How to build narrative suspense
BY Heather Darwent
27th May 2025
Heather Darwent is a thriller writer and former student of our Edit & Pitch Your Novel and Writing Your Novel – Three Months courses. Heather's Sunday Times bestselling debut The Things We Do to Our Friends was published in 2023. Her second novel A Sharp Scratch is out now from Viking.
Read on to discover Heather's advice on how to build narrative suspense in your writing.
When it comes to thrillers, narrative suspense is the not-so-secret sauce. The reader needs to stay hooked, desperate to discover just how the author plans to thread it all together. As writers, we don't want to disappoint, working hard to perfect the recipe and create a satisfying narrative. The ingredients, or methods, are endless, which is the joy of the genre.
With the lead-up to my second novel, A Sharp Scratch drawing closer, I've enjoyed looking at my writing to see what I tend to add in an attempt to sustain that all important suspense. . .
1. The journey
I find myself instinctively drawn to using a journey in some way – often to add a moment of reflection within the plot that will then elevate a subsequent episode of high drama. It often mimics life and how I feel about short trips: they can offer a place to breathe.
Giving characters space to decompress and reflect on what's happening in the main narrative allows them and the reader to experience suspense more internally. There's also a sense of unease in the shifting scenery that I really enjoy writing – the idea that something might happen at any moment, even if the journey seems mundane on the surface. In A Sharp Scratch I enjoyed writing the journeys, both to and from the mysterious healing retreat.
2. Setting
Setting, for me, is essential, and I often think about it before anything else. I believe that many successful thrillers derive much of their tension from their setting. Perhaps it's a bustling city packed with strangers and threats or the isolated silence of the countryside. Setting can do a lot of heavy lifting regarding mood and tone.
I found this particularly tricky when writing my second book. I was concerned that the two books were too tonally similar, but a friend (thanks, Niamh!) pointed out that, whilst we as authors live in these books daily, a reader might approach them with years between. The tonal similarity might not be a flaw but a signature. That allowed me to lean into the setting and treat it like a character.
3. Introduction of characters
I try to avoid introducing too many characters at once. Even in a more locked-room-style thriller, where many characters are essential, staggering their introductions helps to build suspense. The reader wonders who's next, their role, and whether they can be trusted. Gradual character introductions also reduce confusion and give each person space to come alive on the page.
As someone who doesn't plot heavily in advance, this approach helps me, too. It lets me get to know the characters as I write, letting them evolve naturally on the page. Their entrances become tension in themselves, and readers begin to anticipate what will happen and who will show up next.
4. Planting of Clues
I often find myself adding random things into a scene that later become clues. With A Sharp Scratch, knives kept appearing before I truly understood their significance…
This is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing for me, when I have no idea why I've added something – it just feels right or adds texture to a character – and later, it blossoms into something. I love that layering process of returning and realising I left myself all the breadcrumbs.
5. Secrets & Lies
Secrets and lies might be the fundamental building blocks of thrillers. In fact, I'd argue that they're essential to all fiction – though that's a topic for another day! In psychological thrillers especially, I find that every piece of dialogue should carry the weight of something unsaid. Subtext, tension, deceit. Who's withholding the truth? Who's protecting someone else or themselves? Lies give the story its pulse, and I'm always on the lookout – in fiction and life – for the strange little secrets people carry so I don't always resort to the same ones.
6. The Impossible Choice
I love an impossible choice. The narrator is confronted with a fork in the road, and as readers, we're torn. What will they choose? What should they choose? The best moments are often when we think we know the answer, and the character surprises us. These moments are delicious because they carry weight. Once the choice is made, the character can't go back. Thrilling!
Narrative suspense is a challenge for all writers, and the more I read, the more I discover new and exciting ways to heighten the tenson. Though it can be frustrating piecing it all together, there’s nothing better than when a reader races through – I couldn’t put it down! The highest of compliments!
I can found on Instagram as @hdarwent and on my website.
Get your hands on a copy of A Sharp Scratch.