South American writers start to exhibit tension (8)
I believe the answer is:
suspense
'tension' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'south american writers start to exhibit' is the wordplay.
'south american' becomes 'sus' (I've seen this in other clues).
'writers' becomes 'pens' (I've seen this before).
'start to' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letter of 'exhibit' is 'e'.
'sus'+'pens'+'e'='SUSPENSE'
(Other definitions for suspense that I've seen before include "Seen puss (anag.)" , "expectancy" , "Excitement and uncertainty about an outcome" , "State of uncertainty or excitement" , "Excited anticipation of approaching climax" .)