Hello there! I’m Cassie Hamer, author of four books including the newly released The Stranger at the Table, a family mystery full of secrets, lies and an action-packed climax. I love reading (and writing) suspense so here are my top tips for those who also love the genre.
-
What’s your ‘hook’? In other words, what’s the one sentence summary that’s going to make your readers feel they simply must read your book. This can be a compelling ‘what if’ scenario or perhaps a narrative question that’s posed in the first chapter and not answered until the very last pages. For example, the opening chapter of The Stranger at the Table is a prologue from the point of view of two paramedics who are working a Christmas day shift when they are called to a home in Sydney’s leafy north shore where a man lies bleeding to death and in cardiac arrest at the bottom of the stairs. Who is this man? Did he fall or was he pushed? No one at the family lunch claims to know him and it’s not until the very final pages that we discover the identity of the deceased and how he came to suffer his life-ending injuries on the staircase.
-
Red herrings and suspects. About half-way through writing this book, I knew exactly the identity of my victim and perpetrator but I also knew that I had to keep the reader guessing until the very end. How did I do this? By withholding information but also planting enough clues – some real, some red herrings – so that the reader could form varying theories about potential suspects. The ‘big reveal’ or twist, should be one that surprises the reader, but it should also seem like it was perhaps obvious all along. Now, when I watch thrillers on TV I simply look for the least likely person to have committed the crime – they are usually the perpetrator!
- End each chapter with a cliffhanger or a ‘reveal’. Like many readers, I tend to pick up my book before bed and try to finish a chapter or two before putting it down again. With suspense, you want the book to be unputdownable and one sure-fire method to keep the reader going late into the night is to think of each chapter as a short, stand-alone story of its own that ends with a question that we must simply read on to discover the answer. This also ensures that your pace is snappy and guarantees that your story has forward momentum because the reader feels they are discovering something new with each chapter that passes.
-
Secrets and lies. We all have secrets and we all tell lies. All of us. But the truth has a habit of coming out and what if it comes to the surface at the most inopportune time? Imagine the fallout! Secrets and lies are the stuff of great fiction, particularly in domestic suspense, and that’s because they’re so relatable (and terrifying) to the reader. In The Stranger at the Table my main character, Marianne, has committed an horrendous crime but one that really could happen to so many people. Getting your reader to walk in your character’s shoes is a recipe for compelling fiction.
- The climax. This is where everything comes together and it must explode off the page for the reader, leaving them either shocked, devastated or validated. I had an absolute ball writing the final 80 pages of The Stranger at the Table. The words flew off the keyboard and you can see this in the writing – the chapters are shorter. The viewpoints switch quickly. Character emotions run high, and the physical action of the scenes is intense. Your climax is not at a time for long winded reflection and back story. It’s a time for your characters to act, take charge and answer that narrative question that’s been running through the book so that when your reader reads the final page they think ‘Wow. That was TERRIFIC. I’m exhausted.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cassie Hamer
Cassie Hamer has a professional background in journalism and PR, but now much prefers the world of fiction over fact. She is the author of three novels, including the Australian bestseller After the Party, and her stories focus on ordinary characters who find themselves in extraordinary situations. Cassie lives on Gadigal Country in Sydney with her terrific husband, three mostly terrific daughters, and a labradoodle, Charlie, who is the least demanding family member. In between ferrying kids about and walking the dog, Cassie is working on her next novel, but she always has time to connect (or procrastinate) with other passionate readers via her website – CassieHamer.com – or through Instagram where you can find her @cassiehamerwriter
Don’t miss Cassie’s new book The Stranger at the Table
A family gathering, but not everyone who sits down to dinner will survive it. Poisonous lies, family secrets, addiction and revenge – always a dish best served cold – are all on the menu. For readers of Sally Hepworth, Jo Dixon and Ali Lowe, this twisty domestic suspense holds you captive from its gripping beginning to its shocking denouement.
Maz Antonio has spent the last two years in prison so is determined to make the first major family gathering in their new home deep in Australian suburbia as perfect as possible. She owes it to everyone after the terrible mistakes she’s made … mistakes for which she will always be trying to atone. This special lunch is her chance to make things right for her husband and children, to show everyone that she can maintain her sobriety, that things can go back to normal. (Whatever normal looks like when you have traumatic, confusing flashbacks of that fateful day where two innocent lives were lost.)
Her sister, Elli, is in. So is her husband’s brother. Her distant father-in-law is gracing them with his presence and her mum Margaret is on the way from Newcastle, bringing a colleague – a virtual stranger she impulsively invited.
But is this man really a stranger? Or could it be that he is intimately connected to the past that Maz has so desperately been trying to put behind her – a past that’s about to explode across the dinner table in the deadliest of ways…