Surprise, mystery and suspense: what's the difference, and when should you use each?
Most writers love a twist. They make sure to have great ones. They don’t want to give them away in the blurb or the query letter. They can’t wait for readers to reach them.
I understand completely. (I’m the cat who reads with a suspect list.)
But a twist is only one of three tools for keeping a reader hooked, and it’s the weakest of the three. The other two are mystery and suspense. They get mixed up all the time, so let’s take them one at a time.
Surprise
Twists are our first case: surprise.
Surprise is the part you remember. We all love to surprise each other, and when you want to recommend a clever book, you’ll often pick one that surprised you.
So why is it the weakest? Because surprise is a payoff, not a promise. It doesn’t give the reader anything until they reach it, so it can’t carry them through a book.
Which means it asks for a leap of faith. The reader has to keep going until the surprise happens, and you can’t prove it’s going to be good before they get there. The best you have is “trust me, bro!”
So, surprise:
- is the emotion you find in twists
- is memorable
- has potential to go viral: people love to talk about it
Buuut:
- it only happens once
- it requires trust
- it’s a hard sell (you can’t give it away without ruining it)
Mystery
Mystery is the one people know best. The emotion behind it is curiosity. Someone died. Why? The body is in a locked room. How?
But mystery isn’t only for mystery books. Maybe your love interest has a dark and mysterious past. Maybe your political fantasy has a traitor someone needs to find.
Unlike surprise, mystery is easy to set up. You ask a question, and the reader wants the answer. That’s why it works best set up early, before anything else gets going.
Mystery also pairs beautifully with surprise. Offer a mystery, and the reader expects to be surprised by the answer. So the resolution of a mystery is the best spot in the whole book for a twist.
The hard part is keeping the curiosity alive. You have to deepen the mystery and make the reader feel they’re getting closer. Give answers too early, and they lose interest. Give no answers at all, and it feels like you’re taking forever. A good way through is to offer wrong answers. It’s not the gardener, because… (I love a good elimination. Crossing a name off the list is half the fun.)
So, mystery:
- is curiosity
- can carry a whole book
- works best when set up early
Buuut:
- if it doesn’t end in a surprise, it can feel like a letdown
- it has to be compelling enough to carry the reader all the way through
- it can be tricky to balance over a long book
Suspense
Suspense is the last one. Mystery and surprise both rely on hiding information. Suspense relies on the reader knowing it. The emotion behind it is dread.
Here’s an example. Say your main character dies at the end. If you keep that to yourself, the reader gets a surprise on the last page, and for it to feel like a good one, it has to be the payoff of the whole story.
Now open the novel with “This is the story of how I died.” You’ve created a mystery (how did this person die?) and suspense (oh no, this person is going to die!), and both carry the reader all the way to the payoff.
Like mystery, suspense has to be fed. It’s the engine of thrillers and horror, and in both, you build it by circling closer to the inevitable. First a small sign. Then a bigger one. Then bigger, until the threat is the whole focus of the book. (In that sense, Greek tragedies are wildly suspenseful, which is why they still work.)
Horror often does it with its body count: first a minor character dies, then a more important but unlikable one, then a beloved one, then the main character is in the crosshairs (and may or may not make it).
So, suspense:
- is dread
- can carry a whole book
- needs escalation
Buuut:
- it comes with expectations about the plot
- it usually means giving up some of the surprise
- it’s often harder to sustain than mystery or surprise
So when should you use each?
Twist or suspense: should you give it away?
The main place you’ll have to choose is when you decide whether to give away a twist, in the blurb or by hinting at it in the story. If the twist is a good one, that’s a hard call.
Here’s the thing to keep in mind: surprise doesn’t sell books, whether you’re pitching an agent or publishing yourself. It runs on trust. So if you have a twist but no mystery leading up to it, you’re often better off giving the twist away, so your reader gets a whole book of suspense instead of one single surprise.
Two examples.
Your twist is that the traitor isn’t some random courtier, but the main character herself. Keep that one. It’s the payoff to a mystery you’ve set up, and readers will happily chase it.
Now say your twist is that your main character has only been pretending to love the love interest, because she needs his money. There’s no question pulling the reader toward that, and only the readers who make it to the end ever get the surprise. That’s a twist you’d probably benefit from giving away. Now the reader has suspense (what happens when she breaks his heart?) and conflict on every page, and the book is easier to sell.
Mystery or suspense: what is your climax about?
The other common choice is between mystery and suspense. This one’s less obvious, because writers tend to assume that if there’s a mystery, the mystery is the point. There’s a dead body, the main character is a detective, so of course it’s a mystery.
But sometimes the mystery is made very simple, very obvious. And if you’re a mystery lover like me, you might wonder what the point is. (I have absolutely finished a crime novel feeling smug and slightly cheated.)
The point is that the writer is building suspense, not mystery. In this kind of story, you’re not guessing at clues. You’re watching the very obvious culprit get closer and closer to the main character. What you’re feeling is dread, not curiosity. Your suspect list was never the game.
The choice here is pretty simple. Is the climax of your story about the main character in danger, and escaping? That’s suspense. Or is it about an unexpected answer? That’s mystery, paid off with a surprise.
Either way, the reader stays to the end. You just have to know which feeling is keeping them there.
If you want somewhere to plan your clues, your red herrings or your slow circle toward the inevitable, Ghostkey is free to start.