Quick reminder: the Finish Strong: Writing an Act 3 That Delivers workshop is next Sunday, May 17th. There's still time to sign up. With the extra week, I'm rewatching movies I'll use as examples. 😊 If you have a suggestion, send it my way!

Today's topic...

Suspense isn't just for thrillers (4 ways to use it in your script)

Suspense is one of the most powerful tools for creating audience engagement. But if your first thought is, “This doesn’t apply to me because I don’t write thrillers…” stay tuned, and you just might reconsider.

Suspense is a useful storytelling tool in any genre. And once you understand how it works, you can use it intentionally in virtually any screenplay.

Suspense is especially valuable in slower-burn stories.

If your plot unfolds gradually, suspense can keep the audience engaged even when the external action is minimal. An unanswered question, looming threat, unresolved emotional possibility, or delayed outcome can maintain our interest until bigger plot developments show up.

The promise of a payoff or resolution assures the audience that their patience will be rewarded. So rather than drifting, they lean forward.

And that can be the difference between a script that feels slow in an absorbing way… and one that just feels slow.

Suspense is really about anticipation

Suspense is created whenever a story delays resolution in a meaningful way.

The story presents a question, threat, deadline, mystery, looming collision, or emotional possibility. An open loop. And the audience is compelled to stay engaged because they anticipate the outcome. They want to know how that loop closes.

• In When Harry Met Sally, there’s suspense in whether two people will finally end up together.
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• In Jaws, it’s whether the shark will strike again.
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• In Little Miss Sunshine, it’s whether the family can make it to the pageant so Olive can compete.

Different genres. Same fundamental mechanism:

Anticipation + delayed payoff = audience engagement

Without suspense, scenes may function structurally but still feel flat. Characters move through events. Information is delivered. All the necessary things are happening, but the audience isn’t urgently anticipating what’s coming.

The script may even be “good,” but it doesn’t create that irresistible I have to keep reading effect.

Because suspense is the art of making an audience need to know what happens next.

Four easy ways to build suspense

Let’s look at a few practical ways suspense can work inside your screenplay.

1. The ticking clock

This is perhaps the most recognizable suspense tool. A deadline is introduced, and tension increases as time runs out.

Examples:

• Defuse the bomb before it explodes
• Find new evidence before the trial
• Confess your feelings before The One boards the plane

The ticking clock works because time itself becomes an obstacle. Even simple goals seem more compelling when urgency is introduced.

2. Collision course (inevitable confrontation)

This form of suspense occurs when we're shown the opposing forces are set on an unavoidable path toward confrontation or collision.

Examples:

• A character’s lie is on the verge of colliding with the truth
• The villain is closing in on the hero
• Two rivals racing toward the same prize

Often, the audience can see the impending clash before the characters fully do, and that anticipation creates tension.

The audience knows impact is coming. They just don’t know when — or how devastating it will be. The result can be dramatic irony, dread, excitement, or emotional pressure.

The suspense comes from conflict feeling unavoidable but unpredictable.

3. Cross-cutting (and cliffhangers)

This is a classic momentum-building technique in which the story alternates between multiple unfolding situations, often ending each segment at a moment of uncertainty.

In simpler terms: the story moves back and forth between unresolved threads to keep anticipation high.

Examples:

• Hero battles villain while sidekick attempts rescue
• Two simultaneous heists
• A family crisis unfolding alongside a professional catastrophe

(I even noticed this technique while rewatching Spotlight, which cuts back and forth between separate interviews as the journalists hear survivors’ stories for the first time.)

By cutting away from one tense situation to another, the story maintains momentum and amplifies engagement. The audience carries tension from one sequence into the next, increasing investment across both.

If your story feels overly linear, consider whether layering multiple suspense threads could create more energy.

4. Secrets, mysteries, and withheld information

Sometimes suspense comes less from urgency or collisions, and more from curiosity. This is the most direct “open loop” scenario: create a compelling question, and the audience wants answers.

Examples:

• What really happened?
• Who knows the truth?
• What is being hidden?
• What is this object?
• When will the reveal happen?

This can be external, of course, but also emotional: a betrayal, a family secret, an unknown motive, a character withholding their true feelings.

And remember, there’s a thin line between confusion and curiosity. Suspense here comes from strategic withholding — cultivating curiosity without tipping into confusion.

Unresolved tension = engagement

Compelling stories often keep audiences engaged by making them wait, wonder, fear, or hope.

This doesn’t mean artificially dragging things out. It means designing the story around unresolved tension. It’s about purposeful delay.

Suspense can operate at every level of storytelling — across an entire plot, within individual sequences, or moment to moment inside a single scene.

Suspense can be plot-driven, relationship-based, emotional, or internal. Will they win? Will the relationship survive? Will the truth come out? Will the character change?

When reviewing a scene, ask:

• What is the audience anticipating?
• What unresolved question exists?
• Where is the tension?
• What uncertainty is present?
• Why does the audience need to keep watching?

If the answer is “nothing,” the scene may be functional… but not compelling.

The real question to ask

Suspense is not optional, and it’s certainly not reserved only for thrillers.

It’s one of the most reliable ways to create irresistible narrative pull. Because ultimately, audiences stay engaged when they care about outcomes that have not yet been resolved.

So if your script feels flat, don’t just ask:

“Is enough happening?”

Ask:

“Am I creating enough anticipation?”

That question alone can be the difference between a script that is competent, and one readers can’t put down.

Until next time,

Naomi