A caveat: I studied communications a bit in university not much, but some. I graduated eight years ago and started my studies in the mists of the last millenium, so maybe this isn’t something people in communications still talk about or subscribe to. Since my knowledge on the subject is quite shallow, maybe this was never a serious theory. Or maybe this is the core of communications theory. Who knows? (Well, people who have actually studied the field probably do.) There’s a strong chance I’m using somewhat wrong terminology, but I can live with that.
Here’s the core of it: When you want to keep your audience’s attention, you need to remember the these three things: familiarity, surprise and completion.
Lets take a sequel to a movie.