by L Rust Hills
"intromissions of the supernatural." This is a phrase of William Archer's. He speaks in his Playmaking of "oracles, portents, prophecies, horoscopes, and such-like intromissions of the supernatural." These methods are again familiar to us from tragic drama—both Classical and Elizabethan—where "Fate" and "The Will of the Gods" are made manifest in many such ways; but they appear in fiction too. Again one thinks first of Hardy's work, for he was consciously trying in his novels to convert all the elements of tragic drama to prose fiction and also used the oracular pronouncement as best he could — for instance, Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge goes to an old crone and gets "oracular advice," typically phrased so as to seem to say one thing, but actually saying another. In modern short stories we sometimes see the suburban housewife get her fortune read in a tea room, or an advertising executive break open a fortune cookie at lunch. Perhaps there are more subtle ways of doing it, but oracular predictions of this sort, when it is suggested that they are reliable, will usually be an over obvious way of achieving foreshadowing.
in aftershadowing. "Aftershadowing" is an impossible word, but what's meant by it is the way in which an author at the end of his story will pick up again, by suggestion, deftly, the image or other device by which the foreshadowing was achieved. What was in the back of the reader's mind he brings perhaps one quarter-inch forward. Aftershadowing completes or recalls an intimation that was presented earlier, brings home effects that were earlier set up. Say, for instance, there had been "snakes slithering" on the path at the beginning, foreshadowing; now at the end, there may be the hiss of the steam train as it curves around into the station, aftershadowing.
At the end of the story there will of course be other reasons for pulling the threads of the plot finally all together, for restatement of the theme, for re-introduction of a central symbol, for a carefully written passage of description—reasons of unity and coherence and harmony and so forth. But an additional effect of this may also be to remind the reader of what was foreshadowed for him.
Foreshadowing and Suspense
Suspense as a reader reaction is considered, somewhat contradictorily, to be at once both an intense and a superficial sort of effect. Detected reading a mystery or an adventure yarn, we say it is "just a suspense novel," and we mock any absorption we may have had in it. Suspense is not even a final response to a piece of writing: a reader left with the final response of suspense has every right to throw the book across the room. Most suspense books as such, chances are, are badly written but have lots of "exciting" sequences that follow one after another and lead one into another, cliffhanger fashion, like the old movie-serial episodes. Before one knows it, he's nearly through with the book and then must continue so as "to find out what happens at the end." These are the sort of books of which publishers say "Once you pick it up, you can't put it down," and one of the major reasons you don't want to put it down is that you don't want ever to have to pick it up again. You want to get to the end of a book like that and get rid of it, once and for all. It's a big waste of time: like watching television for four hours. It seems a good, self-indulgent idea when you start it, something you feel you "deserve" and are going to enjoy; but there is scant pleasure in the moment and in retrospect none at all. Also, it strains the eyes and gives you headaches.
But suspense, when it is considered as an aspect of fiction technique rather than as the whole of the desired effect on the reader, can function in literature as subtly and effectively as it does in music. "Suspension," according to the rules of classical harmony, works in very much the same ways. A tone appears as a natural element in one concord and is thus said to be prepared. Then the same note appears as a foreign element in the succeeding concord, during which time—while it's just hanging there, unsettled—it is said to be suspended. And then when the tone is altered to appear as a natural element in that concord, it is resolved. Preparation, suspension, and resolution are techniques which can be demonstrated to exist in literature, just as they can be demonstrated in music. Suspension—or suspense, to use the less pretentious term—is not just a cheap way of hooking the reader, but is rather one of the methods by which "aesthetic pleasure" is created in fiction. The reader's "involvement" in anticipating the fictional resolution is no more at odds with his aesthetic pleasure than is the music lover's as he awaits the harmonious resolution he has been "prepared" for.
If we consider that all the techniques of foreshadowing are analogous to the method of "preparation" in music, we see immediately the multiplicity of methods available to create suspense in fiction. Plot pattern or "progression" we mentioned as one, for instance: the introduction of a pattern of action suggests, suspends, and then requires completion. Parallelism of any sort—whether of "scenes" or characters or whatever—suggests, suspends, and then requires a complementary balance. The author's tone sounding a certain note suggests, suspends, and then demands that the note will be sounded again later. The introduction of any foreshadowing technique—whether image or symbol, object or description, language or theme—suggests, suspends, and then demands some ultimate utilization. A "discord" or enigma of characterization may be suspended, then accounted for. Intimation implies explanation: the writer suspends it, then provides it. The reader is kept meanwhile in a stage of what I'd call "prepared awaiting" if there weren't already the swell word for it—suspense.
It might seem that the techniques of foreshadowing are at odds with the techniques of suspense: it would seem that one creates an effect of inevitability of action, while the other creates an effect of uncertainty of outcome. Yet this is just how the "inevitability of retrospect" is achieved in fiction: how it will seem there are so many decisive turning points getting from A to B, yet looking back from B to A it will seem that there was no other way to go.
For it is implicit in the art of fiction that all of these methods will work for the author and the reader in ways that need never reveal the specific nature of the resolution that is to come. One doesn't discern the whole pattern of action of a story until it is completely wrought. Parallelism can be used for contrast as well as analogy: parallelism tells us nothing final about the final outcome of a story until we know what the outcome finally is. What is a symbol until what it represents is made manifest? What is theme until it is rendered? Virtually none of the ways of intimating action necessarily disclose outcome, unless it is the author's wish that they do so. Even the early introduction of a tone or mood reveals nothing of the "why" or "how" of the action to follow.
The techniques of foreshadowing, therefore, far from undercutting the techniques of suspense, are actually seen to be the foremost way in which the effects of suspense are created.
Techniques of Suspense
It seems to me that there are three basic techniques of suspense, often used in combination, of course. First, there is mystery, which evokes curiosity as its effect on the reader. Second, there is conflict, which evokes uncertainty as to outcome. Third, and most effective, is tension, which evokes anticipation. The first is resolved by some sort of explanation; the second is resolved by some sort of decision; the third is resolved by some sort of fulfillment.
Mystery and Curiosity
Deliberately puzzling or confusing a reader may keep him reading for a while, but at too great an expense. Even just an "aura" of mystery in a story is usually just a lot of baloney. Who are these people? What are they up to? Provoking such questions from a reader can be a writer's way of deferring exposition until he feels the reader is ready for the explanation of it all. But more likely it's just fogging things up. A lot of beginning writers' fiction is like a lot of beginners' poetry: deliberately unintelligible so as to make the shallow seem deep.
Stories where mystery is deliberately the method, and curiosity about the ending is the whole desired effect, are usually trick stories with wow endings. To make the puzzle or mystery really puzzling and mysterious and keep quickening the reader's curiosity, the author must keep closing the door on all the sensible or inge
nious solutions to the mystery that may occur to the reader. Finally the author is left without any answer or explanation at all or with a solution that may strike the reader as (1) preposterous, (2) a disappointing letdown, or (3) a real gyp—sometimes perhaps all three. The more successful a story based on mystery is in the middle, the more likely it is to fail in the end. The interest, ultimately, is not in the characters and the actions they take, but in the mystery and how it will be explained. The trouble with mystery as a structure is that the writer enters into competition with the reader instead of partnership.
Conflict and Uncertainty
Conflict is thought by many to be a basic element in fiction, and certainly it is true that conflict of some sort is present in most stories. Conflict has other functions, of course—other than creating uncertainty as an aspect of suspense. It often has a close relation to theme, for instance, as when two values are in conflict. Its relation to characterization and motivation is obvious. Considered for the moment, however, purely as a plot device, conflict leaves a good deal to be desired when it is made the main structure of a story.
External conflict—hero versus villain, man versus the sea, spy versus counterspy—if it ever aspires to more than routine melodrama soon becomes perforce internal conflict. Internal conflict, conflict within an individual protagonist, virtually always devolves into a matter of choice. How will the protagonist choose or decide? Will he stay with his wife in Larchmont or will he run off to Florida with the baby-sitter? Will Martin say the magic words to Jane, or will he let her go the way he has all the others? Situations of conflict that are not based on choice—Will the old man get the fish home intact?—such situations, again, will become more and more internalized if the outcome is to have any significance at all. The outcome must be made to depend on the character's will: the decision can't simply be left up to the sharks. The outcome of plot must have some relation to character.
The sort of suspense created by conflict is what Jessamyn West is supposed to have called "willy wonty," the reader's uncertainty as to whether a character "will" or "won't" commit an act, decide a matter, do a deed, choose one instead of another, give up or go on, marry the girl or let her go. "Willy wonty" can be a wonderfully effective way of getting the reader to read on: it is the suspenseful reaction at its simplest. But to be effective the situation of the conflict must be developed so that the forces or weights or values on each side are more or less balanced. If we are to have any interest in whether a character will or won't, then the reasons for him to do it or not to do it, the pressures and pulls on him in both directions, must be fairly equally presented. Both the baby-sitter and the wife must have something going. All that is well enough, but the difficulty finally is that the more successfully the conflict is developed, the harder it is to resolve. The more uncertain a reader is made to become as to what the outcome of a story is going to be, the less likely it is that he's going to be convinced by the ending when it finally arrives. This, of course, is because he hasn't been prepared for it. Most of the methods of foreshadowing work against the effect of uncertainty. Uncertainty as an effect is to some extent self-defeating, just as curiosity as an effect is. In both cases the writer and the reader are working against one another, trying to outguess one another.
Tension and Anticipation
"Tension" as a word nowadays has connotations of harried housewives who haven't had their Compoze pills. And "anticipation" suggests children looking forward to Christmas presents. It's a tough, commercial, TV world we live in: a hard day and age for words.
"Anticipation" is used here in the standard dictionary sense of "having a foretaste, or expectation of what is to follow." It is perhaps very close to the "prepared awaiting" that we speak of as being what suspense itself is. We all sometimes experience anticipation when reading a novel or a story, or at least remember having experienced it when reading as a child. As an emotion, it doesn't seem much finer than curiosity or uncertainty, or not on the face of it anyway.
"Tension" in fiction though, is a method, not an effect, and we should try to ignore all the connotations of "nervous anxiety." We will use it in a way that is close to its root— tensus, the past participle of the Latin verb tendere, meaning "stretch." Tension in fiction has that effect: of something that is being stretched taut until it must snap. It has the quality of force under pressure, as for instance when it is achieved through characterization in a "coiled motive"—tightly wound motivation in a character that we know must spring loose on the action. The most obvious way to create it, is by simply saying something is going to happen, and then putting it off—
Martin was even-tempered normally, but whenever he did become angry he lost control completely. He knew that the events of that day had accumulated on him, had grown finally to be too much for him, one thing after another had mounted up, until finally there had been one thing too many. Nevertheless he never forgave himself for the way he acted when his anger finally broke out, and he knew Miranda would never forgive him either.
It all began when he went down to the mailbox as usual one morning...
Beginning a story this way both foreshadows and creates suspense. The reader is prepared for Martin finally to lose his temper and do something awful: that is foreshadowing, of course. But suspense is created too. It is not the suspense of "uncertainty" as to outcome: we know the outcome of any internal conflict Martin may have with his temper, and no external conflict is suggested. We don't in the least wonder whether (or not) he will lose his temper (it isn't a question of "will he?" or "won't he?"); we know he will. The sort of suspense created is of "anticipation": we wonder when it will happen and how it will happen and why it will happen. Which incident will be the one that is finally too much for Martin? We read of first one frustration, then another. First, the mail hadn't come yet, then when he went back upstairs he found he'd forgotten to plug in the percolator, then Jane called to cancel their date for that night, then Genevieve wasn't in when he called her, then the bus was stuck in traffic for forty-five minutes, then his insecure department head gave him a bawling-out for being late and for something else that wasn't his fault, then...
As the incidents accumulate, we wait, expecting what we have been told is to come, knowing we are to expect it, but not knowing when to expect it. Then Martin encounters Miranda at the water cooler and she gives him a very bad time but agrees to meet him that night, then when he goes to her apartment he finds Renaldo there, then ... When, finally, will it happen? Granted a good situation, a good writer could draw it out more or less forever: the thread of tension drawn ever thinner and thinner down to the breaking point; the anticipation (presumably) growing greater and greater.
Tension in a story consists in something unresolved. Setting up something to be resolved and then prolonging or postponing the resolution of it is one way, a fairly obvious way, of putting tension in a story. As with every other discussion of method, of course, there has to be an amount of competence and care on the writer's part, or the effect won't be caused by the method. There is no actual tension in the above example about Martin: it is intended by way of explanation, rather than demonstration.
It explains a method of creating an effect: it shows how tension creates suspense. The method in a real story is demonstrable: here, we say, pointing to a page, is something set up, either we are told directly that such-and-so is to come or it is suggested to us here, right here, in this more subtle way; but now here, at this other point here, two or ten or twenty pages later, what we've been told is going to come hasn't yet come, hasn't yet happened; and at this point there is still tension, throughout these two or ten or twenty pages there has been tension; tension exists in the story as a technique.
Tension is the most useful and flexible of the methods of achieving suspense. Unlike conflict and mystery as methods, tension doesn't put the writer and the reader into competition with one another. And far from being self-defeating, tension is self-enhancing. The same devices that create tension also prep
are for its resolution. It is through tension that foreshadowing and suspense achieve their most successful interaction.
"Agreement" in Character and Action
Character and action are like the subject and the verb in a sentence. A sentence by definition must have a subject and a verb and express a complete thought. You can talk about the subject separately—nouns and pronouns and noun clauses and so forth—but until you put it together with the verb you haven't got a sentence: you haven't expressed a thought. You can talk about the verb separately—about all its forms and tenses and so forth—but until you have the subject you won't know what form the verb should take, and until you have the thought you won't even know what verb to use.
So it is with a short story: You must have both character (subject) and plot (verb) and know the significance of what happened to the character (the meaning, or thought). You can talk about character alone—about how characterization is achieved in fiction and how personality is expressed in life, and so forth—but until you put the character into action you haven't got a story. You can talk about plot alone—about plot structure and crises and reversals and so forth—but until you have a character to act and be acted on you won't know what form the plot should take, and until you know what happened to the character you won't even know what plot to use.