How to build tension, in close-ish third person, without using this type of device? How can I signal to the reader that something is going to happen soon (honest) and so it's worth sticking with it, without actually telling them?

Grateful for ideas, examples!

Joker

Er, keep it short? This is probably where a good sub-plot comes in to keep the reader interested before the 'next big thing' happens in the story.

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In a plot-driven novel the previous action dictates what happens next - there will be consequences - so the reader will read on anticipating those consequences/the main chracter's next move. You can surprise the reader by havin the mc do something (or have something done to them) which the reader isn't expecting, but the reader should know that something is coming.
The thing to avoid is throwing things at the main character, creating new plot devices out of thin air, or making them do stuff, which is not logical (not plot driven); is not dictated by what came before.

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If it's a character that's going to turn up and do something nasty, it might simply be enough to give them a walk on part in an earlier scene/chapter.

Very difficult to think about, out of the particular context. But you can just leave her where she is, cut to the speeding lorry, and let us make the connection. Or lay the landmine in earlier chapters, so we're already waiting for her to tread on it, as she decides to do a little window-shopping...

Emma

Er, keep it short?

I had a feeling you'd say that!

It's character-driven rather than plot, I'd say, and it's chapter one so not much scope for early landmine-laying. Dramatic event opens, natch, but then characters move towards second dramatic event unrelated to the first. They are sauntering - in an interesting way of course, but sauntering nonetheless - unaware that "a character is going to turn up and do something nasty."

Hmm, I guess the sauntering is the problem. But I am wary of the 'one thing then another' problem when there are no 'breathing' scenes.

Early days though. It probably won't end up being chapter one at all.

Thanks Naomi and Emma.

Build atmosphere by carefully choosing the words you use to describe setting. Drop hints in her mood, in her thoughts. Small incidents to foreshadow big events. Very crude examples follow:

The summer day was close and stifling...

She exclaimed with annoyance: the envelope had given her a paper-cut. Blood spread over the letter inside...

On the radio, the survivor of a napalm attack was softly describing the pain of the burns. She listened with half an ear as she did the washing-up. On the lawn a blackbird deftly tore a worm to pieces...

Ooh, that's good. The way that one word, 'napalm,' immediately makes you sit up. Really helpful, thanks, Leila.

One approach, when you want to foreshadow something but without giving away what is going to happen and without indulging in obvious authorial intrusion, is to make a statement, often with an apparently opposite meaning, that causes the reader to reach the desired conclusion independently.

During a particularly grim financial period (there have been several!) I ended up for a short while cold-canvassing staff in offices and factories selling personal accident insurance for the Combined Insurance Company of America. That august institution taught us that a good thing to say to a recalcitrant prospect was:

I don't believe you will ever be involved in an accident.

Almost unfailingly the prospect would respond with words such as:

I don't know. You never can tell.

which of course was exactly what you wanted them to think, a result achieved by stating the opposite.

So, if you say something like:

She paused at the door for a moment, watching the last of the sunset. She could not recall a time when she had felt more at ease and less threatened than she did at this moment.

most readers will probably conclude that she is almost certainly mistaken and they will start looking foward to some unpleasant development in the next chapter.

Chris

Ha! Brilliant! Thanks Chris. I really want to use that!

'Foreshadowing' is the thing, isn't it, but without being clunky. I knew you guys would have some solid technique pointers.

Chris, that's brilliant - cynical but great

How can I signal to the reader that something is going to happen soon (honest) and so it's worth sticking with it

It’s a personal thing, but this statement bothers me, I think you should start with the “something that is going to happen” and show us how the character deal with it.

Cheers, Grinder

start with the “something that is going to happen”

Grinder, I see what you mean because it's true that having too much build-up, or too many instances of it, instead of getting on with the events can be dangerous. On the other hand, just having a sequence of events themselves would make it difficult to achieve the "tension" Barjoker is looking for.

Unless certain of the events or their outcomes are prefigured or foreshadowed in some way, however obliquely, vaguely or even misleadingly, it's quite difficult to generate that elusive element of suspense. But I think that it should be achieved via the characters or other means and definitely not by some omniscient authorial comment.

Chris

So, if you say something like: She paused at the door for a moment, watching the last of the sunset. She could not recall a time when she had felt more at ease and less threatened than she did at this moment. most readers will probably conclude that she is almost certainly mistaken and they will start looking foward to some unpleasant development in the next chapter.

This puts me in mind of a comedy sketch I saw once on TV. A few guys, WWII pilots round a table, about to go on a dangerous bombing mission, each reminiscing about home.

One would say something like, 'Darling Sally, I love her so much, can't wait to get back to Poshplace-on-the-Hill to see her and little Harry again.'

And the voiceover would say: 'Dead.'

So you have to be a bit subtle with your foreshadowing or it can become risible, I think.