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Techniques for Building Suspense

The document provides tips for creating suspense in writing. Some techniques listed are using short sentences and paragraphs, ellipsis for dramatic pauses, similes and metaphors for description, and keeping some information hidden. The passage then analyzes how suspense is built in a story about whitewater kayaking through the use of descriptive language, short sentences, and the hidden danger faced by the main character.

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Nancy Naiem Bashir
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21 views2 pages

Techniques for Building Suspense

The document provides tips for creating suspense in writing. Some techniques listed are using short sentences and paragraphs, ellipsis for dramatic pauses, similes and metaphors for description, and keeping some information hidden. The passage then analyzes how suspense is built in a story about whitewater kayaking through the use of descriptive language, short sentences, and the hidden danger faced by the main character.

Uploaded by

Nancy Naiem Bashir
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Date: _____________________

Ways to Build up Suspense

Creating suspense is an influential technique that makes your writing more entertaining.

Ways to create suspense include the following:

1. onomatopoeia to bring the noise alive

2. short sentences and paragraphs for tension

3. ellipsis () for dramatic pause

4. simile and metaphor for description

5. personification to make it seem as if things are alive

6. keep information hidden something, a voice, a figure

7. use questions to show the characters confusion

8. use active verbs to create action

9. use some direct speech

10. capital letters

11. sentence fragments

Analyse the following text and determine the ways used to build up suspense.

The Stopper

The river suddenly became very still; it was no longer

choppy or bouncy- perfectly glassy. This meant that up ahead

there was a big drop and at the bottom, a stopper- a mass of strong circular water. We had

to be careful. Nervously, I sat in my boat and watched Jude shoot the weir. She popped out

of the stopper like a rubber duck; then, she turned around and signalled for me to follow. I

took a deep breath and began to paddle. I heard a shout, but with the intensifying din of the
rushing water and the deafening beat of my heart violently pounding, I couldnt hear what was

being said. The current was sweeping me towards the edge; I focused on my line and powered

forward, ready to gig the paddle in hard as soon as I landed. BANG! The boat was down. I dug

the paddle in on the right and then on the left. However, there was no pull left; the boat had

wobbled, no water to force against. I tried again, dipping the paddle down further. It

skimmed the surface and in seconds, I was over. Upside down. Immersed in a bubbling

torrent.

I tried to think straight, but the pressure of the current was too strong: the paddle

was jammed. The power of the weir was thundering hard down on my boat, heavy, ceaseless,

drumming. Think! THINK! Before I knew it, my paddle had been snatched abruptly from my

hands. I leaned forward and reached for the emergency tag on my spray deck. Nothing. Then,

suddenly, silence. Im in the stopper. I must be in the stopper! terror and excitement

gripped me. Think! THINK! A jolt, and the boat lurched around brutally. In the darkness, I

cast around, searching for the tag. I had it! I pulled, but it slipped from my grip. Locating it

again, I tugged determinedly. I was free.

Free but still underwater. Now the boat and I jostled, spinning round and round,

battering me roughly in the raging swirl of water. Panic was setting in, the rumble of the falls

growing louder again. The water was bubbling and silvery; I was rising to the surface. All of a

sudden, there was a colour. Light! I had been hurled upwards-out of the underworld. Shock. A

gasp of air. Jude. A flash of relief. Then, darkness, total darkness as the river reclaimed me,

absorbed me and sucked me back under its shadowy, turbulent depths.

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