Suspense, then, must be kept in mind as the scenario is being planned.  You should not only keep the spectator in suspense as to the climax as long as possible, but in building up your plot you should work in as many unexpected twists as you can without destroying its logic.  Mr. Hoagland says:  “Suspense is a delightful sensation, though we all beg not to be kept in it.”  So whet the spectator’s imagination by springing little surprises and minor climaxes whenever they can be introduced without seeming to be forced.  Make each such incident another step upward toward your climax proper; hold back the “big” surprise, the startling denouement, until the very end.  The most enjoyable feature of Anna Katherine Green’s “The Leavenworth Case” was that she kept the reader in the dark until the last chapter as to who was the real murderer.  All the many detective novels that have since appeared have been successful exactly in proportion as the solution of the mystery has been withheld from the reader until the end of the story.

Naturally, this requires careful planning.  About twenty years ago, one of the high-class fiction magazines published a story in which a reporter who had been interviewing the leading woman of a theatrical company was caught on the stage as the curtain rose on the first act.  The leading woman was supposed to be “discovered” at the rise of the curtain, but the newspaper man was both surprised and embarrassed by his being discovered.  Nevertheless, having his overcoat on and carrying his hat in his hand, with great presence of mind he turned to the actress and said:  “Very well, madam; I will call for the clock at three this afternoon.”  Then he made a deliberate exit, and the leading woman read her first speech.  But, as the play progressed, there was scarcely one in the audience who failed to wonder why the “actor” who had spoken the line about the clock did not reappear according to promise.  At a certain point in the action of the drama, just where the intervention of someone from outside would have been most opportune, the audience expected that the “jeweler” would make his reappearance; but of course he did not, the play ended as the author had intended it to end—­and the audience went out feeling that something had gone wrong somewhere—­as it had.

The lesson to the photoplaywright is plain:  Never introduce into the early scenes of the scenario any incident that is likely to mislead the spectator into thinking that it is of sufficient importance to affect the ultimate denouement, when it really has no bearing upon it.  Reverse this, and you have another good rule to follow in writing the scenario.  As one critic said in substance, if you intend to have one of your characters die of heart disease toward the end of the play, prepare your audience for this event by “registering” in an earlier scene the fact that his heart is affected.  Do not drag in a scene to make this fact clear, but, in two or three