Suspense lessons from a Pulitzer Winner

How Ilyon Woo made a biography read like a thriller

I realize that it makes me sound like a hardo to admit that I read the Pulitzer-winning biography Master Slave Husband Wife while I was on maternity leave.

If ever there was a time for indulging in reading that was purely entertaining, surely that time is in the emotional and physical recovery from birthing a baby and helping her adjust to the world. But in my defense, as academically accomplished and educational as Master Slave Husband Wife is, it’s also suspensefully entertaining. Dare I say…unputdownable. Even when I needed an emotional break from the subject matter, it wasn’t long before I was opening the book again, too curious to know what was going to happen next. And so, here is the next installment of my mentor series, which has mostly turned into a long line of book reports.¹

Without further ado, the lessons Ilyon Woo taught me.

1. Start by telling us what’s going to happen if it makes us want to read on.

Ilyon Woo opened her book with an author’s note describing, in broad strokes, the story she was about to tell: an enslaved couple in Georgia would escape to the northern states to emancipate themselves, join the abolitionist lecture circuit, and be forced to flee the United States when the Fugitive Slave Act was strengthened and men hired by their former enslavers would come looking for them.

In this way, Woo “gave away” one of the big initial questions a reader might have in the book’s early chapters: will Ellen and William Craft make it to the northern states, or will they be captured somewhere along the journey of their escape? But, I think quite cleverly, Woo sacrificed that smaller question in order to set up her bigger one: will they ever be free?

The author’s note also tells, in small part, how the couple escapes, which is one of the most compelling parts of the story. Ellen, who is biracial and has light skin, dresses as a disabled white man; her husband William poses as her enslaved helper. In this way, they escape out in the open, Ellen convincing white men that she is one of them at every stage of the journey from Macon to Boston.

Similar to the prologue in The Secret History, Woo gives it all away on the first page, but of course she really doesn’t. She trusts that the story she is about to tell is good, and that a reader will feel compelled to learn the details. Not so much “what’s going to happen,” but “how on earth is this going to happen?”

2. Action first, backstory later.

Like Kristin Offlier discussed in her book report on Nightwatching, Ilyon Woo was careful to offer action first and backstory second. After the author’s note, the book opens at Ellen Craft’s cabin in Georgia, at the very moment that she and William are about to run. It’s early morning, still dark out, and Ellen and William are terrified to commit to their first steps, knowing the violence that will befall them if they are captured. Only after this visceral scene does Woo pull back and tell us more about who Ellen and William are. She reveals enough information in the scene to give it emotional impact: these people are enslaved, they are a loving couple, they have only been planning their escape for a matter of days, and they will be fiercely harmed, and probably separated forever, if they are captured attempting to escape. She could have told us much more about Ellen’s and William’s personal histories, but she resisted, choosing only what the scene needed to be compelling. Over the course of the opening chapters, Woo shared their histories in great detail, but she took her time doing so, keeping the action of the story moving forward.

3. Use shifting points of view to heighten the impact of suspenseful moments.

Woo told different parts of the story from either Ellen’s or William’s perspective, often taking the time to give each person’s account of a setting or moment in time. Although Ellen and William were traveling together, they were often separated, because Ellen was able to be in quarters available to white travelers, and William was in quarters (if they should even be called that) designated for enslaved people. 

Image credit: Thousand Miles and Counting via SCAD

There were multiple times the writer in me buzzed with appreciation for how Woo used Ellen’s and William’s points of view to heighten the tension of a given moment. In an early scene, Ellen and William have boarded a train out of Georgia, and William is in the car where enslaved people must ride with the cargo. Out the window, he sees his “employer” (a man his enslaver has rented him to, essentially) run onto the platform. William knows immediately that this man is looking for him. Woo then moves into Ellen’s point of view, as she too recognizes William’s employer and watches as he starts checking the cars, clearly looking for William. Because Woo is a biographer confined to what actually happened, if she had stayed in William’s head, the scene would have simply ended with William seeing the employer leaving the platform, satisfied that his suspicions about William must have been wrong. By jumping into Ellen’s head, Woo was able to tell the true story but lengthen the suspense, giving Ellen’s account of her inability to see what was happening, the train beginning to pull away, and her anxiety at not knowing what had happened to her husband. 

Although Woo largely told the story chronologically, she departed from this pattern at one point to heighten the suspense, sharing first Ellen’s stressful side of a story before relieving the reader with William’s comical side. At one point in the couple’s journey, the train needed to cross water, and the passengers were supposed to disembark while the cars were loaded onto a ship. Ellen waited for William, who was in the cargo car with the other enslaved travelers, but he never emerged. She inquired about him but no one knew what had come of him—he had seemed to vanish. To those around her, they assumed William had run away from Ellen, whom they believed was a white man and William’s enslaver. Ellen’s fear, which she could betray to no one, was that William had been caught in their escape attempt, perhaps by someone from Georgia who had discovered their absence. No one but Ellen understood that William already had run away, and that his absence now suggested the worst. She had to decide whether to get on the ship and leave William behind or risk her own capture and wait for him. She boarded, and only later did she (and the reader) learn that William had simply fallen asleep in his train car and been loaded onto the ship with the cargo. Woo was wise not to tell these events in chronological order, instead using her dual points of view to her storytelling advantage.

4. End chapters with lines that entice you to turn the page, but just as important: make good on the promise.

Woo was very good about ending most chapters with a line that had me reading on without even considering taking a break. These lines often hinted at trouble ahead for the couple—physical and legal problems alike. And importantly, these weren’t empty promises the author didn’t deliver. Problems abounded for the Crafts, with stakes as high as they get.

An early example is how Woo ended the chapter where the reader learned that William’s employer had not discovered him, and Ellen was breathing her first of many sighs of relief. Now picture it: you’re at the end of a chapter. The train begins to pull away from the station and Ellen finally sees William’s employer leaving alone. She sits back in her seat, no longer distractedly watching out the window, and hears a familiar voice beside her. She turns and sees that a man has sat down beside her…a man who had been at her enslaver’s house just last night.

*~* Chapter break! *~*

You know I went straight to the next page. 

(Also, yes, the story really is that wild. Highly recommend this book.)

5. Use setting description to enhance the emotional experience.

Woo’s description of the settings—from cities, lodgings, landmarks, and private homes—was rich. Some of the most haunting were of the sites where open-air “slave markets” once occurred, or “the Sugar House,” where enslaved people were sent to be punished for disobeying orders or attempting escape. Woo’s descriptions often tied into the stakes of the book, always reminding the reader what Ellen and William had risked by their daring escape. 

6. The stories of non-main characters must be extremely purposeful, always enhancing the goal of the story.

Like many a biographer before her, Woo made many diversions into the lives of those the Crafts encountered, but each person she brought to life was important to some aspect of the story. Both Ellen’s and William’s birth families. Other self-emancipated people, and those who died or were captured trying to free themselves. Political figures who were essential to the eventual strenghtening of the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced the couple to flee the States. Every diversion, in my opinion, moved in the direction of the story, making the thematic messaging stronger, my understanding of the characters and the question—will they ever be free, in the truest sense of the word?—deeper.

And, as ever, Woo reminded me that storytelling lessons are everywhere, so long as we pay attention!

image credit Michael Wilson/Simon & Schuster

Anything you’ve read recently that taught you unexpected craft lessons?

1. In the words of Tony Wonder, I have become a “how-dey-do-dat” whenever I read a good book. (If you get this stupid reference, let’s be friends.)