Impact of good mystery suspense

Have you ever read a story or watched a movie that feels draggy and slow that your focus began to wander off? Likewise, have you ever come across a movie which is so spectacular, with fast paced action scenes and cool effects but feels empty after the whole thing?


I believe you have. It is sad to see that most mainstream and blockbuster movies nowadays easily fall under the second type which I mentioned above. There are some which try to deviate from the typical blatant approach by emphasizing on suspense over action, yet sometimes they end up falling short of an engaging experience.
The suspense is interesting at first. Then it just builds up, revealing very little bits throughout the whole movie, and just when you are ready for all your questions to be answered, the story ends with a simple resolution that erupts great dissatisfaction.


The correct use of suspense mystery in novel writing is very important in engaging your reader. Not just novel writing actually, but even for movie and game story as well. Suspense is like the ticking time bomb of your plot, anticipating and involving the reader so he/she would want to know what happens in the end.

The same suspense cannot go on without a resolution or it will lose the reader. It has to be explained and moved on to another stage of suspense. Whether you want the suspense to be explained completely or only partially at certain point is up to your judgment. Just remember whatever suspense you decide to keep from the reader, it has to be unfurled before the story ends.

Thus it is probably best to roughly plan your ending and other major plot points before you start writing your story so you will have control of where you want to lead your reader and not get lost in creating suspense without much purpose or meaning.

Let's take a look at a scene from ''Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' and ''Transformers'' to see how the mood of suspense in a scene, when used effectively, can engage the audience more. In the Terminator 2 asylum scene, there is very little cg effects and explosion compared to those in Transformers. Yet the scene in Terminator 2 is more intense. What do you think?

Asylum Scene from Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Battle Scenes from Transformers