The Paradox of Suspense - Uncertainty in Familiarity
The Paradox of Suspense - Uncertainty in Familiarity
While working with my debut literary fiction novella Apartment, which was released in 2021, I was been extremely interested in the suspense genre in general. That's how I came to learn about a paradox that deals with suspense, whether it be in movies, books, music, or whatever other form of media. In order to understand this so-called paradox of suspense, however, you must understand the definition of suspense.
In his article, "The Paradox of Suspense",
Aaron Smuts explains that there are two prerequisites for creating
suspense. The first is that there needs to be an uncertainty about how
the plot will resolve itself; without that uncertainty, there can be no
suspense. If the reader already knows exactly what to expect and how the
plot is going to be wrapped up, there's no suspense spurring them to
keep reading. The second is that there needs to be something important
at stake, because without that, there's no reason for the reader or
audience to hope for a positive outcome or fear for a negative one. In other words, again you are left with no suspense.
The main idea to keep in mind for this article is this: To feel suspense, you as the audience have to be uncertain about what happens next.
For instance, say you purchase a suspense novel and read it. The first time around, the suspense grips you, and you need to find out what will happen next! How will everything be resolved?! But the next time you pick up the book, you've already been through it once; you know exactly what's going to happen, and that familiarity makes it seem impossible that you would feel the suspense still. This will also translate to other media as well. Say the book is turned into a movie. You want to watch it, but will it have the same suspense that you felt when reading the book for the first time? By knowing the plot and the resolution, it appears to logically follow that you might not feel the suspense as deeply as viewers watching the movie for the first time without having previously been exposed to the book.
So: without uncertainty, there shouldn't be any suspense, and therefore audiences that are returning to a piece of suspense media they've already consumed and become familiar with shouldn't feel the suspense.
The issue at hand, however, is that repeat audiences do feel the suspense upon returning to the content in question, even if they've watched it a number of times before. Given that uncertainty about how the plot will develop is a key element in suspense, this behaviour proves paradoxical. How is it possible, then? Do we need to change the definition that we have created of suspense to include this widely-accepted phenomenon?
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Source:
"Confronting a Paradox:
A New Perspective of the Impact of Uncertainty in Suspense"
Deltorre et al.
Delatorre et al. seem to take this route to coming to terms with this paradox, removing the need for uncertainty as a prerequisite for suspense. They hypothesized that:
"Emotions experienced by the audience in a suspenseful scene involve –although it is not limited to– an optional component called ‘uncertainty’ that is generated by a lack of information and it is not restricted to suspenseful scenes. This component is different from the mandatory component called ‘suspense,’ that is generated by an outcome anticipation."
The results of their experiment, in which they had subjects read the same story more than once, were quite surprising. The second time a story was read, it was generally found to be more suspenseful (among many other findings). They sought to explain this in two different ways:
- "The first explanation would be that uncertainty is effectively a part of suspense... but it is not essential to create suspense... From this point of view, uncertainty as part of suspense would only contribute to the emotion experienced the first time in which the story is encountered. In subsequent expositions to the same story, other factors involved in suspense would take over in driving the experience of suspense."
- "An alternative approach is to deny that uncertainty is a feature of suspense. Such an approach suggests that uncertainty and suspense arise from different sources, given that uncertainty can exist independently from suspense and, as our results show, audience reports –sometimes a higher– suspense in absence of uncertainty."
They settled on the second explanation as the more logical one, given that there are many scholars who believe that uncertainty is not a prerequisite for suspense - including Aaron Smuts, who has also posited a range of theories to explain the paradox.
* * *
Source:
"The Paradox of Suspense"
(Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)
Aaron Smuts
Smuts shares a number of reasons that may explain the paradox in question: "(1) the thought theory of entertained uncertainty, (2) the desire-frustration theory of suspense, (3) the moment-by-moment forgetting theory, and (4) the emotional misidentification view." Here is a brief explanation of each theory:
Entertained Uncertainty
A thought theory posited by Noel Carroll (as well as Peter Lamarque and Murray Smith) argues that we don't need to have the actual uncertainty that we experience the first time we consume a piece of suspenseful media. Instead, it is enough to simply imagine or entertain the idea that something else might happen, and this in itself creates a somewhat superficial uncertainty, despite our knowing that these alternate events will not occur because we've already familiarized ourselves with the plot.
This theory has had some criticism, mainly owing to the same explanation provided by Deltorres et al. in their study, in which they recognized that suspense can actually increase the second time the audience reads a book or watches a film. This is due to the fact that the audience knows what is coming and expects it - dreads it.
Desire-Frustration Theory of Suspense
This is the theory that Smuts stands behind, which is the idea that "the frustration of a desire to affect the outcome of an immanent event is both necessary and sufficient to create suspense." In other words, he, too, agrees with Deltorres et al. that uncertainty is not a prerequisite for suspense.
The main idea here is this: "In contrast with our engagement with real situations, where we can actively work towards the satisfaction of a desire, in engaging with fictions we are completely powerless."
This powerlessness creates both a desire for a specific outcome, and a frustration as we are unable to realize that outcome ourselves. In fiction, we have no control. We cannot tell the characters that splitting up is a horrible idea, or that going out alone in the dead of night isn't the smartest decision to make. This leads us into a sense of frustration and desire that creates suspense - despite there being no uncertainty.
Moment-by-Moment Forgetting Theory
This theory argues that uncertainty is a requirement of suspense, and that the paradox of suspense can simply be explained by the idea that as we revisit a piece of suspense media, we can both know what's going to happen and yet still remain uncertain while we experience the story develop. This theory, posited by Richard Gerrig and which he refers to as "anomalous suspense", has to do with how we as humans are able (or unable) to recall information, especially under stress.
However, Gerrig's theory lacks a satisfying method through which to explain the phenomenon of going back and reading a story to pick up on elements that as audiences we generally think nothing of the first time around - an activity that requires recalling information about the story in a way that may not fit with Gerrig's theory of anomalous suspense.
For example, in Apartment there are a lot of important bits and pieces that I share but do no bring attention to - information that is important to the understanding of character development and even foreshadowing. They aren't meant to be picked up on by the audience until the audience receives a form of revelation later on in the book. This makes going back and reading the book an activity in recalling what the audience now knows after finishing the book, and using that to identify these otherwise unassuming pieces of information that have been placed throughout the story.
Emotional Misidentification View
As I was reading all of the above, I realized that for me it seems to logically boil down to what definitions you are using. Is the audience feeling suspense the second time around, or is it more accurate to claim that they are feeling a sense of anticipation due to their expectation? Is that the same thing as suspense? If not, then can it be said that suspense is a one-time only emotion, and that all other times one revisits a book or movie, they're only feeling the expectation and anticipation of what they know is going to happen?
So, when I arrived at this theory and found that the scholar positing it - Robert Yanal - is essentially sharing a similar view, I was intrigued. Yanal argues that audiences who claim to feel suspense as they revisit pieces of fiction in which they first felt suspense are in fact only mislabeling the emotions they are truly feeling, as suspense, if we go along with its widely-accepted definition, requires uncertainty in order to be present. If uncertainty is not present, then it cannot be suspense. Therefore, it must be a similar emotion, and audience members may simply be confusing the terms or unable to label them correctly.
There are many critiques against this theory, of course - and I think this to be only natural, since emotions in particular are difficult to differentiate and quantify, and since there is no guarantee that everyone feels everything in the same way or to the same degree. It makes it a very shaky foundation upon which we have set all theories!
* * *
It seems to me that this paradox is only a paradox if you accept certain requirements, such as the idea that suspense hinges upon the cognitive uncertainty that a viewer or reader feels upon experiencing a book or movie that is meant to be suspenseful. If you do not accept this as a prerequisite, however, the paradox stops being a paradox. I also think that labeling this phenomenon a paradox creates a definition of suspense that is perhaps too limiting, and in that sense I lean towards the idea that either uncertainty is not a requirement of suspense (though works as an optional feature creating suspense), or that there may be different kinds of suspense coexisting, made up of different features, but ultimately all suspense.
There are, in fact, a lot of additional dimensions and perspectives to this paradox that I strongly recommend you read about in the shared articles, linked throughout this blog post. These scholarly articles are available in full and have been eye-opening to me, as an author of suspense. Perhaps by reading them you can come to your own conclusions about what, exactly, is required for suspense to be created (and re-created) for audiences.
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The Take-Away For Readers & Authors
Alright, so that's a lot of new information to keep in mind. What does this mean for authors of suspense? What does it mean for readers? Now, I'm no philosopher or great thinker, but here are my two cents after learning about this paradox and mulling it over for a while.
As a reader, I found this intriguing. It is true that I enjoy reading mysteries and thrillers all over again in order to experience that same thrill and suspense of a greatly woven plot. I also think that there are other factors that contribute to my repeated enjoyment of the same books and movies that are not entirely predicated on the assumption that it must be the same suspense that I feel the second time around. The suspense is never the same for me - but it is suspense nevertheless. In this way, it's important for me to note here that there are other factors that play into it.
For one thing, I enjoy delving deep into a story that I had previously only enjoyed at a surface level. This is one of the many reasons that I like to go back and experience a story all over again - and this is most common with suspense-heavy books like murder mysteries or thrillers. I don't think this is a coincidence. Because I enjoy this so much, and because I think that it lends itself to more anticipation in the second, third, or nth read-through, I've also gone to great lengths to include a similar element in my upcoming novella, Apartment.
As an author, the big take-away for me is that, regardless of why people seem to feel suspense on repeated consumption of a specific movie, book, etc., the important thing is that it does happen. As a writer of suspense, that's an crucial point to keep in mind, because one of my main goals with my books is to create stories that can be enjoyed repeatedly without a lessening of the emotional investment in the stories themselves.
Learning about this paradox has also taught me more about writing suspense on a more technical level, because I understand more clearly, through reading these articles, what goes into suspense for audiences, and how to ensure that the books I write have elements that make them page-turners. There's still a lot to learn - I think there always will be - but I think this is a crucial part of understanding how to write suspense, because it lets you understand how your readers will most likely experience your suspense.
~⭐~
Check out my psychological thriller Apartment. Add it to your TBR on Goodreads!
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