How Does W. F. Harvey Create Suspense

Horror stories are designed to make our pulses race and our skin tingle. A great horror story can reflect people’s biggest fears. They can also make us curious as well. Many horror stories create some type of suspense throughout the story line. All good horror stories feature a great deal of suspense. Suspense is the uncertainty or anxiety you feel about what will happen next in a story. In the short story, August Heat by W.F. Harvey, the author creates a lot of of suspense within it. Some methods that create some type of suspense are foreshadowing, or when an important character we care about is in peril.
Foreshadowing is the use of hints to suggest events later in the plot, a horror writer may use foreshadowing to suggest a frightening

event that awaits a main character. The main character in August Heat is James Clarence, a forty year old man who’s in the most perfect health and by perfect he means he’s never been sick a day in his life, who is a not very successful artist but makes enough money by his black and white work. Clarence goes out and about and meets another character Mr. Atkinson who, in which works in a Monumental Mason place where he makes headstones. Mr. Atkinson finishes making a random headstone and insisted that Clarence look at it, and when he did he was shocked. The headstone read, “Sacred to the memory of James Clarence Withencroft: Born Jan. 18, 1860. He passed away very suddenly on: August 20th, 190-” This example of foreshadowing from the story creates some suspense because we all know that James is well and alive especially since he’s never been sick a day in his life. So for Mr. Atkinson to make a random headstone with James’ name and birthday, which are both correct, and the day he is supposed to “die” but we will never know when that day will come or if it will ever come anytime soon.
When a character is in peril or must choose between two dangerous courses of action, it is only obvious that the reader is gonna keep on reading the story to find out what is gonna happen next. After they question the headstone making, Mr. Atkinson invites James in for supper and he and Mr. Atkinson continued their mysterious conversation about the headstone. Mr. Atkinson does suggest for James to stay with him for the night until midnight at least when that day is over just in case when James walks his quick hour walk to get back to his home he doesn’t get into any accidents. And so he does.
Suspense can be created in various ways throughout a story or even movies and tv shows. Often times we’re too caught up in the suspense to even realize it’s there. A lot of times it also doesn’t have to be horror stories, or movies, that have suspense in them. When a story has us in suspense we can feel almost as if we are suspended in midair, or we may even hold our breath without realizing that we are doing so as we’re eagerly reading on to see how the story ends.