Suspense Club’s 10 Rules of Storytelling

Hook first. Everything else follows. Let me tell you a story. A story about how you start your story. It hits you in the shower. Or while you’re stuck in traffic. Or just as you’re falling asleep—too tired to write it down but too wired to forget it. Boom. You feel it. The opening scene flashes in your mind like a movie trailer. Your pulse kicks up. You scramble for your phone or a napkin or anything that’ll let you catch it. You don’t know the ending yet. You don’t know the characters. You just know: “Oh sh*t. That’s a story.” So you open a doc. You start typing like your hands are on fire. You’re in it. But let me ask you something. Is it a hook? Because here’s the thing: Every great story starts with excitement— But not every exciting idea is a hook. What is a Hook? A hook is the story’s promise. It’s the heartbeat. The engine. The “how does this end?” question that grabs readers by the throat—before page one. If you don’t have that? You don’t have suspense. You’ve got a journal entry. Or a daydream. Or a meandering vibe piece that dies slowly in Chapter 3. This is a rule for suspense writers. If you’re writing thrillers, mysteries, horror, or crime— this is your law. No hook? No tension. No page turns. Write all the cozy fan fiction and steamy werewolf romance you want— But if you’re here to write gripping, high-stakes, can’t-put-it-down suspense? Then your hook is everything. A suspense story must be a page-turner. That’s the job. And that means it starts with a hook that refuses to let go. Let’s make this real. Here’s what a great hook looks like: Robinson Crusoe — You remember the classic. A man gets stranded on a deserted island. How will he survive? How will he escape? The Martian — An astronaut is stranded on Mars. Left behind for dead. How long can he stay alive? Can he escape the planet? Yes, it’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars… but with potatoes. Passengers — A man wakes up 90 years too early on a spaceship. He’s completely alone. How will he survive? Can he be rescued? Yep—Robinson Crusoe in deep space… but with romance. Back to the Future — What if you went back in time… and got stuck? Your only goal? Don’t erase your own existence— and find a way back to the future. That’s Robinson Crusoe… stranded in time… but with a DeLorean. Speed — There’s a bomb on a bus. If the bus drops below 55 miles per hour… it explodes. How do you survive? How do you stop the bomb? You got it: Robinson Crusoe on public transport. The Terminator — A killer robot comes from the future to kill you. You’re not trained. You’re not ready. How do you fight it? How do you survive it? Robinson Crusoe… versus Skynet. Every one of those stories is asking you the same thing: “A person is in an impossible situation… how the hell do they survive it?” That’s not a theme. That’s not “character development.” That’s a hook. And the moment someone hears it, they lean in. They want to know more. They have to know how it ends. How I Came Up With the Hook for Escape From Somalia (Spoken-friendly, polished version) Now here’s my hook. But first — let me tell you how I got it. I love the film The Martian. I’ve probably seen it eight times. Read the book twice. I was obsessed — not just with the story, but with the hook. That hook is so strong. A man is stranded on Mars. He’s alone. No one’s coming. How does he survive? How does he get home? That’s it. That’s the kind of hook that grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let go. So I asked myself: How do I come up with something like that? Someone stranded. Robinson Crusoe style. Alone. In danger. No help. No way out. But I knew space was out — I don’t know enough about science or planetary physics. So it had to be Earth. Our world. Today. And for almost two years… that question haunted me. Where could someone be stranded in the modern world, and the danger would feel real? Then one day — lightning struck. I was on the beach with my daughter. We’d been in the water for an hour. I was exhausted. I tagged in my wife and collapsed onto the towel. I checked my phone — and saw a message from my brother. He had just left Istanbul and was on a flight to the Maldives. Yes, my brother is annoyingly lucky… but that’s another story. As a total airplane nerd, I pulled up my flight tracker app. (Yes, I’m that guy.) And I noticed the plane was flying a weird route — through the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. At the time, the Houthis were attacking ships out of Yemen. So I asked myself: What if the plane had to crash-land? Where would be the worst possible place to crash? I zoomed out. And then… it hit me. Somalia. No functioning government. No police. No schools. No rescue infrastructure. A country torn apart by war, warlords, Al-Shabaab, and decades of outside interference. Not because Somalia is evil — but because of greed, corruption, and colonization. (But that’s a different story.) Still — I kept thinking: What if my brother’s plane crashed in Somalia? Who would rescue him? Then the question got bigger: What if Air Force One crash-landed in Somalia? What if the President of the United States was stranded in the most lawless region on Earth? What if he had no backup? What if… the Vice President didn’t want him to survive? And that’s how I got my hook: The President of the United States crash-lands in Somalia. He’s alone. No backup. Warlords and Al-Shabaab are hunting him. And the Vice President may have planted the bomb. How does he make it home—before the traitor back in D.C. locks him out for good? That’s my promise to the reader. If I do my job right, they’ll chase that question through every chapter. ⸻ If your hook isn’t crystal clear— Nothing else matters. No one cares how cool your character is. No one cares how lush your worldbuilding is. Not if they don’t know why they’re supposed to care. So here’s your job as a writer: Get the hook. Everything else can wait. This is Rule #1 of Suspense Club. The next rule is about building the structure before you start writing— So your story doesn’t collapse halfway through. Subscribe so you can follow the journey. I will be posting the rest of the rules over the next weeks

Let’s get one thing straight: you are not writing a poem. You’re building a story trap. And if the bones don’t hold, the whole damn thing collapses. This is Rule #2 of Suspense Club: Build the Bones Before You Break Them. If you’re writing a suspense story and you’re just “seeing where it goes,” you’re not writing. You’re wandering. And suspense doesn’t reward wanderers. It rewards architects. Saboteurs. Writers who plan tension like they’re planting landmines. If you’re not planning your beats, you’re not writing a thriller. You’re just typing. Sure, you can wing it. You can vibe your way through Chapter One, invent a twist in Chapter Six, and hope the magic shows up by Chapter Twelve. But somewhere around Chapter Thirteen? You’ll hit the wall. Your villain suddenly needs a backstory. Your twist kills your setup. Your momentum disappears. And now you’re not writing — you’re backtracking, rewriting, and second-guessing everything. It’s like flying blind in the dark. You don’t know where you are. You don’t know where you’re going. And the longer you stay airborne, the more lost you get. There’s a reason pilots go through an exhaustive checklist before takeoff — because once you’re in the air, it’s too late to realize the fuel tank is leaking. Planning is not the enemy of creativity. It’s the accelerator. The cheat code. The map through the fog. It’s how you avoid painting yourself into a corner you can’t write your way out of. Still not convinced? Let’s look at the pros — the Story Engineers. Dan Brown wrote an 80-page outline before writing The Da Vinci Code. James Patterson drafts 50-page blueprints before writing a single chapter. Ken Follett plans every single beat. Aaron Sorkin won’t touch a scene until he knows what each character wants and what’s at stake. These aren’t amateurs. These are professionals. They don’t guess. They design. I know what some writers are thinking: “But I like to write by instinct. I follow the vibe and see where it goes.” That’s fine, but you’re not writing jazz. You’re wiring a bomb. And you don’t want that bomb to go off in your face. You want it to go off in your story — big, precise, devastating. Plotting isn’t about control. It’s about combustion. If you want your story to explode off the page, you need to wire it right. You don’t need to paint by numbers, but you do need a frame to paint on. Whether it’s The Hero’s Journey, Save the Cat, the Three-Act Structure, or Dan Harmon’s Story Circle, use something to map your beats before you write. These frameworks aren’t rules to follow. They’re scaffolding to climb. They help you see the arc, spot where tension dies, and avoid painting yourself into a plot corner. You can bend the bones later — but first, you have to build them. And I’ll be honest. I didn’t figure this out the easy way. When I started writing Escape From Somalia, I had a great concept: Air Force One crash-lands in Somalia. The President survives. He’s alone. No backup, no comms. And the Vice President might be plotting a coup. That was it. That was my spark. I was excited. I started writing. And then I hit the wall. After ten chapters, I realized I was flying blind. The tension was inconsistent. The pacing was off. I kept rewriting, redrafting, trying to fix scenes that didn’t connect. That’s when I learned — painfully — that planning is everything in suspense. So I stopped. I backed up. I grabbed a wall full of yellow sticky notes and started moving scenes around. I used Freeform on my Mac (or Miro if you’re on a PC) to lay out every chapter, every beat. I mapped the story visually — chapter by chapter. I even gave each chapter a title instead of a number to capture its tone and tension. Titles like Barbarians at the Plane and Clear and Presidential Danger. Each one was a mini-movie. Each one had a hook and a gut punch. Inside each chapter, I laid out the beats: where it starts, what changes, and how it ends — with pressure, a twist, or a cliffhanger. And when I finally sat down to write again, I wasn’t guessing. I was hunting. If you’re still telling yourself that planning kills the spark, stop. Planning isn’t a prison. It’s a catapult. So build your bones. Then break them. But don’t you dare skip them. This is Suspense Club. We don’t write fluff. We write fire. Want help building your bones? I’m launching Suspense Club and looking for the first writers to join. If your story gets approved, I’ll coach you one-on-one — no charge, no catch, no credit card. Just a rebellion against bad writing. Apply now at SuspenseClub.com Let’s plot your chaos — the right way.

Quick warning before we dive in. This rule is for the tension dealers. The chaos architects. The maniacs who treat storytelling like psychological warfare. Writers who don’t just want to entertain — they want to hijack the reader’s nervous system. If you’re here to write about sunrises and self-reflection? Cool. Just… not here. But if you’re here to twist guts, cut the brakes, and leave readers breathless? Welcome to the club. Strap in. Let’s not sugarcoat it. You’re not just writing a story. You’re fighting for attention in a world addicted to speed, stimulation, doomscrolling, and swipe-after-swipe dopamine hits. Here’s what you’re up againstYou’re not just competing with other books. You’re competing with billion-dollar algorithms designed to hijack your reader’s mind. Your reader isn’t distracted. They’ve been kidnapped. They’re on the toilet, chasing dopamine. On the couch, chasing another hit. At work, in bed, in line at the grocery store — chasing the next micro-hit. Their attention isn’t wandering — it’s being hunted, harvested, sold, and resold just to sell more ads. Every scroll, every ping, every autoplay — it’s not just entertainment. It’s weaponized distraction. It’s precision-engineered brain hacking. TikTok is neural theft in under 7 seconds. Instagram reels aren’t “short-form content” — they’re attention traps. YouTube doesn’t show them what’s good — it shows them what’s impossible to stop watching. They’re not bingeing. They’re being fed. Slack. WhatsApp. Group chats. News alerts. Their phone lights up every 30 seconds like a digital slot machine whispering, “Just one more.” Netflix? They’ve got 200 films and TV shows sitting in their queue — untouched. That’s billions of dollars in A-list actors, explosions, and Oscar bait… just waiting for their time. And they haven’t even gotten to it yet. That’s what you’re up against. An entire industry of psychological engineers working around the clock to make sure no one ever reads your story. And now, you’re supposed to cut through all that — with a sentence? Black text on a white screen. That’s all you have. That’s your weapon of war. So your sentence? It better hit like a flare in a hurricane — because you’re not trying to impress. You’re trying to be seen through the chaos. This is a war for the reader’s mind. And every word is a bullet. This isn’t distraction. This is possession. And on top of all that? 3,000–5,000 new books uploaded to Amazon every single day. And a literary graveyard of millions of brilliant books already written, already published, already forgotten — before you were even born. That’s what you’re up against. Not just other writers — but an entertainment machine that’s louder, faster, and always one swipe away from stealing your reader forever. All you’ve got is words. Black text. White page. So make them count. Make them burn. Make them grab — or die trying. In Rule One, we talked about grabbing the reader with your hook. But grabbing them once isn’t enough. Rule Two was about structure. This one? It’s about Suspense. How to fill that structure with suspense that doesn’t breathe. Rule Three of Suspense Club is: Grab them — and never let go. Your first sentence is the handshake. Your first page is the punch. Every chapter. Every paragraph. Every line. It’s either raising the stakes — or killing the momentum. There’s no neutral. No room for filler. No space for softness. No paragraphs that “warm up” the reader. You’re not writing to be admired. You’re writing to keep them reading. Every sentence must drag the reader to the next. Every paragraph must pull them deeper into the trap. Every chapter must end with a reason to say… “Just one more.” This is the kind of writing that keeps people up past 2 a.m. Eyes bloodshot. And their Kindle on 1% battery. But they can’t stop. Because you won’t let them. That’s the job. Let’s look at how THE MASTERS of storytelling open their books: Ken Follett — Pillars of the Earth. One of the greatest historical thrillers ever written and one of my favourite books — and he starts with: “The boys came early for the hanging.” That is the OPENING sentence. No weather. No mood. No throat-clearing. Just the rope. Stephen King — Misery. “Grunting, sweating, trembling, Paul Sheldon turned the Royal upright and sat down with his ruined legs screaming.” You’re INSIDE the pain in one sentence. Lee Child — Gone Tomorrow. “Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of telltale signs. Mostly because they’re nervous. By definition they’re all first-timers.” BOOM. Where are we, what is going on? You’re in. What happens next? You must find out. Ruth Ware — The Woman in Cabin 10. “The first inkling that something was wrong was when I sliced my hand open on a piece of metal embedded in the wall.” Visceral. Mysterious. You’re immediately tense and on alert. Megan Abbott — The Fever. “The first time, you can’t believe how much it hurts.” No context. No names. Just pain and danger. Gillian Flynn — Sharp Objects. “My mother’s lips are pale pink and glistening with blood.” No easing in. It’s beautiful, disturbing, and deeply wrong. James Patterson — Along Came a Spider. “Maggie Rose was kidnapped at gunpoint at 10:30 in the morning, on a bright, blue-sky day in Washington, D.C.” He doesn’t waste a second. Stakes. Scene. Crime. You’re already sprinting. And how do you end your chapter on a cliffhanger? Dan Brown — The Da Vinci Code. His chapters are one-page punches. He ends them like this: “Langdon knew he had only seconds. He bolted for the exit. And slammed right into the barrel of a gun.” Boom. Chapter ends. You MUST turn the page and find out what happens next. Gillian Flynn — Gone Girl. “He does things like that: changes his mind and then acts as if nothing happened. He doesn’t see it as a lie, just a rearrangement of facts. I think this will be my last entry.” This sounds like a goodbye. Maybe a suicide note. Maybe a setup. Whatever it is — it’s not over. You must read the next chapter to find out. James Patterson — Along Came a Spider. “They had been looking in the wrong place. The killer had been inside the house the entire time.” Classic reversal. The chase just flipped 180 degrees. You have to see what happens next. Lisa Jewell — The Family Upstairs. “It wasn’t just blood. It was everywhere.” You thought it was a domestic drama. Nope — now it’s a crime scene. Stephen King — Misery. “She turned the axe like a baseball bat and swung it at his foot.” It’s exactly what you feared — and now you’re frozen. You need to know how bad it gets. That’s what great suspense writing looks like. Let me show you how I tried to do that in my own story — Escape From Somalia. This is how my story opens: “The explosion ripped through the silence of the night, a deafening roar that tore the President of the United States, James Harrington, from the depths of troubled sleep. The aircraft shook violently, metal grinding against metal in an unholy symphony that drowned out the screams from the passengers. James grabbed the sides of his bed as Air Force One dropped in altitude, sending his stomach to his throat.” Now — I’m not saying that’s great writing. I’m not claiming to be some literary oracle. I don’t have a degree in English Lit. But I know how to start a story. I know how to pull the reader straight into the fire. Because the truth is — you don’t need permission to write something unputdownable. You just need to make them care — fast. And then never let go. So here’s your gut check: If someone skimmed your chapter — would they miss something vital? Are the stakes higher than they were ten pages ago? Could the chapter end on a gasp, a twist, or a punch to the throat? If not? Cut it. Tighten it. Rewrite it until it hurts. Every line must do one of four things: Move the story. Raise the pressure. Force a decision. Reveal something we don’t know. Anything else? Dead weight. And in suspense — dead weight kills the pulse. You’re not writing to be polite. You’re writing to hold a stranger’s attention in a world that wants to forget you in five seconds. So grab them by the collar. And don’t let go. Not for a paragraph. Not for a scene. Not for a single breath. Keep it hot. Keep it tight. Keep it ruthless. Or don’t keep it at all. And if you’re the kind of writer who’s nodding along right now — thinking, “Yeah… this is how I want to write. This is how I want to be read…” then I’ve got something for you. I’m looking for the first 50 writers to help launch Suspense Club. You will get in before the readers show up. No fees. No credit card needed. Just your story — raw, burning, unfinished — and your willingness to build it with me. I’ll personally workshop it with you. One-on-one. Scene by scene. Hook to twist to ending. You keep 100% of your rights. Always. No fine print. No shady deals. When your story hits 5,000 followers? You unlock your own store on Suspense Club. Sell pre-orders. Audiobooks. Signed editions. Crowdfund your book like a badass. Hit 10,000? We launch you on Amazon — right through our official Suspense Club publishing channel. And here’s the twist: We don’t make a cent… until you do. We take 20% of whatever you earn. That’s it. No subscriptions. No monthly fees. No “premium access.” We only win if you win. Because that’s how it should be. Writers first. Readers in charge. No middlemen. No gatekeepers. Just pure, ruthless storytelling. So if you’ve got a thriller, a horror, a mystery, or a pulse-pounding “what if” — this is your moment. Go to SuspenseClub.com. Apply now. Be one of the first 50. Let’s build something unputdownable. Together.