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• Joseph Brenner commented on Suspense is the key
  I think the real issue here is that communication involves context, and you can't develop context without saying something first, so the initial things you say have to rely on pre-existing shared context; the "hook" then is stuck relying on things that seem base and primal (if played right) or trashy, horrible cliches (if played wrong)....
• Joseph Brenner commented on Suspense is the key
  96: that's besides the point. You read stuff, it works or it doesn't, and you if you're so inclinced you think about why it works or it doesn't (and if you're not so inclined you just recite some critical cliches like "weak characters", "unbelievable plot" that don't actually explain anything)....
• Joseph Brenner commented on Suspense is the key
  Granted, you need to care about what's going to happen, but for me personally the doctrine of "suspense" is really trashy and off-putting (though I gather it's also really popular, so you have to wonder "what do I know?"). Me, I think fiction is about reader-identification with the protagonists problem, where the reader sees the world the same way the protagonist does, and ideally the reader knows no more or less than the main character at every point. The Hitchcock example (that you brought up, not me) is the kind of thing that always has me rolling my eyes: when...
• Joseph Brenner commented on Suspense is the key
  Re: 48 "Doorways in the Sand" was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager, and I've read it several times, but I hadn't noticed that every chapter starts with a flash-foward, though don't doubt that it's true (I can remember several of them without looking). At a guess: since Zelazny was experimenting with cranking out a book in a single draft, he decided to use this "IMR"-every-chapter as a structuring device. This is a very odd book in many ways, it's superficially a "fun", "light-hearted" work, but not without a certain amount of heavier punch to it--...
• Rocketgeek commented on Suspense is the key
  My favorite use of in media res is Verne's "The Mysterious Island", at least in part because it's several layers deep. The initial layer, how our heroes found themselves in the balloon, is dealt with quickly. But the island's various secrets are another matter entirely......