SUSPENSE!!!

Suspense, when it appears in a novel is a compilcated component. Some stories are written to maintain suspense throughout the story line. Most of the suspense I incorporate in my stories is timed suspense. It's written to take the read on highs and lows and keep the main point of the story in the middle - making it enjoyable because you never know when the pace will change.

Sometimes humor can be suspenseful. Not all suspense is drama. One trick of many authors is to do a quick turn from humor to drama in a sentence. It raises the level of cognitive dissonance i.e. Feeling different things at one time Happy/Sad, Calm/Excited, Relaxed/Alert... and so on.

Another device an author can use to create suspense and throw the reader off is something called a "Red Herring". It's a specific item in a book that seems to have importance to the story but either is dropped and never mentioned again, or its importance to the story is greatly diminished. There is a "Red Herring" in Flesh, Bone, Clone (copyright©2014 Edward R. Murphy) it's an interesting part of the book but not an essential part that the reader is lead to believe.

I hope you enjoy the cognitive dissonance in my books.. Perhaps it will cause the hair to rise on the back of your neck or a sharp chill to run down your spine.

Keep reading - It was reported today that ebooks have overtaken paper books in sales amount. 52% ebooks vs. 48% paper books.

ERM