Dissecting Dragons: Episode 194: Creaky Floorboards & Locked Doors - Learning Tension and Suspense from Gothic Fiction

Creaky Floorboards & Locked Doors - Learning Tension and Suspense from Gothic Fiction

 

Whether you write the grittiest crime, the goriest horror or the sweetest romance, if you want to keep a reader hooked until the end of the book,your story must include tension and suspense. This is not just for mystery novels and ghost stories! So how do you create suspense? How is it different to tension? What methods are employed to keep a reader engrossed? While you can learn these things from any genre, since it is the season of All Hallowtide, Jules and Madeleine decided that it would be fun to take a selection of Gothic novels and demonstrate how the authors use these techniques. You can then apply them to any genre you like. On the slab this week Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and man more. 

 

Title music: Ecstasy by Smiling Cynic