Overuse of Suspense

            Lately I’ve been seeing a trend in a lot the shows I’ve been watching. It is the overuse of suspense.

            Suspense is an incredible tool for any form of entertainment. It’s what keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, engaged, and coming back for more. However, like all tools, it must be used in moderation.

            Unfortunately, the TV world is run on ratings – to get those ratings, as many people as possible need to be watching the show. What’s the easiest way to get people watching? Suspense. Putting a cliff-hanger at the end of every episode is a sure-fire way to keep the audience interested – and talking about – the show until the following week or season.

            But then the suspense begins to lose its effectiveness. The audience starts to expect it and not only does it stop compelling them to come back as much, it becomes... well, boring. Predictable. The moment everything is seeming to work out, the audience already knows that something terrible is about to happen. The urgent desire to find out what happens next is replaced by an exhausted, “What, this again?”

            When I was learning about suspense for my writing, I picked up one very important tip: give the audience a break sometimes. It is essential when working with suspense, because otherwise the suspense has the opposite effect from what was intended. I good tip for making a plot interesting is to chase your character up a tree and then throw rocks at them, but there’s one very important thing to remember: sometimes, the character has to succeed. If there are no victories, there’s no hope – and hope in impossible situations is what really keeps the audience engaged.

            The other thing to remember is that suspense can be subtle. Everything can turn out well at the end of an episode or chapter and the audience will still come back for more if there are questions left unanswered. There doesn’t always have to be a cataclysmic, plot-wrenching disaster.

            So, use suspense, but use it in all of its forms. Apply it with a brush, not a roller.

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The Effectiveness of Suspense

            One of the most important tools in a writer’s arsenal is suspense. It is what keeps the readers turning the page, the viewers watching and the gamers playing. The desire to know what happens next – or for an explanation about why something happened – compels us to come back for more.

            Can it be over-used, though? I never really thought about it until tonight, after watching the season three finale of Sherlock. The season, on the whole, was excellent (although I felt it wasn't quite as good as the first two seasons) and the ending left me asking many of the questions. But, it wasn't as many questions as the previous seasons and I didn't feel the same driving need to know more. I was happy with what I knew and content to wait the year or two until the next season to find out what happens next.

            A similar thing happened with the Assassins’ Creed series. At the end of all three of the first three games, I was left staring at the screen, jaw on the floor, demanding: “What!? What!?!? What!?!?!?” (No, really – ask my wife; she was there, I was really demanding that the game tell me what happened next). The following three games, however, didn't have that effect on me. I still wanted to play the next games, but, again, the driving need to know what happened next wasn't there.

            At first, I thought it was because the cliff-hangers weren't as good. I guess that’s still possible, but I think that it may also be that I've been de-sensitised to the style of suspense. It makes sense, now that I started thinking about it. Humans are known for their adaptability; we can adjust to anything. If we’re fed enough cliff-hangers and suspenseful endings, we start to expect them. Then they become normal and, like everything else that’s normal, they blend into the background.

            It was a bit of an eye-opener for me and I think it’s something all writers can learn from. Moderation is the key in everything; change it up. If the same tricks and tools are used all the time, they lose their effectiveness. What good is suspense if...

            Find out next week, on: J.C. Rutledge and his inane ramblings!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.