Elements of a novel

Folks often ask me: How to write a suspense novel?

Being an author of three novels (published and pending publication) I do not feel competent to answer this question definitively. I doubt I will have a definitive answer even with 10 books under my belt. As someone once said: When a writer begins to think that he knows how to write - he will never write anything worth reading again. I do not pretend to know how to write, however, being also an avid reader, I can at least attempt to describe my combined writer/reader observations.

When you pick up any novel, be it a thriller or a mainstream story, you will notice that it starts off with some sort of a crisis. To cut it short: the rest of the story deals with solving the crisis.

In more detail: the crisis is where something happens, and where the main characters are introduced. This must grab the readers' attention or else the novel is a bomb.

Next major step is required to keep the tension growing, and that step is called a twist. It involves some kind of trouble, or a turn in development of the plot that is surprising to the main character and readers.

Most authors of suspense and thriller novels will add a second twist, to keep the tension boiling, but also, and just as importantly so the reader doesn't think she already solved the mystery. This is where the protagonist's efforts at figuring out the first twist are shattered.

I think that readers are often way ahead of the writer in terms of figuring our where the story leads, and after the second twist they can usually tell the outcome, sometimes staying with the novel to the end, but often fingering through or outright dumping it. Yeah, I am that reader. So, as a writer I like to add a third twist, where any readers' notions of figuring out the plot are shattered into pieces. 

The twists should be constructed and presented in such a way that the buildup of tension leads to the climax, that point in the novel, not too far from- and not too close from the end where it is very difficult to put it down, whether or not one figured out what is about to happen.

Then the climax brings the resolution, that point where all the twists become clear, and lead to the only natural closing. The closing is the most difficult stage. It depends entirely on the previous stages. It is here that many authors fail their readers - where readers just shake their heads and say - It's ridiculous! Keep in mind that closing also means open end, if that is what comes as a natural result of everything that happened.

Of course the above treats the subject in the most shallow way -perhaps I will find the time to expand on it some day...

Original novel vs translation

As I feared earlier - translation of my own novel is resulting in a book that differs from the original. So far, and I'm talking here about a perspective taken from the first few chapters - I see a plot that begs to go in a different direction and my main character as developing into a whole different person.

I thought that translating will be more or less word for word, with some creative transitions, but it wasn't working out that way. The only way I could do it was to read the original chapter, and rather than translate sentence after sentence - I'd do the whole thing without following the original text. I found that the result was much smoother and creative. Perhaps too creative... giving the new text a life of its own. Where does translation end and when does original work begin? How far can I go on, before I can call this translation an original? And, can I?

One other thing the translation of my own novel teaches me is the appreciation of there being different languages. I hope that humanity will never come to embrace a single language (unless we figure out how to combine many into one, but even then I would have my reservations: what about the different cultural experiences) as it will lead to a world much less colorful. Describing the same thought in a different language seems to give it a whole different life, life that is richer and more creative.