Basically, this story needs to have a crucial element of suspense, which spefically is this: After I finish the beginning exposition, I give Gerio a task. He wants to sneak into a magical city and into a church where the god Askika is said to live, to ask the god to grant him the boone of magic. The suspense is, I want the reader wondering exactly what Gerio will find when he finds the church. The ending reveals what he finds and I hope, gives the reader a shock.

The problem with my story is the middle. So my question (finally) is what's the best way to go about keeping suspense through the middle?

In my rough draft, I had my character decide on a course of action, then I gave him a few obstacals to get around. The problem was, I felt like I was just taking up page space describing his journey through the streets, waterways, sewers, and caverns of the city just to get to this room. He was, in my rough draft, the only full fledge character in the story. All his obstacals were non human-- a magical barrier, a test of his endurance and strength by swimming a dangerous underwater way... And like I said, I thought it wasn't working. I knew I couldn't just say, "and after a lot of effort Gerio found the Church, and made his way to the secret room. He opened the door and..."
But that's what I wanted to do.

So when I began sitting down the typed copy, I've tried some tricks. He nows meets a stranger, who seems to know him. He is warned of the threat of pursuers. I haven't finshed this yet, so I can't say how it it will work out, but I'd really like someone to tell me if I'm on the right track here dealing with suspense.

If anyone has played with it before, and made it work, maybe you can give me (and the rest of us) some general tips about keeping suspense up through that middle passage.

My idea so far is that facing human characters is more interesting than just tests of strength and intelligence. So that's the angle I'm working from now.

Thanks all!

A couple of suggestions

1) Put a time limit on it. He must get there by such and such or wossname will happen. (CF David Eddings 'Elenium' for this (and the worst written female characters since 'Time Enough For Love'))

2) Give him an opponent/some opponents. For example, what about some guards who will try and stop him.

3) Give him a companion. How about a guide through the city sewers? The dialogue and interaction between them gives you something to do between your two bookends and, if you give the guide an agenda of his own (perhaps hint that the guide might be trying to lure Gerio somewhere to rob him?) then that will lead to conflict, which is interesting.

I think, if you don't provide some degree of challenge and conflict to this scene then you always are going to wish it didn't exist. Remember that dialogue is an excellent method of slowing the pace down. Realistically, you want to start your 'through the night city' (BTW, always set this type of scene at night. It's hackneyed but so much more atmospheric that it's worth it) gently, slowly building the tension and pace until you enter your ending at a run.

Regards

You make sure the reader knows there's a big price to pay if the character is not successful.

Another thing about suspense is that the reader has to know something about what is coming. Even if you don't let the reader know what Gerio is going to find at the church, you have to let the reader know (as subtly as possible--no "little did Gerio know" stuff, please) that there is going to be a shock when all is revealed.

Someone once defined the difference between suspense and surprise in this way:

Surprise is when someone slips on a banana peel that no one knew about.

Suspense is when the viewer (or reader) is shown the banana peel before anyone slips on it.

If you can't show the banana peel, figure out some way to signal that something shocking is going to happen, or you won't have suspense, you'll only have surprise.

You have to write in deeper POV for Gerio.

This quest or whatever, it's important to Gerio whether or not there's some kind of exterior threat (this is actually a logical fallacy, since Gerio would not be interested in doing this unless he believed that there was some downside to not doing it, hence if Gerio is willing to do it then he percieves a downside to not doing it, ergo it's important to Gerio if and only if there's some kind of percieved threat...)...

Anyway, what I'm saying is that if you explore Gerio's thoughts and motivations for going to all this effort, then you will explicate one or more reasons that he is aware of for doing it. This may seem like a tautalogy, but let me ask you this: In your current draft, how much does Gerio think about why he must put forth the effort, or take the risks, or sacrifice what he's giving up for this quest?

If he is keeping himself motivated by thinking about why he has to go through all of this, then you are already providing the tension that drives the story. If not, then you are doing a poor job of POV for his character. These thoughts would be foremost in his mind every time he has to make a choice to do something difficult or dangerous. They are his motives for action.

And the flip side of the coin handles the need for a build up of suspense. Gerio doesn't know what exactly he's going to find. In fact, he probably doesn't know for sure that there's anything for him to find at all...whenever we face a hard decision there is doubt. Let him agonize a little over whether or not he's just being a fool for risking so much, putting forth all this effort, abandoning his old life and going down a path that he has no experience of, just to gain something that may or may not be at the end of his journey.

Gerio is already in suspense, is already desperately interested in both surviving his trials and finding out what's at the end of them. If you let the reader see more of his thoughts and feelings about what he is experiencing, then you will build suspense and interest in the story.

There's really no way to tell without actually reading the story. I actually think that suspense never has to do with plot structure problems. Plot structure only needs the four things, exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution. And very few stories leave any of these elements out (thought Carl Sagan's Contact didn't have a resolution following the climactic action, I just about had a fit when I got to the end of that idiotic book and realized that the moron that wrote it...let's just say I wasn't happy).

Take a hard look at your main character, and decide whether or not they are interesting to you. Then take a hard look at your writing and see whether it is really in point of view, whether or not you are revealing everything the character percieves, thinks, feels, and nothing else but.

I have found POV mistakes to be the underlying cause of almost all the problems beginning (and sometimes experienced) writers get into. The second leading cause is implausibility (this is just as common with experienced writers, though). Plot errors are the rarest beasties known to me.

On the other hand, we all feel competent to work on plot, since that's what motivates us (or most of us) to be writers. We like telling stories and are good at it, even me, the plotless boy. And few of us are wrong on this score, it takes effort or complete innanity to make a major plot error.

Most of us feel competent to expostulate about subjects in our stories. And those of us that are worried about whether we are making factual errors can do a little research and find out what we need. And while quite a few mistakes do get made here, most of them are forgivable.

But POV is a black art to many writers. It's where novices make errors and never even know what they're doing wrong. It's what for the most part separates the paid from the unpaid, the successful from the hopefull, the "real" writers from the rest of us.

Of course, there are content and artistic matters as well, but I don't address them here because you'll know if someone disagrees with your content. And that's all it is, disagreement. I may think that stories about sexual immorality are evil and wrong, but that doesn't mean that they can't be well written. And the same is true of artistic decisions too, one person may find a scene cliche while others find it moving.