Creating Suspense
Cliffhanger endings are effective, but keeping details from readers and audiences doesn’t create suspense. It creates frustration. Suspense comes from revealing information a little at a time.
In a script I recently read in my TV writing class, a spec pilot opens with the discovery of a murder. The victim is not revealed.
The script then goes back a week in time and introduces several characters in conflict. Some of them we root for and others we despise.
The pilot ends where the police arrive at the dead body from the opening. The victim is still not revealed.
This writer thought viewers would be intrigued to tune in the next week and discover who was killed. Instead, they created frustration. By hiding the identity of the victim, audiences have no investment in the character. If they knew who was killed, they could feel an emotional connection and care about the deceased.
Consider a scene from a movie where a cloaked figure enters an office from a balcony, places something in a desk drawer and leaves.
A second person enters and sits at the desk.
A third person enters and sits in front of the desk.
They discuss an embezzlement by someone in the company. They don’t know who it is, but are waiting for a courier to being a letter with evidence.
The letter arrives. Before they can open it, they hear a car crash and go out on the balcony to see what happened.
As they leave, a bomb explodes in the desk. When they rush back in, the letter is destroyed.
The bomb explosion is shocking. It destroys the evidence, but the scene has no suspense because we don’t know the people are in the danger.
Imagine a rewrite. The cloaked person places a bomb in a desk drawer.
The other people enter and discuss who might be the embezzler. As they speak, we cut to the bomb where a timer is ticking down.
We move back to the conversation, then back to the bomb. The timer continues to tick down.
The people step out onto the balcony and we cut to the bomb. The timer reaches zero and the bomb explodes.
We now have suspense because we’re involved in the characters’ lives and the action.