What an Interruption Does
Three named effects
- Those structures can directly affect readers' experiences with a text by creating anticipation or suspense or building tension.
- Anticipation is knowing something is coming; suspense is not knowing how it ends.
- Building tension is a process rather than a state — it accumulates.
Select all the effects the CED names for these structures.
All three are effects on the reader's experience of the text.
The effect is on the reader, not the characters
- The CED says readers' experiences with a text — the sentence is about you, not about anyone in the book.
- So the analysis names what the reader knows, expects or fears at a given page.
- A character's tension is plot; a reader's tension is structure.
The effect these structures produce is on...
A character's tension is plot; a reader's tension is structure.
Matching structure to effect
- Foreshadowing usually creates anticipation, because the reader now knows something is coming.
- In medias res usually creates suspense, because the reader does not yet know how anything connects.
- Neither pairing is automatic — say which effect this interruption produces, and why.
Anticipation, suspense, or tension building?
Sort each reader state by the CED's three effects.
Anticipation is knowing something is coming; suspense is not knowing how it ____.
Most passages produce one of the two, not both.
Anticipation and suspense are not the same effect. Anticipation is the reader knowing something is coming; suspense is the reader not knowing how it ends. A foreshadow that tells you a room will be opened creates anticipation; withholding what is inside creates suspense — and most passages do one, not both.
One piece of evidence is enough to show tension building.
Building is cumulative — the second instance confirms the first was deliberate.
Tension builds across a book
- Because building tension is cumulative, it is the effect that needs more than one piece of evidence.
- Two foreshadows are more than twice one, because the second confirms that the first was deliberate.
- So an argument about tension should quote from at least two places.
Put the interruption-function pass in order.
Only tension needs the last two steps — the other effects are local.
An interruption-function pass
- For each interruption you found, say what the reader knows immediately after it.
- Name the effect: anticipation, suspense, or tension building.
- For tension, find the second instance — one alone cannot show accumulation.
Chapter two names a locked room. Anticipation: the reader now expects it to be opened. Chapter nineteen mentions it again, unopened. Suspense: the reader now does not know whether it will be. Two mentions, and the second is what turns anticipation into building tension.
Chronology-breaking structures affect readers' experiences by creating anticipation or suspense or building tension — effects on the reader, not the characters. Anticipation = knowing something is coming; suspense = not knowing how it ends; tension builds, so it needs evidence from at least two places.