During an interview with Lit Hub‘s First Draft podcast, Jean Hanff Korelitz (The Plot) talks about how she learned to create tension and suspense.
Korelitz describes it as a process of elimination. “If you find yourself revealing something that doesn’t need to be revealed, you have to go back and do it again,” she explains. “You don’t want it to be too easy, you don’t want it to be too obvious. But it can’t be too obscure, and it can’t be crazy at the same time.”
Korelitz suggests the key is not having too many characters. “You can’t cheat by making somebody a long-lost twin or a clone or split personality,” she says. “It has to make sense, and it can’t be obvious … People have guessed the big twist in The Plot. But a lot of people don’t guess, and I think it’s because I don’t insult their intelligence.”
