Silence in thrillers — is anticipation more terrifying than action? > Likes and Comments

Sometimes it’s not the scream or the chase that scares the most — it’s the silence before something happens.
That heavy pause when you know something is coming, but you don’t know what.

Do you feel that anticipation can be more terrifying than the action itself?
Any book or movie scenes where this worked perfectly for you?

I used to pride myself on being able to figure out the “who did it” if a thriller. Now, I realize it’s the authenticity of the building of suspense. If it’s believable, it’s the building of suspense. True, authentic writing. Now, saying this, even a fantasy or “out of this world” story can be authentic. I can even believe fantasy if the writing makes me believe.

That’s so true, Ruth. What truly scares me is when a story feels too real — when you start to notice that it could actually happen.
You see a bit of it in people, in quiet moments, even in yourself… and that’s when the line between fiction and reality begins to fade.

I watch a lot of YouTube videos and guy Rick Beato has done AI music AI voice a complete song and critique the music and lyrics and says it’s good sounds real not real enough to him. AI has done a lot of things to make books more real. What seems like a good deal and to some extent does make it more real r interesting.

Great observation. When I read, I tend to visualize actors or actresses in my head for each character. I know audio books or popular, but I like to form my own visual in my head. AI would be an interesting alternative to audiobooks. I have tried audiobooks while I’m running on the treadmill….i get too distracted and can’t keep up, so I’ve done away with audio. If AI would do them and sound authentic, I would give the another try.

I agree — AI can be impressive, but it’s still just a tool, like a typewriter or a camera. It can imitate, but it can’t truly create.
The human imagination goes far beyond algorithms — you can feel it in the tension, in that silence before something is born, before light or darkness takes shape.
That’s where real stories come from.

When you talked about the heavy pause before something happens, that’s why cliffhangers are so important. It’s usually followed by a turning point in the story.

I treat books similar to an interpretation of how classical music is written. I see 4 acts in my mind so I see where the story flows. As you mentioned Ruth, cliffhangers do mark a change. It’s the third part, ending is the fourth. Some books start with the ending then the beginning. Most don’t , in my opinion.

It fascinates me the different elements in stories…there are some authors that can switch time settings in stories (one chapter in the past, then a chapter in present) and some authors just can’t do that. The story tends to lend itself to time settings, but some authors can pull it off better.

You are so correct in the fact of time present and past. I don’t remember the book but it was head spinning where am I in this story.

I think it’s a risk for an author to do that, but when it works, it’s great. If it doesn’t work, the story gets jumbled. The same thing when authors use too many characters. I almost need a poster board to list characters and who they are.

sometimes a whisper is louder than a shout..."Evil doesn't always come in a roar"...I! read that somewhere lol

Beware the silent types for they listen and plan. Good or evil one never knows.

I just finished the third installment of Be Not Afraid series written by our very own Vasyl!!!! What a fantastic read. It was intense, yet riveting. If you have never read a religious thriller, I recommend it. I learned and was reminded how easily demons and angels can come into your lives. Always be aware.

Thank you, Ruth — that truly means a lot to me. I’m glad the intensity came through and that the story left something to reflect on. I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts here.

Yes, try reading 'At Dark, I Become Loathsome'!

Thanks for the recommendation, Cellardoor. I haven’t read that one yet, but now I’m curious. I’ll definitely take a look.

I thnk action scenes - chases, fighting, etc - have some element of control. The tension comes from whether the victim can get away, can fight back, can out-think the bad guy but excitement and suspense are pretty equal. You can fight, escape, outwit what you know but not what you don't know so the unknown is always going to be more scary.

That’s a great point, Barbara — action can create tension through movement and control, but the unknown lingers longer. Maybe that’s why anticipation often stays with us after the scene ends.

Oh Barbara, I am all in for a chase. I watch a lot of thrillers, and movie, and not to mention Patrol Live, love a chase.

A good chase definitely has its place. Do you find it scarier when the danger is visible and immediate, or when it stays just out of reach for a while?

I think what you can't see is scarier than what you can see because when you can't see it you imagine the worst, and you don't know what its coming at you. I always thought movies like Open Water were scarier than the traditional monster movies.

Open Water. I have to look that movie up. Do you know about when it was made? Who was any of the actor's?..Oh, I looked it up...yeah I remember that movie, its about 10 years or so old? yes.....I remember when JAWS came out, and then the music played before the shark appeared,,haha, man oh man...

Action along with music creates the tone of the movie or tv show. So often the action locks us into a separation zone that we don’t enjoy the music that lead us to that moment.

That’s a great point — music often prepares the fear before the action arrives. Sometimes the scene hits harder because the score has already guided us there.

What would Star Wars be without the fantastic score that was written. That’s one that always sticks out for me. As stated the thrilling parts are usually led by music that plays a large part in making the anticipation of what you think will happen then it’s something entirely different that makes you jump or increases your heart rate for a short period of time.

Absolutely — a great score does more than support a scene. It shapes expectation, and sometimes the fear starts there before anything even happens on screen.

I can remember the opening of The Exorcist....now that one was something else...

So Ruth, what movie music got you going?

New member here---

Sometimes I think the thrill of the chase is the product of what leads up to it. It might be an inevitable collision or a sudden development, but it has to come from somewhere. The slow burn, the silence, also relies on an origin. For it to land, it has to be foreshadowed to an extent. It cannot be random, or it doesn't make sense.

There is a third alternative...dramatic irony. You know more than the characters. In film, this is illustrated by Hitchcock's "bomb method," where the audience knows there is a bomb under the table, but the character's do not. The audience is left to twist in anticipation of the explosion while the characters are ignorant. I am not aware of any singular scene constructed like that in a book, but developed over the arc or a story or longer section it can be quite effective.

One thing I keep thinking about is that silence in thrillers works because it gives the reader too much space.

A chase tells us what the danger is.
Silence makes us imagine what the danger might be.

Maybe that is why a closed door, an unanswered phone, an empty corridor, or a room where someone has suddenly stopped speaking can sometimes be more frightening than violence on the page.

Do you think suspense is stronger when the danger is delayed — or when it finally arrives?

There seems to be a lot of movies that are being made from book sells. Anyone else noticed this?

I agree, Chris — silence has to come from somewhere. If it is not planted, it becomes empty space. But when the reader feels that something has been delayed, hidden, or misunderstood, silence can become more frightening than action.

The Hitchcock example is a very good one. In fiction, I think that kind of tension works when the reader begins to understand the danger before the characters do — through small details, context, or things the characters fail to notice.

For me, the strongest suspense often comes from waiting for the characters to realize what the reader has already begun to fear.

And Stephanie, yes, I’ve noticed that too. Books often give filmmakers a tested emotional core, but not every strong book needs to become a film. Some kinds of tension — especially silence, inner fear, and anticipation — often work better on the page.

The observations about silence remind me of the tag line for the movie Alien - "in space, no one can hear you scream."
I do see a lot of streaming movies are being made from books, especially stuff in the popular suspense and thriller category that can be done on a modest budget. Netflix seems to be doing a lot with this. Also interesting that a lot of the Harlan Coben books that are made for streaming are not set in his US locations but in Europe. I hear it was the same with the Puzzle Lady series by Parnel Hall.

Barbara, that Alien tagline is a perfect example. It works because the silence is not empty — it is full of imagined danger.
I also agree about streaming adaptations. Suspense and thriller stories can often work well on a modest budget if the tension is strong enough. Sometimes a closed room, a quiet corridor, or one thing the audience knows before the character does can be more effective than a huge action scene.
Maybe that is why books are such a good source for these stories. They already teach the reader to fear what is not fully shown.

Vasyl wrote: "Barbara, that Alien tagline is a perfect example. It works because the silence is not empty — it is full of imagined danger."

This is one of my favorite taglines in all of cinema. The sentiment also reminds me of Hitchcockian suspense vs. more modern takes on the genre. A great example of what I am thinking of is in "Psycho" when Bates is cleaning up the murder scene. He doesn't talk, he just moves around taking care of business. There are even stretches in the scene with no music. The combination of no music and no talking makes me sit there and think how terrifying it is that someone so casually is erasing the existence of a human life. The silence does that.

Jason,,,,that movie Jason,,,it's that weird noise, no words, just noise...chee-chee-cha-cha,,,,

That Psycho example is excellent, Chris. What makes it disturbing is exactly that ordinary, practical silence. He is not acting like a monster in that moment — he is simply cleaning, moving, arranging, erasing. That calmness makes the violence feel even colder.

I think silence becomes powerful when it turns something horrible into routine. The reader or viewer understands the meaning of what is happening, but the scene itself refuses to “announce” the horror.

And Stephanie, yes — sound can do something similar. Sometimes a simple repeated noise becomes more frightening than words because the audience starts completing the fear in their own mind.

Absolutely. Anticipation is often far more terrifying than action in thrillers. The unknown lets the reader’s imagination create fear that no direct scene can fully match. A slow build, subtle clues, silence before the reveal — that psychological tension stays longer than sudden violence or jump scares. The best thrillers make you dread what *might* happen long before anything actually does.

Laxman, I agree. Anticipation works because it makes the reader participate in the fear.
Action shows the danger. Silence and delay make the reader imagine it — and imagination often goes further than the scene itself.
That is why a good thriller does not always need to strike immediately. Sometimes it is stronger when it lets the reader sit with the question: what might happen next?

Laxman wrote: "Absolutely. Anticipation is often far more terrifying than action in thrillers. The unknown lets the reader’s imagination create fear that no direct scene can fully match. A slow build, subtle clue..."

100%! Take the scene in "Alien" where Ripley is trying to get off the ship as the automatic destruct sequence counts down. It is a cacophony of sound and sirens and her hurried breathing and grunts all while there is perpetual motion. There is no time for anticipation here -- only movement to get away. That is not anticipation. Contrast that to when the facehugger first comes off Kane in the med bay and they are looking for it. Near silence. No music. Still there is movement, but we don't know (yet) what we are moving towards. The absence of panic (sirens, steam, flashing lights) makes the motion so much more attuned to anticipation.

How about in The Exorcist...where her head turns, no music, just the head turning....Man if that wasn't the scene of the decade...

Chris, that is a great distinction. The final escape in Alien is fear in motion, but the med bay scene is fear waiting for a shape. The silence forces the audience to study every detail because we do not yet know what kind of danger we are looking at.

I think that is often where suspense is strongest: before the horror has fully declared itself.

And Stephanie, yes — that Exorcist scene works for the same reason. No explanation, no musical warning, just the body doing something it should not be able to do. Sometimes the absence of commentary makes the moment much worse.

That scene from The Exorcist (BTW, my fav horror film) is a great example like Vasyl said, especially punctuated by the chaos that comes immediately before it.

Vasyl wrote: "Sometimes it’s not the scream or the chase that scares the most — it’s the silence before something happens.
That heavy pause when you know something is coming, but you don’t know what.

Do you fee..."

I would say the anticipation is worse. There are way too many terrible things that I could imagine happening.

I think that is exactly why anticipation can be so powerful, Anne.

The writer only leaves an empty space — and the reader fills it with something personal, often far worse than anything that could be shown directly.

Do you prefer when the danger is eventually revealed, or when some uncertainty remains even at the end?

Vasyl wrote: "I think that is exactly why anticipation can be so powerful, Anne.

The writer only leaves an empty space — and the reader fills it with something personal, often far worse than anything that could..."

It depends. Is it during the resolution? Is it during the climax? Does the reader need to see it? Has the story been teasing it with previously incomplete pictures?

Take Jaws. Bruce (the mechanical shark) kept malfunctioning, otherwise it would have ended up in many more shots. The fact that they had to shoot around the technical difficulties, withheld that information during the rising action. Not until the final scenes on The Orca do you get your clearest views. Oh...and talk about sound accompanying tension!

From the world of literature: take HP Lovecraft. He didn't hide or build to a full reveal in many of his stories. Many times, he laid it all out there in the beginning and then verified the horror along the way. That is a different technique that can work if the goal is the horror of the process, not the reveal. His story "At the Mountains of Madness" does a little of both. All of the clues are there, but then the monster revealed at the end is so otherworldly, I am not sure how you could anything but a full reveal.

For me, it's always the suspense and anticipation. Action is good when I'm driving and want something to listen to that keeps moving, without distracting me too much from the road.

When I'm sitting and reading without any distractions, then I want something that keeps me turning the pages, reading more and more while my mind is going through all the different possibilities of what's coming next.

Chris, that is a very good distinction: the horror of the reveal versus the horror of the process.

Jaws is a great example of a limitation becoming an advantage. The less we see, the more work the imagination has to do. Lovecraft often does something different — sometimes knowing more does not reduce the fear, because the real horror lies in understanding the implications.

Stephen, I also like your point about pace. Action keeps a story moving, but suspense makes the reader participate in it.

Maybe the real question is not whether a thriller needs action or silence, but when it chooses to reveal the danger.

Which is harder for you to put down: a story that keeps delaying the reveal, or one where the danger is already clear but the characters still cannot stop it?

For me, the suspenseful book is harder to put down, but there have been exceptions.

I once listened to a 16 hour audio book on the history of United States, that talked about things I already knew, but couldn't stop listening. Way too many times I'd park and instead of getting out, would sit listening.

If the writing is compelling enough, it doesn't matter if the book is suspenseful or action filled, even when I know what's going to happen, it will keep my mind working.

I haven't come across too many books like that, but that would be my first choice.