October 4

Homework

• Writing Minutes
• Freewriting (The narrator was running late and just showed up to a story already in progress.  S/he doesn't know who the heroes and villains are or even what genre the story is.)
• Continue working on your suspense piece.  (This can be either a non-fiction essay or a short fiction story.)  We will cover one more element of suspense next week.  Your rough draft is due Oct. 19.

Class Review

   Suspense occurs when there are two possible and equally (or nearly equally) outcomes in a narrative.  However, just because the ending is in doubt doesn't mean that an audience will feel suspense; there are some things that a writer can do to help create a feeling of suspense in their readers.

1. Put sympathetic characters in peril.  Peril can be as extreme as life and death or it can be less intense, like having a dream or desire thwarted.  What's at stake isn't as important as how much an audience cares for a character.  
2. Focus on what could and not necessarily what does happen.  In any situation the number of paths of action, bad and good, which can happen are innumerable and that creates anxiety.  In reality, there is only one path of action which actually occurs.  Choices create suspense.
3. Limit your narrator.  While you as a storyteller are essentially omniscient, you need to keep secrets from  your audience.  Eventually you will have to give away all the secrets in a story, but a good way to do that is to limit the perspective of the narrator and let the characters reveal secrets themselves in their own time.  
4. Don't focus on violence.  Remember, what could happen is suspense.  To much gore will alienate an audience.
5. Anticipate your audience.  What questions will your audience have at each point in your story?  Be sure they are answered or there is a clear reason why they cannot be answered at this point in the story (or ever).  Readers of suspense like to solve puzzles and find loopholes.  Puzzle your story out before your readers.  

We read An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge as an example of how a writer withholds information from the audience in order to create suspense. 

Alfred Hitchcock is the master of suspense in cinema.  If you have the inclination Rear Window, Notorious, and Vertigo are great examples of how to create suspense.

Here's a clip of Hitchcock explaining his technique.