tinyreviews

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Writing Tips: The 4 Triggers of Suspense

🧨 Bury the Threat Beneath the Surface (e.g. Inglourious Basterds)

Hide danger behind calm exteriors

Triggers the audience’s threat-detection instinct

Creates quiet tension that feels physically disturbing

📉 Play the Information Gap (e.g. Squid Game)

Audience knows something is wrong, but not what or when

Activates predictive craving in the brain

The dread builds in the gap between audience and character awareness

🧍‍♂️ Strip Away Their Agency (e.g. Get Out)

Gradually remove the character’s ability to act

Heightens fear of helplessness

Most effective when the audience watches the agency slip away moment by moment

⌛ Stretch Time Until It Snaps (e.g. The Thing)

Present a clear threat, then drag it out

Each moment of delay ratchets up anxiety

Predictability of when becomes the real weapon

💬 “Don’t just wave a gun—make them feel the gun’s inevitability.”

The above is a summary of James Hurst’s youtube video on screenwriting suspense: 

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Tiny Review: Ne Zha 2 2025. Cool designs, awesome fights.

I am surprised that both Ne Zha 1 and 2 featured central authorities that are actually evil, for a mainland Chinese production.

Tbh, I can’t stand Ne Zha himself. He’s always brooding and rude and rehashing past arcs.

Everything else though, is pretty good. Very high production value. A huge step up from Ne Zha, in terms of writing and animation and polish.

Ne Zha 2 is a 2025 Chinese animated adventure film written and directed by Jiaozi.

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Tiny Review: The Life of Chuck 2024. Life, dance and the cupola.

Stephen King is the king in characterizations. The mystery element kept me hooked.

Then I was ready for a lackluster end when I realised what it was.

Then the human element gave me catharsis. Should Watch!

The Life of Chuck is a 2024 American fantasy drama film written and directed by Mike Flanagan. It is based on the novella of the same name by Stephen King, which was published in his 2020 compilation book If It Bleeds. The film stars Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Mia Sara, Carl Lumbly, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, and Mark Hamill, with narration by Nick Offerman. 

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Tiny Review: Eyes of Wakanda 2025. Surprisingly Good Disney.

Wars Dogs makes a better title than Eyes of Wakanda imo…

Looks like this is just a one season thing though, leading into the original Black Panther movie.

Eyes of Wakanda is an American animated anthology television miniseries created by Todd Harris for the streaming service Disney+, based on the Marvel Comics country Wakanda. It is stars the voices of Winnie Harlow, Cress Williams, Patricia Belcher, Larry Herron, Adam Gold, Lynn Whitfield, Jacques Colimon, Jona Xiao, Isaac Robinson-Smith, Gary Anthony Williams, Zeke Alton, Steve Toussaint, and Anika Noni Rose.

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Souvenir shop

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Awesome advice! 👍

✨ PSA to all writers still rocking “aspiring writer ✨” in their bio…

you deserve better. your bio deserves better. your ✨vibe✨ deserves better.

so I made a new Instagram carousel: ➡️ “Things to Put in Your Author Bio (That Aren’t ‘aspiring writer ✨’)” it breaks down 4 things that actually make you stand out:

your genre

your tone

your voice hook

a weird little personality quirk

plus I included a sample you can steal if you’re in your ✨bio rebrand era✨

✏️ go read it >> 💬 or drop your current bio in the replies and I’ll roast it lovingly 🔁 reblog to save a writer friend from “writer. dreamer. coffee addict.” energy

✏️ go read it >>

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by TheWriteEdvice | Writing Tips | Writer Coach (@thewriteedvice)

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OP: These are notes with a strong sense of being "lively and real" that Chinese netizens can come across everywhere.

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ooo good analogy

I am pretty fatigued from all the AI witchhunt as well.

I am a fan of using tech as 2nd, 3rd and 4th brains.

Burn me, bro 🔥 Drown me, sis 🌊

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Tiny Review: 28 Years Later 2025. Not so horrible horror.

The marketing made me expect this to be more horrible than it is.

Towards the end, this felt like the first part of a series. I wiki’ed after watching. Yes it’s part of a planned trilogy. This explains a lot.

Alfie Williams gave a really good performance as the boy protagonist. This could be his breakout role.

Did I miss the iconic original theme song? It is sorely missing from the movie!

28 Years Later is a 2025 post-apocalyptic coming-of-age horror film produced and directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. The third instalment in the 28 Days Later film series, following 28 Days Later (2002) and 28 Weeks Later (2007), it stars Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams in his feature film debut, and Ralph Fiennes.

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Atomic habits

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Tiny Review: City of God 2002. City of children with guns.

It’s a really dense movie. Full of social commentary. And violence.

Be warned there is violence against children. Necessary to portray the setting and story. Nonetheless, I hated it.

The movie itself is a recommended watch.

City of God is a 2002 Brazilian epic crime film directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund. The screenplay, written by Bráulio Mantovani, is adapted from the 1997 novel by Paulo Lins. The film features a cast including Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Jonathan and Phellipe Haagensen, Douglas Silva, Daniel Zettel, Seu Jorge, and the film debut of Alice Braga. Most of the actors were actual residents of favelas such as Vidigal and Cidade de Deus itself.

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Tiny Review: Rick and Morty Season 8 2025. Rick and Family.

I love this season! This is a great format for the series. Classic Rick and Morty(and family) adventures, ending off with a touching continuity episode. 😭

I hope they keep it just like this.

The new Diane version of “Don’t Look Back” is soooooo good! So soft and cathartic. I LOVE IT! 😍

Rick and Morty is an American adult animated science fiction sitcom created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon for Cartoon Network's nighttime Adult Swim programming block. It stars the voices of Ian Cardoni, Harry Belden, Chris Parnell, Spencer Grammer, and Sarah Chalke.

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Tiny Review: Elite Squad 2007. The Vicious Cycle.

City Of God brought me here. If you like foreign films, crime stories, this is for you.

Andre’s dilemma between choosing a proper respectable law career and being a BOPE could have been set up to be more pronounced. Missed opportunity.

Elite Squad (Portuguese: Tropa de Elite, lit. '"Elite Corps"') is a 2007 Brazilian crime film based on the novel Elite da Tropa by Luiz Eduardo Soares, André Batista, and Rodrigo Pimentel. Directed by José Padilha (from a screenplay by Padilha, Bráulio Mantovani, and Pimentel), the film stars Wagner Moura, Caio Junqueira, and André Ramiro

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I, too, think it is accurate for people to cling onto their past beliefs, habits and identity. Even in the face of evidence.

*The oldself does not want to die*

There is an odd thing I see in books sometimes where a character who is defined by their steadfast loyalty to a person or organization is presented with one (1) piece of evidence against them and immediately changes their mind.

I was just reading a book where a character is deeply loyal to the royal family despite being their literal whipping girl, but she immediately decides that the king must be a bad ruler the first time she sees poverty exists. And he is--but it's weird that the 15 years of being whipped didn't convince her but the existence of poor people did.

It often reads like a plot-convenient way of having a character change their mind without having to do any of the actual work or spend any actual time on what it means for them to change their mind. But it also often rings false--we know for a fact that people with deeply held beliefs are often not convinced no matter how much evidence they see to the contrary, much less because one piece of evidence was presented to them.

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I am a big fan of setups and payoffs. In fact I believe this is the whole point of story.

What Makes a Good Pay Off?

              Novels are full of set ups and pay offs. Every single element you introduce is considered a set up, which means every single one needs to have one or more pay offs. If a character is really good at drawing, that skill needs to come into play during an important moment later or it will feel like a waste of words and reader attention, for example. If there’s a dog in the first chapter, it can’t disappear without providing some use to the plot.

              So how do we write a good pay off? It depends on a few things:

1. The longer the set up, the bigger the pay off

If the pay off is relatively small, place the set up sooner before. The longer it takes to get to the pay off, the more expectations are raised and the greater the moment needs to be. If a dog is introduced at the beginning it would be appropriate for it to play a small part in the plot a couple chapters later. However, if the dog is introduced and then comes up again and again across the plot, it should have a large role in the plot and ultimate ending of the novel.

2. Large pay offs should have at least 3 set ups

If you introduce something at the beginning, you can’t expect readers to remember it all the way to the end without some sort of reminder. That’s why large set ups typically come back up throughout several points of the novel. 3 times is not a hard and fast rule (and depending on the length of your novel and where your pay off is, this number is going to look very different across projects) but it’s a good guideline so that you remember to carry it throughout the novel before the pay off.

3. The last pay off is the biggest

If your set up has multiple pay offs, they should get progressively bigger and more satisfying as they go, leading up to the final that has the largest impact on plot and character.

4. Every POV character will have a set up and pay off

An arc is essentially a large set up and pay off, which means every character should have one. Your inciting incident is the set up for your MC’s arc, but the other POV characters also need their own introductions to their arcs, and eventually, their own resolutions. These can be placed wherever makes the most sense for them, and can be shorter than the main plot (for example, a side-character’s story may be resolved any time between the midpoint and ending, though I wouldn’t go any sooner than your midpoint).