Suspense Essay

Suspense is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the feeling of excitement or nervousness that you have when you are waiting for something to happen and are uncertain about what it is going to be.” This feeling of suspense can be created by mystery elements. Mystery elements create suspense in many texts such as “Invitation to a Murder” by Josh Pachter, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe. These texts include suspense in wildly different ways, but only one of them includes a cliffhanger at the end. Suspense is created in many stories including the mystery short story, “Invitation to a Murder” by Josh Pachter. Confusion can be created in this story by the inference

Naturally, they all arrive and are told by Mrs. Abbot that she will try to kill Gregory and they will have to stop her by any means. When she starts to attempt the murder they easily prevent her, but she then reveals that he had died because she was trying to give him his medicine and they prevented her from doing so. However, the inference gap that creates suspense comes from the end of the text where Pachter writes, “When Brannigan moved towards the table of weapons in the center of the room and picked up the amber bottle, she understood.” (135). The story ends there and leaves the reader questioning what happens after it ends. This puts the reader on edge because the suspense has been built up, and the reader is left with that feeling after the story has ended because it does not reveal the true ending. Leaving the reader on a cliffhanger is a popular way to give readers the feeling of suspense, however there are many other ways to incorporate suspense into a

Instead of an inference gap he uses red herrings and multiple suspects to put the reader on the edge of their seat. The story itself follows the adventure of Sherlock Holmes and Watson as they try to save Helen Stoner, a rich woman who lives with her father in the English countryside. She comes to their agency and tells them the story of her sister's death and her fathers weird activities. Along the way gypsies are mentioned to always be on the plantation in the estate. The red herring is brought up when Holmes contemplates aloud, “Sometimes though it may be referring to some band of people, perhaps to those gypsies on that very plantation. I do not know whether the spotted handkerchiefs which so many of them wear on their heads might have suggested the strange adjective that she used.” (Doyle 115). This brings up the notion of suspense since readers do not know who the culprit is at this point in the story and this information brings up that there could possibly be more than one suspect which makes them question who really committed the crime. Suspense can be set up in the physical way by leaving pieces of information out or tricking the reader, but the same tension can also be created just by the setting or mood of a