Why I Write the Warning Signs Before the Danger | Behind the Writing

The scary part isn't always what happens. Sometimes it's realizing how long the signs were there before anyone noticed.

While I might enjoy reading suspense novels where bodies are dropped within the first few pages, I've found that I don't need to do that to prove something exciting is going to happen.

I'm drawn much more to the cup left in the wrong place. The sentence someone explains away. The person who's suddenly around a little too often. The behavior that seems perfectly reasonable and, on some level, completely normal.

That is, until the reader has seen it for the fourth time.

That, to me, is where suspense lives and breathes. In the everyday acts that build up. The moments my readers see but my characters don't.

I want readers thinking as they go: Why is no one seeing this? Why isn't he doing something to stop it? How can they not see what's right in front of them?

The answer is simple.

Because in real life, people don't.

People become complacent. They become comfortable. Sometimes it's simply easier to let someone else take care of something than it is to take responsibility for it yourself. And sometimes people give away pieces of their power without even realizing they're doing it.

That's part of why people-watching is so fascinating to me.

Have you ever sat in a restaurant and watched the couples around you? Have you tried to figure out what their relationship is? Why they're there? Whether they're on a first date, have been married for thirty years, or would rather be sitting anywhere else?

For most of my life, I worked in some form of retail or another. It gave me endless opportunities to observe people when they didn't realize anyone was paying attention.

You begin noticing the little quirks. The small tells. All those idiosyncrasies that make people who they are.

The funny thing is, we all have them. Every one of us.

We just don't usually see our own—or take the time to understand ourselves well enough to recognize them.

And if you watch closely enough, sometimes you can see the warning signs before the danger.

That's what interests me when I'm writing.

My novels are meant to resemble life. The reader sees Sarah and thinks: Watch her.

But Bernice doesn't know she's in a suspense novel.

She's simply living Tuesday.

I sometimes wonder at what age we learn to start watching for warning signs. Are we taught to look for them? Is it something experience teaches us? Or is there some instinct inside us that whispers when something isn't quite right?

Whatever the answer, there will always be people who are too trusting to see the signs—and others who see them but aren't ready to believe what they're telling them.

Maybe that's why I'm drawn to quiet suspense.

The danger doesn't always arrive with a warning.

Sometimes the warning has been there all along. We just didn't know we were supposed to be looking.

What about you?

When you're reading suspense, do you prefer danger that announces itself early—or the kind that builds so quietly you don't recognize it until you're already uncomfortable?