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The most powerful magnifier of emotion is anticipation. Dread multiplies horror. All horror films play on this basic emotional truth. If you want to produce the most profound emotional impact on th...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2020-01-03T20:41:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35481 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T08:37:19Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35481 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T08:37:19Z (about 5 years ago)
The most powerful magnifier of emotion is anticipation. Dread multiplies horror. All horror films play on this basic emotional truth. If you want to produce the most profound emotional impact on the reader, you must build their anticipation. Full immersion is not necessarily the best way to do this. You may start there, but anticipation needs silence, it needs a respite in which to settle in, in which to seep into the bones. And at the end, you have to let the reader run on ahead of you, get to the climactic horror even before you do. When you do that, there is little left to do at the end. You merely confirm what they have already seen, the destination that you have led them to and that they have run on, at the end, on tenterhooks with anticipation, and seen before you get there, based on all that you have prepared them to expect.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-04-25T02:54:50Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 4