I watched a summer TV show earlier this week that opened with the bad guy kidnapping and threatening to kill THE STAR of the show. It was at this point that I fetched my copy of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and started reading a new story.

How gullible do these writers think we viewers are? It’s the fourth week of a six to eight week run and their killing off THE STAR? Not going to happen (unless THE STAR is leaving the show, but we’d have read about that in People weeks before the show aired). This plotline is used often in TV shows, and maybe this recycling of story lines is another reason why people are turning off their televisions. In addition, to rephrase an old commercial, where’s the suspense?

Steve Almond, in This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey, provides an excellent example of what suspense is in his chapter “Suspense Vs Surprise.” Yes, I’m stealing Steve’s idea, but he claims to have stolen it from Bruce Machart, whom Steve assumes stole it from someone else. Anyway, here’s a paraphrase of Steve’s idea of a surprise.

Steve walks into his class, gives his lecture, and at the end of the class, pulls a gun from his briefcase and shoots one of the students.

I would say that qualifies as a surprise. Here’s his example of suspense.

Steve walks into his class, removes a Colt Python .357 Magnum Revolver from his briefcase, lays it on the desk, and begins his lecture.

“Umm… Mr. Almond?” I say, raising the hand of the person sitting next to me. “May I be excused to go to the bathroom?” Oh yea, that’s suspense.

Mr. Almond (I always address men with big guns “Mr.” You don’t?) ends the chapter with this wonderful quote.

“What brings us to stories, the ultimate source of suspense, isn’t what happens, but how and why it happens.”

And our character must be in a believable situation for the suspense to work.

Hmm, I wonder if the quote works if I substitute “tension” for “suspense.” What do you think?

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Jim discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His Six Questions For blog provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” In his spare time, he serves as the flash fiction editor for Apollo’s Lyre .