Creating tension

Well the snow has gone - mostly - and I never thought I'd be so glad to see pavements and grass again. Funny how something as romantic and harmless as snow can cause so much trouble when it goes on for too long and freezes to treacherous ice.
I've watched and read a few scary stories lately and that is the secret of creating a sense of menace and therefore tension, taking the innocuous and making it threatening. Like the little girls in The Shining - why are they so scary? Yet the image makes such an impression it is much copied and parodied. Daphne du Maurier created another unexpected threat in The Birds, a story prompted by seeing gulls follow a tractor in a field. Who would have thought something as harmless as a bird could be scary?

But anything can be scary, in the wrong circumstances. (Which is why I'm now terrified of snow.)

And here's an article from Mslexia featuring advice from several agents about how to land an agent.