By Addison Fox
Writing romantic suspense is fun, challenging and above all, a balancing act. How do you ensure you’ve got enough romance happening to make the couple’s journey into love feel believable, yet how do you ensure you’re not focusing so much on the romance that all your taut suspense ends up limp as a wet noodle?
It’s easy to say it’s all about balance, but I’d suggest it’s something more. Rather than thinking of the suspense and the romance as two different elements, each on opposite sides of a teeter-totter, think of them instead as opposite sides of a coin.
Every moment of suspense should serve to push your couple closer, and every romantic moment should remain mindful of the danger they’re experiencing. Not as polar opposites but as two sides fused tightly together. And this is where tropes are a writer’s best friend.
Using Tropes to Drive Suspense:
Tropes serve so many purposes in a book, all helping to drive the emotion and the action forward. While they’re often the shorthand we use to talk about different types of romance (grumpy-sunshine, secret baby, enemies-to-lovers, etc), they can do double duty for you when writing a romantic suspense.
Do your hero and heroine have a past romance they couldn’t make work? Find a way to make that past part of the danger to them both. Each step in figuring out who is the enemy hiding in the shadows also forces them to confront all the reasons they’re apart.
Writing an enemies-to-lovers story? Put them both in danger enough that they see the way the other is threatened, forcing each of them to realize how difficult it would be to lose the person they claim to detest.
Is your heroine a woman-in-jeopardy and your hero her protector? Balance the scales so that she’s finding ways to break down his emotional barriers to love each time another risk to her safety is revealed. Building your romance in lockstep with rising suspense ensures that your story is not only balanced but it’s also believable that this couple is both meant for each other and will vanquish the villain seeking to take it all away.
Relentless Danger and Beats of Love:
The other thing to keep in mind when writing is pacing. While this is true of any book you write – we never want a bored reader who puts down the book! – pacing is an essential requirement in writing a romantic suspense. Thinking of your story in beats of both action and romance can help keep that pacing tight and the reader turning those pages.
Let’s go back to our couple with the romantic history. Something in their past pulled them apart – often both their emotional openness to love as well as some external problem. Using rising suspense to force them to discuss those things is essential to them learning one another’s points of view on that old relationship and begin to see each other in a new light. One where they’ve both learned and understand why the other person is who they want as their partner.
Once you have those ingredients – the right couple, the rising danger and the forced moments of heightened emotions from external threats that force them to talk – your couple and your readers can’t help but fall in love.
As a writer, I always feel my couple in a romantic suspense novel have really earned their happiness. And that’s when I can put my feet up and reach for another author’s latest romantic suspense and sink into the fun!
Addison Fox’s latest Harlequin Romantic Suspense title, Renegade Reunion, is out now!
Their differences once tore them apart… Now they’re the only things keeping them alive!
Former CIA operative Trace Withrow traded a high-risk career in DC for a ranch in Wyoming, leaving behind the partner he couldn’t forget. But when Nicola Miles discovers an inside hit on a missing teen, she turns to Trace, stirring up emotions he’d buried for years. Nicola never liked his “toss the rule book” attitude. In fact, their differences ultimately ended their affair. Yet that very character trait could be the lifeline Nicola needs—especially since she doesn’t know who she can trust at her own agency. Or if she’s the ultimate target…or Trace…
