Look up Suspense in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

For the film, see Suspense (film).

For the radio program, see Suspense (radio program).

For the genre, see Thriller (genre).

Suspense or tension is the feeling of uncertainty and interest about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. However, suspense is not exclusive to literature. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... Suspense is a 1946 film directed by Frank Tuttle. ... Suspense, one of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled radios outstanding theater of thrills. ... The thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, and television. ...

Aristotle

According to Aristotle's Poetics, suspense is an important building block of drama. In very broad terms, it consists of having some real danger looming and a ray of hope. The two common outcomes can be Aristotles Poetics aims to give an account of poetry. ...

• the danger hits, whereby the audience will feel sorrowful
• the hope comes true, whereby the audience will first feel joy, then satisfaction.

If there is no hope, the audience will feel despair. Despair in common usage is the condition of having abandoned hope. ...

Suspense in Dramatic Works

• Alfred Hitchcock is considered to be one of the premier directors of suspense film.

• Robert Ludlum has written many books in the international suspense genre. In The Bourne Identity series, the main character has amnesia. He does not remember who he is, what he does, or how he got there -- these techniques are used to increase suspense and curiosity in the reader.

• Video games such as the Half-Life series and Crysis have certain degrees of suspense. In Crysis, the aliens will not be revealed until the player enters the alien ship.

This article or section includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... Robert Ludlum (May 25, 1927 New York City â€“ March 12, 2001 Naples, Florida) was an American author of 29 thriller novels, and was educated at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. ... The Bourne Identity is a 1980 spy fiction thriller by Robert Ludlum about an amnesiac who must discover who he is and why several different groups, including an assassin and the CIA, are trying to kill him. ... Half-Life For a quantity subject to exponential decay, the half-life is the time required for the quantity to fall to half of its initial value. ... For the particle accelerator, see CRYSIS. Crysis is an upcoming science fiction first-person shooter computer game that is currently in development by German developer Crytek. ...

See also

• Aristotle's Poetics