Sweets to the Sweet by Edmund Blair Leighton
I am currently working on a romantic suspense. It’s a contemporary, and a novella, for the Authors of Main Street Christmas Wishes volume, due out in November.
Abbie’s Wish has a woman who has retreated to a country town to keep her daughter safe, and three men who’d like to change her mind about letting a man into her life. The tag line says: Abbie’s Christmas wish draws three men to her mother. One is a monster.
How do you create suspense in your story? Give us an example in the comments.
Here’s the second scene from Abbie’s Wish. (The first has Abbie at the fair, making her wish.)
He followed the seller into the garage, which was as filthy, cluttered and disorganised as he’d feared. But the man owned a matching piece to the genuine part he had come to see, and the pair together were worth four times the asking price. Not that he’d let on. Far from it. He had every intention of beating the price down, if only because he was inside this disgusting hole risking septicaemia or worse.
He cast a disgusted look at the sink bench, where car parts, tools, greasy rags, and other bits and pieces lay scattered among plates with congealed food scraps, dirty cups half-filled with cold liquid substances, and a tottering stack of fast-food boxes. He curled his lip at the pinups above the bench — little girls, none of them over ten, the pictures home printed and ornamented with hearts and comments.
Where was the man? He craned to see over a pile of boxes of parts, some labelled, most anonymous but as he did, something about the disturbing montage registered in his mind, and in two short strides he was next to the bench, peering at the little girl with the dark curly hair and the delighted smile.
The same girl was on the next clipping, which had been pinned up first, and half covered so he could see there was someone else in the picture, but not who it was. He checked again to make sure the owner couldn’t see him, then unpinned the top photo. He would have to scrub his hands, but it was worth it. “So that’s where you are,” he murmured to the woman, quickly scanning the paragraph or two of text that went with the image. He slipped both clippings into his pocket and was back by the doorway by the time the seller had emerged from his search, triumphantly waving the part.
He returned the smile with one of his own. Genuine, indeed. Just what he needed to complete the restoration of his classic motor cycle. A couple of weeks of evenings, and he’d be ready for a road trip. And — he patted the pocket that held the stolen pictures — he now knew just where he wanted to go.
High on the creepmeter, there. I thought the seller was going to be the creep, but that was a nice switch. I like the question, but my creeper scenes take longer to build and I’m fond of cliffhangers because it makes my readers howl for the next chapter. I also have one where the scary is because the readers learned near the beginning of the story that the lover is a kinda nice demon, but the lead doesn’t know. Nor if they are really a villain toward the heroine… This is near the midpoint of the story, and it seems to have lost it’s italics.
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Jann gazed out over the city, his tail swinging as one of his ‘clients’ climbed the steep stairs to beg. The merchant was close enough for Jann to see the dark patches of rank sweat and hear his panting well before he reached the top. The maelstrom of panic and dread in the man’s thoughts were delicious to Jann.
The Deal left Jann room to plot and have fun; it only limited his targets.
He didn’t miss being Opalene the succubus that much, and now he had capital for his plans. This form was more subtle. The secrets he’d gathered in the whorehouse and busy markets gave him power to promote the naive priestess’s prospects.
The Deal said she had to approve, and he was getting a better idea of what Kanair approved. He thoroughly enjoyed playing with her and pushing at the edges of her tolerance of just what she approved. He wanted her available to nudge, instead of looking for adventure.
The merchant fool reached the top and tried to catch his breath. “I have the money you wanted.” The human’s thoughts betrayed a hope that he was done.
Jann smiled after shifting to display longer fangs and his eyes shifted to blood red and glowing like old embers. The stench of the Abyss wafted away from him and when fear climaxed in the merchant into a feast, Jann purred, “We are not done. I was almost impressed with how you stole that money and materials from the city defense construction. Watching the guards and even adventurers scurry around panicking like armored crabs was as pure comedy, wasn’t it?”
The human whined as he broke out in fresh sweat and looked around for other listeners.
Crooking his finger, Jann gestured for the human come closer. “Isn’t this funny now? They can’t save you. They wouldn’t want to if they knew.”
Trembling, his feet dragging, the richly robed merchant stumbled closer.
Jann’s appearance shifted to a cockatrice mixture of whoever the fool lusted the most for in his beady little heart with the leathery wings of a succubus. “The problem for you is that I live here now, and unending battle is plain inconvenient. You have stolen my pleasure from me today, and you will make up for that.”
The fool swayed closer with lust rising and didn’t resist as Jann kissed him, leeching away most of his life. Only most, but he would not be the same. Jann twisted the profiteer’s mind to forget their meeting and any personal caution. Dazed, the man stumbled back, nearly falling down the steep rise, whimpering his fear without seeing Jann anymore.
He would not last long in a city like Dagres.
The great bells of the city began to ring. Jann shook his wings out to launch into the sky and felt the cooling, fresh air. The bag of money would persuade the more canny to deal with the shining priestess and her future temple.
She would have her little temple in this rotten little town, or else.
Sorry, forgot to mention that this is from “Talon of Dagres” work in progress, and Jann’s name is an earlier variant for djinn… genies were not usully nice people, despite what Disney and TV would say.
Oooooh. Kanair shouldn’t have made that Deal! He’s going to find a way to turn it back on her, I reckon. Love this piece.
There were Reasons and it is binding for a century and a day. Jann did find aspects with more wriggle room by plotting for HER goals. He can’t break it by harming the city or the people she protects, but his work-arounds will have effects neither expect.
Thank you very much, my beta still hasn’t even said they have the file, and I’m edgy after three days. The story gets darker.
Keep us informed. It sounds good.