React and Reveal

There's this idea in film where you show the reaction of the characters before you reveal what they're reacting to. 

• Our hero stares in wide-eyed horror as the camera pans to film him from a high angle.  
• Cut to the giant monster that has risen to loom over him.

• Our hero walks out to the parking lot.  He stumbles.  His face falls.  "No, no, no, no, no," he says.
• Cut to show that a piano (which we'd previously seen in preparation to be hauled into a third floor window) has fallen on his Honda, crushing it in a mess of twisted metal and broken glass.

•  Our hero's face falls into the most beautiful smile.  He's speechless.  He's tearing up.
• Cut to his daughter, who isn't dead after all!

This puts an emphasis on the emotional aspect of the reveal.  It tells us specifically what this event means besides a cool effect or a plot twist.  Furthermore, it sets us up to expect something great.  "This is going to be something shocking.  Oh my God!  It is!"

Once this trick was pointed out to me, I realized that it translates to writing as well, and I realized that I've been using it.  In the first sentence there will be a character reaction.  The sentence afterwards, I'll tell you why.  "He opened the refrigerator, and stumbled backwards with a yelp.  Something horrible had happened to the beer, leaving the fridge a mess of sticky brown liquid, froth, the remains of exploded aluminum cans, and the smell of hops."

So I've been thinking, "Neat.  That's a cool thing," and left it at that.  But I'm bringing it up today, because I read a book the other day that did this trick and it didn't work.  Basically, what happened was that the characters would react.  They would react some more.  They would talk to each other about what this meant.  They would argue.  Then a page and a half later, we'd be told what had happened.  It was too long a delay.  I would be confused during the characters' discussion because I didn't know what was happening who whose side I should take.  The suspense didn't last as long as I think the author intended, so my sitting on pins and needles wore off and didn't last through the whole thing.  Instead I was just waiting to get through it so I could know what happened.  But then, by the time they'd gotten around to explaining and no one had died or anything, I knew that it wasn't the most important thing ever.  I didn't even really care what had happened.  Or I cared much less than I would have.  Let's say that.

It's pretty interesting to see these tricks stretched to their limits, it gets me thinking about where those limits are.