The ‘Ticking Clock’: why countdowns are a useful way to add tension and conflict to your novel

Have you ever been watching a film where a countdown is introduced: firefighters have to save people from a burning building before those people perish, man has to retrieve jewels before the police catch him, teenagers must find the safety of a house before it gets dark.

These kinds of storylines offer us ongoing tension and suspense, but through a predictable lens: usually, most of the time, the people are saved from the fire, the man retrieves the jewels and the teenagers find a safe place to stay before it gets dark. We know what to expect. But that element of possibility – that the character’s might not achieve their goal – is what makes us sit on the edge of our seat and continue watching.

The same principle can be applied to your novel; adding a ‘ticking clock’ can make your novel more tense and encourage the reader to keep reading when they might have given up. Or, it could become the whole conceit upon which the novel is built. This is the case in Holly Seddon’s 59 Minutes, in which the UK is told that a nuclear bomb will hit in 59 Minutes and various characters spend most of the book trying to get back to, or locate, their loved ones. With each chapter, the clock counts down, until the fateful moment when we as a reader know a nuclear bomb will hit.

Think about these scenarios: you’ve been told your novel needs more tension, but you don’t know how to add that in. Or, you know your novel needs more tension and conflict but you’re at a loss for how to do that – as far as you are concerned, there’s conflict between your characters and impactful events happening, but some of the scenes just need a little extra something to make the reader want to continue turning the pages.