The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 3 July 2008

Ch. 10: Dramatic Tension

Aha! Bet you thought I forgot, didn't you? No, just delayed by the rageous slings and arrows of life. And if you think there is no such word, well, what are we comparing outrageous to? Inrageous or just plain rageous? (Which reminds me of the joke about lasses, but we probably don't need to tell that here :-)

Anyway, on with the show! In case anyone has lost track, we're talking about the book Make A Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld. And we're at chapter 10, where Jordan talks about dramatic tension. He starts out by offering us a kind of visual analogy for dramatic tension. Imagine, if you will, two strong men having a tug-of-war with a rope over a pit full of snakes. First one man gets the advantage and pulls the other to the brink of the pit, teetering, almost falling in. Then the other man gets the advantage and yanks his opponent right to the edge. Back and forth they battle, with the dramatic tension cranked to the max.

Dramatic tension, then, is the potential for conflict to happen in a scene. When trouble is brewing, when the resolution balances on the edge of a page, the reader is psychologically and perhaps even physically tense, waiting to find out what happens. And that keeps them reading.

Isn't that suspense? Jordan says that suspense comes when information is withhold from the reader (so the reader doesn't know what is happening), while dramatic tension relies on the reader knowing something is happening, although not exactly when and how. Suspense is not knowing what's around the corner, while dramatic tension comes from hearing or seeing something coming and not knowing how the protagonist will get out of the way. Tension, then, keeps the reader waiting, hoping that the protagonist will somehow escape the scene alive, and maybe one step closer to achieving his goal.

[psst? If you have a clearer example or explanation of the difference between suspense and dramatic tension, I think we'd all love to hear it. This is one place where Jordan seems a bit skimpy in his explanation]

Dramatic tension is a core element. That means every scene needs some. It can be a prickly worry about where the killer is now, or an unsettling dialogue, but it needs to be there.

Tension helps make scenes bigger than life -- more intense, more unusual, and more dramatic. Trouble, or at least the potential for trouble, lurks in every scene. Let your characters feel uncertain, scared, and lost as they listen to the scratching at the door, hoping that it's just a cat and yet knowing that it could be... their nightmare.

To create dramatic tension Jordan recommends:

• Frustrate your protagonist. Delay their achieving goals.
• Include unexpected changes without immediate explanations
• shift power here and there
• blow things up. Toss in grenades of plot information that change the protagonist, his self-image, or his view of the world in significant ways.
• use setting and senses to create a tense background feeling

On the Expository Side

Beware exposition or narrative summary. You need some to tie things together and get the reader set for the key moments of the scene, but too much bores readers.

And time passed. Most narratives don't try to show every moment. There are key moments that you must dramatize, and blocks of time that you can just drop out of the story. And there are some chunks that you will want to summarize with a dab of narrative summary. By condensing time carefully, you help to keep the dramatic tension high.

Similarly, condense necessary background information. Include elements that are likely to make the reader worry a bit about the protagonist or suggest things that are a little odd, compulsive, or potentially troublesome. Give readers a taste or insights into your characters, but spice it with that nervous edge of potential trouble.

Put Some Tension In the Narrative, Too

Foreboding? Remember the music in Jaws? Whenever it played, we knew something nasty was coming. Foreshadowing hints at real plot events that are coming, but foreboding is all about setting the mood. Sounds, smells, perhaps the dead bird in the bushes. It all adds up to a background feeling of fear and unease for the reader.

Thwart expectations. Postpone, postpone, postpone. Especially when the character isn't quite sure what the payoff or resolution will be, putting it off raises the tension almost automatically. Make sure that we know what is at stake for the character and that it is meaningful and has clear consequences, then have good reasons for not opening the letter or getting the news right now -- and watch the tension rise.

What happened? Make changes, but don't explain them - yet. Use the changes to push your character into action, into learning and taking control -- make them meaningful. But let your character skid a bit as they try to cope, don't always give them an easy explanation.

Tension. Important stakes, visible actions, and uncertain outcomes. As the rope pulls the characters towards the pit, and they struggle and flail trying to avoid going over the edge, the dramatic tension fills the air.

And... that's chapter 10. Coming up next, we'll look at scene intentions.

But right now, let's think about an assignment. Probably the simplest is to take a scene from a book or one you've written and go over it, looking for how it uses dramatic tension. When the reader looks at it, what potential for conflict is lurking there? How does the narrative summary and dramatization set up and then thwart completion of expectations? Then consider how you might add more tension to the scene. If the two key figures are about to have a fight -- have them bluster and pose, and then Officer Malarkey comes around the corner. And as the two opponents explain that nothing is happening, the tension rises. When will they actually have their fight? And who will win?

Write! And keep tightening that tension.

The thrill of creative effort grows from the mud of spelling and grammar.

First posted 29 April 2007

Frustration is a writer's best friend

Writer's Digest, August 2004, pages 43 through 45, has an article by Nancy Kress talking about the most important emotion for your characters. You may need love and desire, you may have hatred and anger, but Nancy tells us that the most important emotion is frustration.

"Without frustration, there's no plot. Period. Frustration means that someone's not getting what he wants, and that's what makes a story work."

First, how does frustration work into characterization? Well, how do your family
and friends handle frustration? You've probably seen:

• Anger
• Tears
• Determination to try harder
• Blaming the closest person
• Blaming the universe
• Blaming oneself
• Drinking
• Venting to a trusted friend
• Giving up
• Seeking revenge on whatever is causing the frustration
• Prayer
• Stoicism
• Depression
• And many others!

How does your character respond to frustration? You want to decide this based on two things, what kind of person she or he is and what you want your plot to do. This needs to be part of the overall characterization. Think about the natural response to frustration, along with how well is at controlling and modifying that response, perhaps by substitution.

In regard to plotting, Nancy says "How your character handles frustration will heavily influence your plot. Does she fight back, seeking revenge on whomever's blocking her? Then your plot will feature fights and payback schemes. Does he give up? Then someone will need to motivate and/or rescue him, or else he'll have to learn to live without whatever he wants (both respectable plots)." Think about how your character reacts when he doesn't get something. Does this reaction provide you with plot ideas?

So let's suppose you've got the frustration. The next question that Nancy turns to is how to portray frustration, or dramatization. "How well you portray frustration can make the difference between characters who seem real and those who seem cardboard. A common mistake is to assume that your readers just know what your character's feeling. This usually occurs because the author feels exactly what the character does and assumes the reader does, too." Unfortunately, we don't all feel the same, so you need to dramatize the frustration, fully and convincingly so that the readers share it. You need to let the readers know what the character is feeling, the mix of emotions and the thoughts behind it. Nancy suggests that we use three methods to dramatize the reaction to frustration, body language, dialogue, and the character's thoughts.

Frustration and other emotions affect our bodies. So showing the physical reaction, gestures, facial reactions, tone of voice, breathing, and so on really shows us the character's feelings. Especially for a point-of-view characters, you can describe bodily reactions in detail. Notice your own physical reactions, your throat, your eyes, your stomach, even the itching in your toes, then use them to create character reactions that your readers can identify with.

Body language, though, is ambiguous. Are those tears of anger or sadness? Dialogue can help identify the frustrations. "Set up a situation in which a character would reasonably talk out his frustrations with a listener who might reasonably sit still to hear them."

Finally, for a point-of-view character, you can dip into their thoughts. Nancy points out that you need to be careful not to substitute thinking for action. A few thoughts for clarity and flavor, but mostly use action and drama. Make sure your characters do things, not just think about doing them.

"Frustration is universal. Make it work for you by building characterization, driving plot and hooking our sympathy on your characters' plights. What frustrates them will benefit your fiction."

Let's see. There is a sidebar exercise, too. Three easy steps.

1. Think about the last time you felt completely frustrated. Remember as much as you can about how you felt, what you thought, how your body reacted. Make a list of the key points.
2. List three people that you know well who have personality types different from yours. For each one, write down how she or he might react to the same frustration. What would they think? Feel? Say out loud? What would they do?
3. Look at your lists. Are any of these characters interesting to you? If so, imagine giving them more and larger frustrations. Repeated harassment from a neighbor, an unfair job firing, identity theft, or whatever you  like. Do their reactions provide you with more plot developments for this situation?

I'll toss in that you might want to do this whenever you are facing a conflict or frustration in your story. Think about how you and several other people might react to that frustration, then use the one that really fits the character and story you are building.

So remember, flavor your stories with frustration and watch your characters grow.