…A man approached—wearing gray baggy pants and a tight,
sweaty shirt that had once been white—and asked to take our order. I found an
item on the menu I recognized, a sandwich, and ordered it in halting Spanish.
The restaurant’s aging double wooden doors stood open, and
outside the sky darkened. Motorcycles and four-wheel drives stirred up dust. I
watched a man walk by with a semi-automatic rifle. Clinging lovers strolled by
in tight, shiny clothes. Brassy music streamed out from another joint. I was
disgusted with it all. Those people were so different from my kind of people.
Eventually a waiter brought our
food. Still clutching my purse, I gnawed on my sandwich: dry white bread and a
piece of meat—no butter, mayo, mustard, or lettuce—but it was food.
We sat silently, eating our meal, when the restaurant went
dark—utterly black. Outside beyond the
open doors, everything went black, too.
Several long seconds passed. No one in the
restaurant—neither customers nor employees—said a word. Outside on the street
there was not a noise. The silence continued, and that seemed strange. Why
wasn’t anyone saying anything?
Then my heart lurched: This could
be a guerrilla plot to kidnap us. Thousands of people were kidnapped every year
in _______, and there we sat, three vulnerable gringo women, three small
children. What easy targets we were.
Silently I screamed, “Lord, Lord,
You wouldn’t let that happen—would You?”
I grabbed little Jenny’s hand on
my right and Jon’s on my left. Still no one spoke. I wanted to scream, “What’s
going on?” but I followed my traveling companions’ example and kept my mouth
shut.
I heard footsteps. Someone
faltered across the floor, then feet shuffled toward us. I could barely
breathe. The footsteps stopped beside me. I squeezed the children’s hands until
I was afraid their little bones would break. No one, I vowed, will snatch a
child from my grip. They can have my purse, but not one of the children.
A rustle confirmed that someone
stood within inches of me. I jumped when I heard something placed on our table.
I heard a noise. “Fffisht.” I knew
that noise. It was the scrape of a match. In an instant I saw a man’s dark face
in the flame’s dim glow.
Copyright © 2013 by Linda K.
Thomas
This is the end of one chapter in a multi-chapter vignette I’ve
written for my grandchildren. (For security reasons I removed the name of the
town and country.)
In light of our past blog posts about creating tension and making readers wait for a resolution, does this work? I welcome your feedback. Leave
comments below or on the SM 101 Facebook Page.
Look over one of your rough drafts. How can you increase
tension and make’em wait?
Remember: An essential element in good stories is tension
and suspense.
Hold readers captive.
Unravel the story as you lived it—unable to see into the
future—and let readers unravel it with you.
Pull readers in. If you were scared out of your wits, write
in such a way that readers experience your fright with you.
Explain what was at stake. What were the possible outcomes?
Which did you hope for? Why? Which outcome did you fear most? Why?
Make your readers curious: Leave them wondering about the
outcome.
Keep up the suspense.
Readers want to tag along with you to see how, step by step,
you dealt with your problem so they can deal with theirs.
Step by step means you let readers experience the suspense
you experienced. “Make ‘em wait.”
Readers will read your book because they want to learn from
you. They know you weren’t handed an easy fix—that’s not the way life, or God,
works—so they don’t want you to offer them a trite, instant, easy fix.
Keep your predicament before your readers. Leave them
hanging.
After all, as you lived your story, you endured a time
lag—maybe minutes, maybe months, maybe years—before you found resolution for
your problem. You didn’t know how the incident would end.
You had to wait. Make your readers wait, too.
When they finish a chapter of your memoir, make ‘em worry
for you. Make ‘em wonder what will happen in the next chapter.
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