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Suspense In Ambrose Bierce's The Dammed Thing

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Suspense is the most fun when you are reading a story or a book. Suspense makes the story alive and enhance the reader's interest. At start, the story will make you think that you are going in one direction while so many things happening at once, but it will take your breath away at the end. Take a murder mystery story it will give you so many facts and it will make you think that who murder the victim and as you come to the end you were wrong all along. What sets the stage for a suspense story are things such as setting, time, character, theme, dialogues, etc. As we have seen in Ambrose Bierce’s story “The Dammed Thing” which is a horror story with the suspense of Morgan’s death. That has been related to the audio version of the CBS Radio …show more content…

When we talk about character basically it is an actor and we can identify him/her by the tone, voice and action. As Bierce has described in his story about different characters such as “I heard a loud savage cry- a scream like that of a wild animal- and flinging his gun upon the ground, Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot” (884). His quote demonstrates that the guy Harker is describing Morgan’s situation while they went for hunting. We can identify the character’s tone and his action during the trouble. In the same way taking an illustration from The CBS Radio Mystery Theater, the audio book shows the voice, tone and action of different characters where it is a speech of a lady (Morgan’s wife) or the background sound effect and also the tone of other people in the story. The writer must describe the characters in the beginning of the story in a way that the picture of the character’s description is set in the reader’s mind. So the reader can recognize the characters if there are so many in a story while reading. As a reader we need to keep in mind what each character has done, did or said throughout the story to understand their behavior and intentions. Technically character is the most important part of the story which also describes emotion and gives readers an idea about the

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In the book Baseball Great, the author, Tim Green told the story from the main characters point of view. That helped build suspense because it showed what was going on inside his mind with all the adversity going on with his baseball team and with his dad losing his job and how he overcomes it. He also used used plot structure to engage the reader by having many unexpected events happen to make the ending very suspenseful and unpredictable. For example," 'I tried, Garry. ' Dallas Said.

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For two centuries now, horror and suspense stories have become one of the most intriguing types of story genres. These genres have captured the attention of countless of readers and nowadays watchers. According to Percy D’Aco, horror stories are created to show discomfort and fear reflecting on one’s greatest fears. In the process of writing horror stories, numerous authors create suspense to make people continue reading and stay hooked on the story. A great example of the use of suspense would be the horror story “August Heat,” written by W.F Harvey.

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Suspense is a mental uncertainty or anxiety. It can also be defined as the state of being undecided or doubtful. Authors of mysteries include elements such as foreshadowing, red herrings, and closed settings to help create suspense. The short stories “This Way Nobody Gets the Blame,” “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” and “Invitation to a Murder,” include these elements and are examples of well-balanced and well-defined mystery stories. The authors of these stories write interesting and suspenseful stories/mysteries.

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Suspense is something the author of a story can use to keep the story interesting and exciting. Poe uses suspense to keep the reader interested in the story and to keep them reading on. In the story The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe describes the anxiety and fear of the characters to create

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Suspense essay Many authors use setting to create suspense . Suspense is “the sense of growing tension,fear, and excitement felt by the reader” (95). Edgar Allen Poe and W.W. Jacobs create suspense throughout their short stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Monkey’s Paw”. Three techniques, these authors use to create suspense are ambiguous ending, the scaring techniques , and the setting.

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Many aspects of stories are eye-catching, jaw-dropping, and pull you into the words on the page. Suspense is a particular tool that creates a tense situation that leaves you on the edge of your seat, wanting more. Some types of suspense work extremely well, and sometimes even better than others. The short story “Night Drive” by Will F. Jenkins is one example, in which the main character, Madge, is thrown into quite the suspenseful situation, with a killer and a deserted road. “Night Drive” uses multiple kinds of suspense, and amazingly weaves them into the story, keeping any reader on edge.

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The characters are important to the understanding of this

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In Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge,” there are many literary techniques that contribute to the suspense of the story. The plot of this story focuses on Peyton Fahrquahr and his execution. Fahrquahr tried to burn down the Owl Creek bridge and as result, he was sentenced to be hanged. In the story it appears that the soldiers are just really bad at hanging people; however, it is revealed that they are actually pretty good at it. Throughout the story, Bierce uses suspense to keep the reader wondering what will happen next.

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The characters in any story are the main parts of the story that engage the readers with the uniqueness

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Suspense is a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. For instance, page 173 states, “And this I did for seven long nights- every night just at midnight- but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me; but his Evil Eye”. Page 173 has many examples of suspense but, the main one was that he wouldn’t kill the man for seven days. He was safe because, his eye was closed but, this then makes the reader fear for the man because, what if one of his eyes opened.

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All these key features help make the foundation for a great story, but it our job as writers to fill in the gaps and make these aspects pop and be unique. A plot cannot create the characters, but the characters can reveal the plot. Lamott uses a Polaroid as an example of how we cannot create the plot first, we must first set the frame, take the picture, and let everything develop along the way, once completed the plot is revealed. Characters make a huge impact to the reader because the main character is someone we can connect to, understand, but at the same time we want them to suffer to make the story interesting. If the main character just flies by obstacles without an issue then the story becomes bland, but if they suffer then it makes us more interested and continue reading to see how they resolve the main conflict.

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When you watch a tv show and do you find it annoying when they go to commercial break right before something important is about to happen? That is an example of suspense. You usually sit through the commercials to see what happens right? It keeps you hooked. The short story that I will be referring to and drawing examples of suspense from is Pickman’s Model by H.P. Lovecraft.

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Suspense is an element used to build tension and you can see the suspense technique in various parts of the story, strongly in the 3 forms thoughts, time and expectation. Thoughts is one of the

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A reader must know the correct characterization of someone in order to fully understand the story. Understanding the point of view and characterization is just as important as understanding the plot. The conflict, climax and other aspects are a major part of the plot as a whole. To put it differently, all the components of a story are equal.

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Suspense about the characters, suspense about the plot; everything was a mystery. The narrator’s every step brought suspense, especially when he got involved with the beating of the heart. Towards the end of the story, the author leaves readers constantly wondering as the suspense is increasing - What will happen to the characters, or how will they end up? These are questions that readers often find themselves asking, although the most common question is simply what will happen

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