods. It’s that simple.
- It was only the threat of a second bullet, or maybe worse, that kept her on her feet and going at all.
- It was like a miracle to her. Half of one, anyway; she knew she wasn’t out of this mess yet.
- Please, dear God, don’t let this be them. This can’t be those two bastards.
- “Please.” She barely mustered the word. “If they find me here, they’ll kill us both.”
- The men from the White House.
He names the dangers. He names the fears. He names the possibilities of survival.
Patterson is not trying to be clever. He’s trying to be clear.
Why?
Because he knows that if he can be vivid and clear in his transport to the situation and possibilities, the situation will do all the work.
But Patterson didn’t just trigger emotional suspense. He also triggered cognitive suspense. It happened right at the end. Let’s see what he did.
Example 2: Curiosity
“Hang in there, darlin’.” The driver’s voice was shaky now. “Tell me who did this to you.”
Hannah could feel her consciousness slipping away again. “The men…”
“The men? What men, sweetheart? Who are you talking about?”
An answer floated vaguely through Hannah’s mind, and she wasn’t sure if she said it out loud or maybe just thought it before everything went away.
The men from the White House.
How to Trigger Cognitive Suspense
Notice what Patterson did.
He voiced the question directly—Who did this to you?
He’s telling you exactly what to wonder about. The moment he does that, the curiosity system activates.
And then…
He delays the answer.
Just three short lines.
It’s a great delay that keeps your interest triggered. Moreover, that buildup makes the last line more surprising and powerful.
You can feel it by simply taking the delaying lines out.
Example 3: No Delay
“Hang in there, darlin’.” The driver’s voice was shaky now. “Tell me who did this to you.”
“The men,” she said, fading. “The men from the White House.”
Readers Love Delay
The second version has nowhere near the effect of the first, does it?
Delays is delicious.
You can trigger the attention system and delay across many different lengths—whole books, chapters, paragraphs, or even sentences.
- We wanted to know if she’d find safety. He delayed the resolution for over six hundred words—all the way to a few lines before the end of the chapter.
- We wanted to know if the people in the truck were her attackers. He delayed the resolution for a hundred words.
- We wanted to know who did it. He delayed that answer for forty-six words.
If you want to keep the systems activated, delay.
How to Resolve Questions but Still Maintain Suspense
But what if you need to resolve a question? How do you do that and still maintain reader suspense?
Easy. If you need to resolve an open question but want to keep attention high, make sure you either trigger a new question—or ensure other unresolved questions remain active.
You can see Patterson doing exactly that in this example. As soon as we knew she’d reached safety, Patterson triggered two more questions about who shot her and whether she was going to survive.
How to Apply This Right Now
First, look at the scenes you’re writing. Are they situations that either (a) present threat, hardship, opportunity, or some mystery (THOM) or (b) show the character trying to progress toward the resolution of a THOM you presented earlier?
If so, great. If not, remember the reader wants to be transported to a situation that either presents a THOM or shows progress towards the goal the character has regarding the THOM.
Why? Because this is what triggers and keeps the attention systems activated.
Second, look for ways to help the reader know what the possibilities and questions are.
One effective way to trigger attention is to present a situation where the reader can clearly infer positive and negative possibilities and questions.
But, as Patterson demonstrates, you don’t have to be subtle. You can simply state the hopes, fears, and questions directly through:
- The character’s thoughts
- Dialogue
- Or brief narrative commentary
So in the next scene you write just toss some statements in. Sprinkle them in like salt.
Don’t look for some precise frequency you must use. I don’t know of any research that’s identified a golden frequency. Don’t get bogged down in whether you’re doing it exactly right. You’ve now seen longer examples from both Lee Child and James Patterson. Go back and identify how frequently they stated possibilities and questions. You know the frequencies they used work. So have fun and do something roughly similar.
Then, as you read fiction this week, watch for how often writers explicitly name hopes, fears, and questions—and how long they make you wait for resolution. This is the kind of learning activity that will pay huge dividends in your ability to write page-turning plots.
And it’s why, in the next post, we’ll look at yet another strong example.
Part of Page-Turning Plots: How to Craft Stories Readers Can’t Stop Reading.
