Creating Suspense in a Story: How to Keep Your Audience Engaged

Creating suspense in a story is an art form that can be used to keep readers engaged and wanting more. Suspense is a form of dramatic irony that occurs when the audience or reader knows something that the characters in a narrative do not know. It can be created by revealing sensory images one by one and adding elements of mystery and surprise. This creates suspense for readers and the public, and encourages them to continue reading and watching, as they are anxious to know what will happen next.

To create suspense, authors must provide the kind of foundation where it can begin and grow. This can be done by introducing a threatening villain, a love triangle, or a murderer on the loose. All of these tactics create suspense for the audience and therefore guarantee their attention throughout the rest of the story. Year after year, mysteries, thrillers and thrillers dominate the box office, bookstores and streaming services.

Suspense is often genre-dependent and is used intentionally, mainly in the genres of thriller, mystery and horror fiction, although it is sometimes vaguely applied to other genres such as fantasy, romance or drama. If a threatening villain points a gun at the hero's head, there's a lot of suspense (if the viewer cares if the hero lives or dies). Its impact is immediate, but its influence can quickly dissipate, so authors must replace one of the other modalities, curiosity or suspense, to keep readers glued to the story. For example, the work of Sophocles Oedipus Rex is largely based on suspense, as readers (or viewers) move forward to learn how the tragic hero will fulfill the prophecy that predicts that he will kill his father and marry his mother.

Every type of story must incorporate suspense to maintain reader progress. If done correctly, suspense will continue to increase until the climax or final confrontation and tipping point. We'll also examine why readers find suspense genres so attractive and explore some examples of suspense, surprise, and curiosity to see how they work to move the story forward. Suspense is an essential tool for authors to keep their audience engaged in their stories.