You’re sitting at your desk, coffee in hand, staring at the blinking cursor on your screen. Despite your best efforts, your characters seem flat, and the scenario lacks that delicious edge of suspense that’s supposed to keep your readers hooked. You’ve hit a brick wall. But fear not!

There’s a cure for the common case of tale-stagnation, especially in the realm of mystery writing where the key ingredient is that ambiguous entity known as tension. This article aims to help you out of this conundrum by offering not one, not two, but five effective strategies to add tension to your mystery story when you’re feeling stuck.

Otto von Bismarck once said that politics is the art of the possible. So is writing, especially when stirring up suspense and tension in your mystery tales. Uncover these five tension-building strategies.