12. You Don’t Get Scared of Monsters, You Get Scared for People

This essay explores suspense in the context of the writing process of a classic suspense novel, Stephen King’s IT (1986). The methodology combines genetic criticism with a narratological analysis that focusses on pace, characterization, and focalization. King wrote three drafts of the novel between 1980 and 1985. The genetic dossier shows that only minimal alterations were required to the story events or their sequencing, but that King increased the length of the suspenseful scenes in the first half of the novel. Patterns in the revisions of these scenes reveal the importance the author identified in establishing a strong connection between the reader and the character in danger: the pace is lowered by giving more attention to the sensory experiences, the character traits, the direct speech and the thoughts and emotions of the focalizing characters. In King’s view, it is the readers’ connection with the protagonist in body and mind that grabs them and keeps them engaged.