It // Building Suspense

This past weekend I started reading It, by Stephen King. Stephen King is the author of many suspenseful, horror filled books. I had not previously read a Stephen King book and was very excited to start reading It. In the first chapter of It a little boy is playing outside in the rain, he has a little paper boat his sick older brother made for him. The boy, George sails the boat along the side of the road, near the storm drain. Then the boat sails into the storm drain, and George looks down trying to find it. This first chapter is very suspenseful because you know that something bad is going to happen to George, and then George sees a clown in a storm drain. He describes the clown as nice and very friendly looking but with the creepy smell of a cellar beneath the friendliness. But still George chooses to trust this storm-drain clown and then, he dies.
I was so surprised that George would die in the first chapter, and also surprised at how much of an emotional connection I already had with him. Although you knew that George was going to die that day it was so suspenseful, just to wait for his death not knowing what would happen to him or when. "The piano began once more-Für Elise again. Stuttering Bill never forgot that piece, and even many years later it never failed to bring gooseflesh to his arms and back; his heart would drop and he would remember: My mother was playing that the day Georgie died." (King 9) This line from the book made me sit on the edge of my seat, and it added a lot of suspense to the first chapter. Only from the first chapter I can tell that Stephen King is very good at adding suspense to his novels.