When you think of suspenseful writing, romance isn’t normally the first genre that comes mind; But a romance without suspense, is like a bookshop without books.
When your dying to know if they get together?
How they’ll work it all out for the happy ending?
What’s going to tear them apart?
That’s suspense.
Its an important element of every novel and it, usually, follows a specific framework. I say “usually”, because there are writers out there who can break all the rules and get away with. They just had to know the rules first.
The framework for suspense is Anchor, Teaser, Micro-reveal and repeat.
This is not your big twist, these are just little reveals; Little pieces of the puzzle, that the reader can put together and help build to the big event.
The Anchor sets the scene. Where are they? Who are they with? What are they doing?
The Teaser is something that makes the reader take notice. In a romance, the Male Main Character (MMC) might shift or take notice when something about the Female Main Character (FMC) is mentioned. Something small and innocuous, but by mentioning it you are letting the reader know something is happening.
Finally, the Micro-reveal is where you tell the reader why the teaser is important. I might be the MMC giving the FMC the chocolates she mentioned liking in that earlier conversation, or he butts into the conversation showing he knows a lot more about the FMC than he lets on.
In other words, its a way to slowly show the reader that the characters like each other before they finally come out and say it. It keeps them interested and keeps them reading. Without theses little nuggets of information, they might get bored and decide to just put the book down, which we do not want.
While this framework is important but you shouldn’t focus on it too much when you are writing. If you are a planner, use it in the planning stage; but if you are more of a go with the flow writer, just keep it in mind for the editing stages, don’t let it mess with your flow.