What is the difference between suspense and foreshadowing

For example, imagine a story where a man is afraid of heights, there might be a flashback to the incident that made him afraid of heights. This literary device is commonly used by authors to provide background details of the characters.

Flashbacks help the readers understand different motivations of the characters. They also act as plot structures and create tension in the story. Some stories are entirely in the form of flashback. Foreshadowing is a figure of speech in which the author gives hints and clues about the events that are going to take place in the story. Authors often use indicative words and phrases as hints without spoiling the suspense or revealing the story.

What happened the last time you stepped on the breaks and your car tried to skid? Did your stomach feel like a brick? Did you shriek, or swear? Or did you steer yourself out of the skid and only respond to the stress after you were safe? Use those experiences to color your characters' reactions. Remember, not everyone reacts the same way.

For that matter, not all suspenseful situations are the same. A cop hero who is calm and collected in a shoot-out might feel his stomach clench with anxiety when he has to give a talk at the local high school. The Regency heroine who acts like the perfect Regency miss at a ball might find that she is no longer so calm when the hero dances with her for the first time.

Use Mood to Evoke Suspense Movie makers have a lot of tools we don't. They can play spooky music, change the lighting, tell the actors to look scared, and use a lot of other effects to generate suspense. Most writers can't include CDs of spooky music with their books. We have to stick to using words. On the other hand, words are an extremely powerful tool. Years before the first movie was made, writers such as Sheridan Le Fanu evoked shivers of horror with "mere" words.

For example, take a look at this excerpt from The Haunted Baronet. Although the style is very much a part of the past, I find it scarier than much of the suspense I read today.

As the candles burn blue and the air smells of brimstone at the approach of the Evil One, so, in the quiet and healthy air of Golden Friars, a depressing and agitating influence announced the coming of the long-absent Baronet.

Maybe the most important thing to remember about evoking suspense is that there are no overriding rules. One writing style doesn't work for every writer, nor does the same style work for every scene in a book. Try to avoid overwriting suspenseful scenes, however -- this is not the time to have characters notice pretty sunsets. However, if you can invoke suspense with a florid writing style, then go for it.

Not every suspense scene should be written in terse concise terms and choppy sentences. Read suspenseful books to see how other authors do it. Reread books you remember as being page-turners. What writing styles and tricks did the authors use to create suspense? Or did they rely on style? Sometimes the most suspenseful writing style is the one that doesn't get in the way at a crucial moment. However, when you find a great technique, proceed with caution.

Just because a style worked great during that thrilling shoot-out you just read, that doesn't mean it will work for you. I was still very much a novice, so I didn't know when to experiment and when to give up and write a scene in normal English. At the end of my story, I ended up with a shoot-out that switched viewpoints at least six times.

I still get dizzy when I reread it. If you have the chance, listen to classic radio suspense dramas, especially Arch Oboler's famous Light's Out series. The people who created these shows had to generate suspense by relying on scripts, sound effects, and casting. With those tools, they managed to find suspense in outlandish plots. Also, watch spooky movies that rely on atmosphere rather than gore, such as the famous Curse of the Demon and the original version of The Haunting. I really enjoyed Kay Hooper's romantic suspense novel Finding Laura , but I would have loved it if the heroine had been given a harder time.

She found the information she needed too easily, and that took away from some of the suspense. This was too much like mystery novels where the detectives just about stumble on the solutions rather than having to work through obstacles to find out what they needed to know. This problem reared its ugly head for me just the other day.

I was writing a ghost story, and when the character first came back as a ghost, he was angry and creepy. Then, he disappeared, and in the next scene, while he was a little creepy, he soon became After writing several scenes that followed, I realized something was missing.

Interesting stuff! So I changed the order and tone of one of the scenes, and the effect was terrific -- or was that terror-ific? My hero was scared out of his wits for several pages instead of just a few paragraphs. Heck, so was I, even though I knew it would all turn out all right.

Real Life Should Intrude Yes, romances are often fantasies with larger-than-life characters and fairy tale plots. Yet when suspense is involved, real life should intrude. Adding plenty of real-life details makes the suspense feel closer to home. A heroine running down the street might latch on to one or two tiny concrete details as she tries to get away from the stalker. Maybe someone is playing "Every Little Breath You Take" too loudly from their car radio, and she realizes the lyrics makes her think of stalkers.

Or take a different contemporary situation, not romantic suspense at all. A heroine who owns a restaurant is worried that the new restaurant down the street will take away some of her business. What might she notice as she walks through her restaurant, making sure it's ship-shape. She won't just notice how clean it is, she might notice things like the way her chef's hat is a little crooked or the waitresses are talking about a new TV show they like.

You don't have to be writing a contemporary novel to use real life in your story. This device is valuable, as it allows readers to make connections between themes, characters, symbols, and more—both within a literary work and between works of literature. Here are some examples of foreshadowing and how it adds to the significance of well-known literary works:.

You seen what they done to my dog tonight? Steinbeck utilizes foreshadowing in Of Mice and Men in a very subtle manner. Most readers are shocked by the ending of the novel. However, Steinbeck incorporates an earlier scene in the story that mirrors and hints at the final outcome.

Candy confesses to George the agony of his decision to let Carlson kill his dog, the regret of not having done so himself, and his fear that he will have nobody to put him out of his own misery when the time comes. This scene foreshadows the decision George must make regarding Lennie at the end of the novel. The old lady began to cry and The Misfit reddened. As a result, the reader is simultaneously prepared for yet surprised by the plot reveal that the family does meet The Misfit, and that he is recognized and acknowledged by the grandmother.

Definition of Foreshadowing Foreshadowing is a literary device that writers utilize as a means to indicate or hint to readers something that is to follow or appear later in a story.