Being lost in the woods can be a frightening ordeal. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King, is a very scary and suspenseful novel. Stephen King cleverly uses analogies while describing violence to stress the details of the scene in order to fill the reader with suspense and hook the reader into reading the book. The author achieves this by throwing things at a fast pace to the reader. He also uses some clichés that he used in some of his other books to build suspense.
Almost immediately Stephen King introduces the plot to the reader. This builds a strong foundation for suspense and excites reader and build on the readers anticipation to know the outcome of the story. Early in the book Trisha McFarland is in the forest, lost and alienated from her family and humanity. She is victimized by mental aberration which brought about her desire for escape.
The author uses analogies while describing violence to cleverly to build up suspense in the readers mind. "Her voice [trembles], [become] first the wavery voice of a little kid and then almost the shriek of a baby who lies forgotten in her pram,"- (page x) As you can see from this quote Stephen King is trying to make the reader anxious to finish the book by comparing Trisha McFarland's voice to a voice of a little kid and the shriek of a baby. "After a moment or two the first mosquitoes a lot on her eyelids and [begin] to feed."" (page 42). Again Stephen King builds suspense by overstating violence.
The author uses the cliché of phobias to build suspense by foreshadowing future events. He constantly mentions the main character's fear of mosquitoes and snakes and have them attack her throughout the story. For example "Another sting lit up her right arm about the elbow. Screaming, in a total panic, she [bolts]. Something [stings] the back of her neck; something [stings] the small of her back, above the waistband of her blue jeans - (page 54).
