What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting
What is suspense? Percy D’Aco says, “Suspense is the uncertainty or anxiety you feel about what will happen next.” It can be built up by several ways; foreshadowing, withholding information, having the main character choose between two dangerous decisions in order to have action, and a reversal in the characters situation. For instance, something convenient could happen and then it goes south or vise versa. But how does suspense tie in with W.F. Harvey’s
August Heat? Harvey uses the four different methods to create suspense in his writing to make his work more appealing to the reader and reel them in to find out what’s going to happen next.
Harvey introduces the date August 20th 190- then his main character,
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As Mr. Atkinson’s talks to him about several types of marble, James has an unsettling feeling but brushes it off. Once Mr. Atkinson had finished his slab, he proudly showed it to
James who in return was silent. The stone read “SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES
CLARENCE WITHENCROFT BORN JAN, 18th 1860 HE PASSED AWAY VERY
SUDDENLY ON AUGUST 20TH, 190-.” This is where Harvey decides to use the third method of creating suspense, everything is okay until he runs into the man.
This is where James thinks it is some kind of joke and confronts the man asking if they’ve ever met and Mr. Atkinson replies with, he wrote the first thing that came to his mind.
James introduces himself and says that everything on the stone was correct except the death and then proceeds to show Atkinson his sketch. They talk for a little longer and then Atkinson asks where he lives and James responds saying he is an hour walk away. Atkinson explains how many things could happen and he could get run over or trip over a banana peel so he invites James to stay until 12 to make sure he is out of danger. Harvey uses the third method to create
Suspense is defined as the author withholding information or when the unexpected happens, leaving you guessing and wanting more. In the story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, he has inserted much suspense in this short (long) story, for the reason that it makes the reader want to know more and having to mindset of excitement or surprise. Another reason he added many suspense is so that it wouldn’t be so blunt, it wouldn’t just tell us what happened it would give us details and how he got or how he did that and more.
The author uses different methods to portray suspense, “the uncertainty or anxiety that an author makes the reader feel so that the reader wonders about what will happen next in the story, novel, or other work of literature”. The story,”The Landlady,” written by Roald Dahl, portrays suspense by making the protagonist, Billy Weaver, encounter many strange and suspicious events with the landlady when he stays at her bed and breakfast. Dahl effectively builds suspense throughout the selection by applying numerous writing techniques such as foreshadowing and imagery.
Therefore, the foreshadowing in the story creates suspense for both the characters and the readers.
The first method Mr. Harvey created suspense in his story August Heat was through Foreshadowing. From the very beginning of the story the main character has been placed in a moment of foreshadowing. James Clarence Whitencroft, the main character,
In “There Will Come Soft Rains”, the reader immediately knows that the house will be disrupted when Bradbury says, “Until this day, how well the house had kept its peace”(2). Bradbury foreshadows that the house’s peace will be broken, by using the phrase “until this day”, making the reader anticipate the loss of the house’s serenity. A suspenseful mood is created when Bradbury hints that the house will be bothered, the reader enters a suspenseful mood because they now know that the house will not be peaceful for long. In Bradbury’s other story, “The Pedestrian”, Mead stumbles over an uneven sidewalk where the, “cement was vanishing under flowers and grass”(1). The narrator adds on that, “In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not once in all that time”(1). Mead has not seen another person on the street because they are all inside their houses watching television rather than spending time with their families. When Bradbury says that the cement is “vanishing under flowers and grass”, it foreshadows that soon this futuristic society will be taken over by nature. Foreshadowing creates an effective story because it reveals the theme that even though people can be overpowered by technology, nature can find a way to come through. Bradbury uses foreshadowing to create suspenseful
The first way the author creates suspense in the story is by foreshadowing. When Captain Torres walked into the barber’s shop, the barber, “Started to shake,” (Tellez 1) indicating that the barber felt instant fear, when his enemy approached. This foreshadows that the barber knows the man and that he will be deciding to kill him or not. Foreshadowing creates suspense because it is a clue given to the reader. It is the reader’s job to guess what is going to happen in the story and that is what makes it interesting. Without foreshadowing the reader won’t be able to prepare what is going to happen next. Another scene where the foreshadowing technique is used was when the barber came up with his reasons to not kill Captain Torres. The barber contemplated in his mind, “Don’t want to stain myself with blood. Just lather, and nothing else,” (Tellez 2) which foreshadows that the barber is not going to commit murder.
Ever wonder what’s going to happen next in a story? Suspense is that literary element and it’s used in almost all cases of writing. Some authors use a lot of it to build up their stories, others, not so much. Ray Bradbury, an American author and screenwriter was one of those authors who used suspense to build up the tension and develop the plot of his stories. From beginning to end, genre to genre, suspense can be found all over his work. “A Sound of Thunder”, “The Veldt”, and “The Pedestrian” are just three examples of Bradbury’s work where he uses suspense all over the text to keep the reader on the edge of their seat and wondering what’s going to happen next.
“For some time I sat in silence. Then a cold shudder ran down my spine.” That would be one example of how suspense is created throughout a horror story. There have been multiple authors which have made frightening stories and put a lot of work into them.Furthermore, as in the story, “August Heat” by W.F. Harvey, it is composed of suspense around the piece. A prime example would be the use of foreshadow, reversal, and being unpredictable. Therefore, combining the three makes the completion of a story with frightening scenes, along with the suspense.
In John Irving's novel titled, A Prayer for Owen Meany, suspenseful events are of abundance, and there are multiple ways the author creates this suspense. Among these methods of creating suspense, four that stand out are the use of setting, the pace of the story, the involvement of mysteries to be solved, and the ability of the reader to easily identify and sympathize with the protagonist. By placing a character in a gloomy or solitary place, uncomfortable feelings are created, which append to the suspense. Pace and structure of the story also play into the foundation of suspense, as shorter sentences and stronger, more cutting verbs and adjectives are often used to
It says how the stone is “the token of preposterous time” meaning the rocks is what will take part of the future savagery of the boys, it is what will eventually contribute to the boys becoming savages.
People reads books and they get their captured by the suspense the authors use to write their stories. Suspense is a key point for most readers it keeps them reading the book to see what happens next. Both Edgar Allan Poe and Richard Connell are very good authors that use a lot of suspense throughout their short stories. Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” and Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” are two stories full of suspense. It’s unpredictable, surprising that we can’t figure out what happens next. .Through conflict, setting, and diction Poe and Connell are able to build suspense.
The sense of suspense is carried out in the
This gets people predicting what is going to happen the next few pages of the story and anticipate the
meat, as he recounts it for the first time by saying “It was a great discovery when I found that a
James appears to be using limited cross-checking behaviours. Self-correction behaviour is nil, at least in this instance. Evidence shows he is using mostly meaning and visual cues and not drawing on structural cues. As a result of not utilising all the sources of information afforded by the text his understanding and comprehension of the text is quite limited and there is no evidence he has really connected with the text. In recent years there has been much research on reading