South American writers start to engender tension (8)
I believe the answer is:
suspense
'tension' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'south american writers start to engender' is the wordplay.
'south american' becomes 'sus' (I've seen this in other clues).
'writers' becomes 'pens' (I've seen this before).
'start to' indicates taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'engender' is 'e'.
'sus'+'pens'+'e'='SUSPENSE'
(Other definitions for suspense that I've seen before include "feature of exciting fiction?" , "State of anxiety while waiting" , "Uneasy uncertainty" , "Tense expectation" , "Nervous uncertainty; cessation" .)