ABSTRACT
The experience of suspense essentially lies in equally calculating, expecting, and evaluating a coming event. I call this activity anticipation. It consists of several different acts:
Given information should not only be understood as such, but should also be regarded as the starting point for future developments in a story, social situation, or course of events.
It is necessary to draw up a scenario of what is coming from what the text has informed viewers and what viewers know outside of the text—about life, physics, and psychology in general, but also about genres and modes of narrative.
The future situations in the plot are an ensemble of alternative possibilities that are more or less probable—and it is in the acts of anticipation that the degree of probability with which the story can develop in one or another direction can be calculated.
Finally, the individual possibilities can be evaluated and possible counteractions by the protagonist conceived. Only this scenario will create the conditions for the feeling of suspense: There is no experience of suspense without anticipation!
