Suspense is wanting to know

The suspense of a poem does not need a crime. It needs an active gap.

In the class, the maker's map has four places: the world, the mind of the person writing, the text, and the mind of the person reading. Suspense happens when the passage from one to another is administered.

Said simply, the formula is wanting to know what is not yet known. There is a partial knowledge, and there is a desire. Clues feed the knowledge. Gaps feed the desire.

Breaking a norm only works if that norm was installed first. If everything is strange from the first line, there is nowhere to fall from.

Designing suspense is designing the experience. It is not hiding a fact for sport.

Source: the class on how to create suspense in a poem.