Suspense, it's in the future

This past weekend, I went to visit my local Books a Million and while perusing the magazines came across the 101 Best Sites for Writers list in the May/June Writers Digest. As some of you know, Mb4 made it into that list once again. We thank you, our fans and followers, for supporting this blog and voting for us in all the ways you do. We always want to give you what you want so if there are suggestions on something you are not getting here, please leave us a comment and let us know. Keeping a blog going as long as we have done on this one-to coin a phrase-takes a village. So, since we are listed under thrillers/suspense, I thought I would make a few comments about why suspense is different than mystery. Well, for one thing, suspense is in the future and mystery in the past. What do you mean, you ask? It's elementary dear Murderer, elementary. For a suspense/ thriller to work the main thrust of the plot is something that hasn't happened yet. It's something that the reader is anticipating with sweating palms and racing heartbeat. The characters are working round the clock to keep something from occurring. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes it happens and they are forced to fix the situation, which can be another sort of fun read, my particular fav, a mystery. When the murder or high stress event happens in the first chapter and the characters are sent off trying to find the perp, well that my dears, is a mystery. My husband is a thriller junkie. He would rather watch the latest James Bond movie, or Mission Impossible movie than anything. I wonder, is thriller fever a man thing? Because my girlfriends and I would rather catch the latest Nicolas Sparks movie than suffer through another two hour harangue of blown up cars and high-risk theatrics. If you think it is a man thing, let me know. Maybe I will do a survey. Happy Thursday, Murderers.