- Put a symbol to work.
I enjoy a good symbol or two in a story, and it’s even better if the symbol incorporates suspense. Look to nature: Natural processes are inexorable, and they’re understood by all humans instinctively. A beautiful lake can represent the water of life, or it can symbolize something more unsettling if, for instance, your story begins in autumn, the first frosts skimming the lake with morning mists, eventually to transform the water into something cold, hard and dangerous.
