writercises | Entries tagged with tension

Original Posting 2021/3/12

Writer's Digest, December 1991, pages 30-33, had an article by David L. Carroll talking about style. He starts off by suggesting that of course, any professional's lifelong aim is to learn to write as well as you possibly can. At the same time, there are some shortcuts and tricks of the trade that can be useful. Then he provides descriptions of 14 of these "tricks." Here they are!

1. After making a strategic or dramatic point, move away from your subject for a moment, then return with sudden force. In other words, introduce the topic, then relax a moment with some other idea, and then come back to the original subject in a way that ties the two together.

2. Three ways to keep your reader emotionally involved: 1. Present a mystery, then unravel it in stages. 2. Create a situation of jeopardy than resolve it. 3. Identify a problem that readers are personally experiencing, then help them overcome it.

3. Use action to make a significant point. Show, don't tell. Dynamic imagery and motion!

4. Use a series of short sentences to build tension. Usually at a moment of tense action, short sentences with strong verbs adds intensity and builds drama.

5. Be careful using the dash. It's powerful, but don't overdo it.

6. Vary the lengths of your sentences and paragraphs. Mix it up.

7. When you're stuck for the right way to say it, try… Sometimes you need to use a grammatical device such as asking a question, giving a command, a quotation, a different subject, different punctuation, a joke, get personal with the reader, examples, emotions, an anecdote, a list, facts,…

8. Shift emotional directions in the middle of a sentence. "Sudden emotional changes can be stimulating to readers if done properly."

9. Introduce a string of short, descriptive words and phrases to make an emphatic point. Short sentences with strong adjectives and images might do the trick.

10. Avoid unnecessary connectives. Watch out for those transition words.

11. Don't weaken your prose with too many unnecessary adverbial qualifiers.

12. Use intentional redundancy on occasion. Sometimes, repeat yourself.

13. Make your sentences rise to a climax; let them reveal their most significant information at the end.

14. Use grace notes. Little asides and action that add humor or emotional color can make your story better.

There you go. Some little tricks you might consider while writing, or while revising.

mbarker

Original Posting July 7, 2017

Over here https://madgeniusclub.com/2017/07/05/the-shadows-of-whats-to-come/ Sarah Hoyt discusses foreshadowing. Apparently early in her career, she often got criticism that she had no plot. Now, since she was outlining, diagramming, and even borrowing structure/plot from other sources, this puzzled her. Then a friend told her that her plot and structure were fine, but she needed to foreshadow.

Foreshadowing? Giving the reader advance warning without spoiling the surprise. That's right, instead of just dropping walls on your characters without warning, toss in some creaks, a few groans, and... when the wall falls, your reader will cheer!

Feelings, premonitions, dreams, bystanders making pithy observations about where this will all end up -- these are all possible. Signals and hints about what's coming!

Foreshadowing, done right, adds to the tension about how things are going to resolve.

In other words, the problem with surprise is that it feels to the reader as if the author is just tossing random events in. Bad. So... foreshadow! Make us worry about what's coming, give us hints and shadows on the walls, and then... unexpected, but inevitable!

Drown your hints in other actions. Make them vague. But make sure the reader expects something to happen.

Three times? Well, that's the rule of thumb for most things. Three little pigs, three bears, three times the raven crows... okay, maybe not that. But don't depend on one hint -- make sure your reader catches on by giving them three chances.

And then when the surprise comes, they will really be shocked!

Practice? Take a piece you've written or are working on. Check what revelation, climactic twist, or whatever you've put in it. Now, where do you foreshadow that? If you don't have enough hints before hand, add some!

And, as always, write!
tink

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original Posting 27 March 2012

And another moldy clipping from Writer's Digest!

Writer's Digest, April 1994, pages 31-33 had an article by Billie Sue Mosiman with the title, "Keep Your Readers in Suspense." It starts out with a little paragraph where Billie Sue said, "I'm going to tell you one of the secrets of selling your fiction..."

And right there, you have an example of one technique of suspense. Get the reader to form a mental question. Secrets, and the promise of revealing them, are a great way to get the reader involved and build suspense. Of course, when you make that promise, you need to live up to it.

A lot of people think of suspense as creaking doors or other hints of horror, but wow it's a common and simple way to build suspense, it's only one way.

"If a character in your book has information or a secret that your protagonist desperately needs to know, that creates suspense. Suspense is an expectation. The writer delays giving out the information the reader needs."

What happens when you show something about to happen to one character, and then switch to another viewpoint and character? Of course, the reader wants to find out what happened to the first character. That's suspense.

Anticipation, mystery, unexplained actions. Billie Sue suggests one way to think of suspense is like a wave. It starts with foreshadowing an event, like the wave building up out at sea. Then the stakes are raised and tension rises, just like a wave rolling closer to shore, growing larger. Next, in the moment before the climax, the wave hits a peak and almost seems to stand still. Then the climax hits, as the wave crashes on the shore. Then in the lull between the scenes of suspense, the wave slips back out to sea to build up again. Depending on what kind of a novel or story you're writing, you might change the pace of the waves, and the lulls in between crashes. But you're probably going to still have have some waves, even at low tide, with the sea low and quiet.

Be careful about misdirecting or distracting the reader without a good reason. You don't want your reader to feel manipulated.

How will the hero escape? Will the evil monster, boss, whatever destroy everything that the protagonist loves? Is romance enough? Most of the time the question you want your readers asking is how will this be resolved. What's going to happen next? That's suspense.

Make sure that you keep your promises, and give readers the information they want. Also, make the protagonist struggle -- the reader needs to worry about them.

"If the reader has nothing to find out, nothing to anticipate, be anxious over or expect, he won't read at all."

So make the reader asked questions, anticipate what's going to happen, and then answer the questions, provide information, show that hero dealing with dangers and threats. Just don't leave them...

Billie Sue ended her column with "There is just one more very important secret I think you should know..."

Cliffhangers. And in our next thrilling episode...

Write, and don't forget the suspense! Keep the reader waiting, just a little bit more?

Current Mood: moldy

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original posting 11 May 2009

Writer's Digest, October 2006, pages 95 to 96 have an article by Gloria Kempton suggesting that we can start drafting better dialogue by learning how to recognize bad dialogue. The article lists seven common mistakes, along with a sidebar suggesting some ways to create tension in dialogue. Let's start with the seven mistakes:

John-Marsha syndrome. Just to make sure we know who's talking, we start including the characters' names in every line of dialogue. Certainly addressing someone by name gives a certain nuance to the speech, but we don't normally continue doing it in every scrap of dialogue. If you're looking for intensity, consider describing facial expressions or adding some actions.
Adjective and adverb addiction. "Said" is the basic invisible verb for dialogue. Other verbs, along with various adverbs, draw attention to the writing. Action sentences or internal reflection are possible alternatives. Dialogue tags can replace adverbial modification.
Disconnected dialogue. Certainly people who talk past each other, but whenever characters answer questions out of order or ask questions out of the blue, readers can get confused.
As-you-know-Bob rambling. Writers often try to sneak information to the reader in dialogue. Dialogue can be an effective way to reveal background information, and it's certainly more interesting than simple infodumping. But it has to be something that the character would say. Not just words and information that the writer wants to put in their mouth, but something that they would naturally think of and say.
Ho-Hum moments. Just because the characters are talking doesn't mean it's interesting. There needs to be information, tension, suspense -- every line of dialogue should move the story or the scene forward. If it's boring, skip it. Characterization does not justify babbling. Use dialogue to develop plot and theme.
Perfect grammar. Pay attention to how people really talk. Most people don't talk in complete sentences with perfect grammar. Especially when they're excited or upset or whatever. Make your dialogue authentic first.
Redundancy. When the dialogue repeats description or narration around it, it isn't deja vu, it's just redundant. This often happens because we started to write it as narration and then switched to dialogue, or vice versa. Check to see if you're repeating yourself.

So there you go. Overdoing names in dialogue, the dreaded Tom Swifties, dialogue that doesn't make sense, tour guide or narrator dialogue, all the blah that we don't need, perfection, and repeating yourself. Seven bad habits to check in your dialogue.

A good exercise is to grab a chunk of dialogue from the nearest slush pile or work in progress and take a look. Do you see some of these? Can you fix them?

And then there's that sidebar about creating tension with dialogue. Dialogue is the voices of the characters, right? So how do you increase the tension in the interactions of dialogue?

Silence. View point characters can drop out of the conversation and think about what they're saying and feeling. Are they hiding things? Go ahead and let other characters continue with action or dialogue. Incidentally, when another character suddenly goes silent in the middle of the exchange, it's not unusual to wonder just what's going on over there.
Pacing. Especially changing the pace of the dialogue. When speech slows down or speeds up, tension rises. Make sure there's a good reason for the shift in pace.
Suspense. Whenever dialogue plants thoughts or ideas in the reader's mind about future events or situations, you get suspense. And suspense raises the tension, which is good.
Dialogue in scene endings. A line of dialogue at the end of the scene can create tension that makes readers turn pages. It just needs to be open-ended, raising questions that the reader wants answered. Remember that the end of a scene or a chapter is not a place to tie things up -- unless you consider cliffhangers as tying things up?

Think about how you use dialogue, and how your dialogue can create tension. Your characters will thank you.

Current Mood: brook

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original posting 4 February 2009

Moving Right Along

Writer's Digest, January 2006, in the Fiction Essentials column by Nancy Kress, has an article called, "Pick up the Pace." As the subhead points out, "Certain genres require a rapid-fire succession of scenes. Here's how to keep your fiction moving quickly."

Why quick pacing? "It hooks readers, creates tension, deepens the drama and speeds things along."

So what is this pace? Basically, it's the speed at which you introduce events and characters. Nancy suggests that you can think of it as the number of story events divided by the page count. Higher ratio, faster pace. So when you put your foot to the keyboard, there are more events in fewer pages.

How do you decide? Start by looking at the genre you're writing in. Thrillers, mysteries, westerns, adventure -- these are fast-paced. Keep your story moving. One of the advantages of having lots of events is that it raises lots of questions in the reader's mind, so he's going to keep reading seeking answers, trying to understand the connections of all these events and possible outcomes.

Women's fiction, character driven fiction, historical novels -- you may want to take more time to develop scenes and introduce events. And with literary fiction, you may want to go even slower. Notice the slow pace probably means a more polished style, more complex characters, something to keep the reader interested. Complex character development, detailed description, stylistic nuances -- go ahead and help your reader form a deep interest and concern.

Pace increases tension. Fast events mean characters get into trouble more quickly. Conflict is the engine driving stories. When the pace goes faster, there's more chances for conflict. And conflict also sets out and pushes tension. Characters want to get out -- and so do the readers.

A quick pace also increases tension because readers start connecting scenes, even if the characters don't. Changes in bit characters are more obvious when their appearances are back-to-back. Events that happen close together often lead readers to imagine cause-and-effect relations -- whether they are appropriate or not.

Nancy doesn't mention it, but I think there's also the roller coaster ride effect. With a fast-paced story, the reader is wondering what's going to happen next, and reacting to the repeated surprises. Sure, they could read the story more slowly, but that's not what they want.

How do you make your story keep the pace? Some suggestions:

start your story in the middle of dramatic action
keep description brief. One or two key details
combine scenes. Stack the action into one scene instead of splitting it over several.
rely on dialogue. Spoken conversation reads rapidly.
minimize backstory. Let the reader learn about characters through what they do now in story time.
keep chapter short
remove unnecessary words. "Wordiness not only kills pace; it bores readers."

So you want to keep the wheels turning, the metronome clicking, tick-tock, tick-tock, as the sweep second hand spins across the clock face!

An exercise. First, take a look at your work in progress. What would happen if you tried picking up the pace? Suppose you wanted to position it as a thriller -- how would you change the pace, the setting, the arrangement of scenes, etc.?

Second, pick a scene or situation that lends itself to the fast-paced thriller description. The automobile accident, the race in the ambulance to the emergency room, or the sudden preparation for an unexpected dinner guest after a phone call? Pick your own problem of time, and then write up the description. Make us feel the anxiety of the situation through the pacing of the story.

Okay?

Current Mood: pacing
Current Music: Don't Blink, Kenny Chesney

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original posting 22 December 2008

I warned you! Now, it's time for a moldy article from Writers Digest, February 2005. Pages 20 and 21 are the column Fiction Essentials by James Scott Bell, and in this issue, he's highlighting the three secrets of suspense. Wouldn't you like to know what they are?

"What happens next? When you're writing a novel, that's the question you want in your readers' minds all the time. That's what keeps them flipping pages long into the night. That's suspense. And every novel needs it."

What do you think suspense is? Well, Bell starts out by telling us that "suspense in fiction is a feeling of pleasurable uncertainty." When we don't know what is going to happen -- although we may have suspicions -- and we really want to find out -- that's suspense!

Kind of like waiting for the three secrets of suspense :-) So without further ado, here they are!

1. The Death Threat

"The best suspense is about death." Physical death in various variations -- serial killer, villain, malevolent conspiracy -- death abounds. However, professional death -- loss of work or livelihood -- also works. Or psychological death, the inner death that results from not having a reason to go on living, not dealing with dark secrets from the past, not healing.

"Here is the key to creating a convincing threat to your character's life, whether it's physical, professional, or psychological: Include scenes early in your novel that explicitly show what the central problem means to your protagonist. Get your readers to feel what's at stake from the very beginning of the story."

When death in one guise or another awaits the character, we have to keep reading.

2. The Sympathetic Protagonist

"No matter what kind of danger is present, if readers don't care about your protagonist, they still won't worry much about what happens. To really care about your story, readers need to feel sympathy for its lead character." So what makes readers sympathize with -- feel emotionally bound with -- the hero?

First, a well-rounded character, with flaws and strengths. Neither perfection nor complete failures are terribly interesting. Second, guts -- make the hero active. Third, characters who care about someone else are more sympathetic than self-centered egotists.

3. Scene Tension

"Every scene in your novel should have tension, whether that comes from outright conflict or inner emotional turmoil." Outside tension comes from the character having a goal that matters to him or her and significant opposition to achieving it. Most scenes end with the character failing. Even success comes with a cost. I've seen it described recently as "yes, but..." Yes, we succeeded, but now there's a bigger problem! As for failure, that usually is "no, and furthermore..." Not only did we fail, but we're further away than before. Even relatively quiet scenes can have inner tension -- growing worried, concerned, irritability, anxiety.

"So put a sympathetic character into a life-or-death situation and maintain tension in all your scenes. You'll create the pleasurable uncertainty that readers love to feel, page after page."

Check your story against this checklist:

Do you have a sympathetic protagonist?
Are they facing life-or-death problems?
Does every scene maintain the tension?

Your exercise -- take a character, imagine a situation that faces them with a life-or-death challenge, and make a list of at least three scenes where they try to solve the challenge, and fail. Go ahead and write those up -- if you add a beginning and ending, you'll have a whole short story.

No ideas? How about pick a number from one to six? And you have selected the
following situation:

A building on fire, with people calling for help
An automobile accident, with people pinned inside
A building collapsing, with people trapped inside
A train wreck, with people hurt
A snow storm, with the power out, and people needing help
A boat drifting, with engines out, and people looking for help

Go ahead -- walk your character into that situation, and let them try to help.

Current Mood: molding

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original posting 21 December 2008

Fair warning. It's the end of year, things are winding down a bit, and my wife wants me to clean up my magazines. Part of that is the stack of Writer's Digests that I haven't quite had time to look at. So I'll be at least glancing through them and perhaps putting up some odds and ends here. For example, the February 2005 issue on page 12 has a quick exercise on juxtaposition. The entire thing, from the Pocket Muse by Monica Wood, is:

"Juxtaposition, whether subtle or extravagant, infuses even the quietest stories with dramatic tension. Think of big Lenny contrasted with his pet mouse in Of Mice and Men, or the frigid winter landscape that provides the setting for Ethan's brief inner blooming in Ethan Frome."

"Try writing a scene in any genre in which two seemingly opposite things go on at the same time. A French lesson being offered at the site of an excavation, a meditative letter being written at a barn dance, a lover's tryst going on at a wake. Notice how the uneasy fit between two elements forces you to imagine differently."

Sounds like fun! So you work on writing that scene, and I'll continue cleaning up. Just watch out for the bits and pieces over the next couple of weeks. Is it littering when you extract odds and ends from a print journal for dispersal on an electronic media such as this? Or just creative re-contextualization? (wow, that's a mouthful :-)

Do you suppose she meant I had to throw them out? After I read them, right?

Current Mood: juxtaposition

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original posting 14 Dec 2007

I first read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card quite a few years ago. Recently, through a strange concatenation of circumstances, a new hardback copy passed through my hands. I sent it on to a friend, but while it was here, I took a quick look and found that Card had added an introduction! Rather interesting . . . a couple of quotes that I found particularly resonant.

p. xiv "I learned -- from actors and from audiences -- how to shape a scene, how to build tension, and -- above all -- the necessity of being harsh with your own material, excising or rewriting anything that doesn't work. I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn -- that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones, and you're a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the former your first time through the tale."

p. xxi "This is the essence of the transaction between storyteller and audience. The 'true' story is not the one that exists in my mind; it is certainly not the written words on the bound paper that you hold in your hands. The story in my mind is nothing but a hope; the text of the story is the tool I created in order to try to make that hope a reality. The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears."

Separate the story from the writing, and learn about rewriting to find the right way to tell a story.

And don't imagine that you are writing a story alone - it is a cooperative effort between the storyteller and the audience.

Words to write by, perhaps?

Current Mood: picayune

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original posting 10 December 2007

Stumbling toward Plot and Structure (26)

And here we go again! Sorry about last week, I was at a conference and didn't have my book. What book? Ah, Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell, of course. Where we now find ourselves about to plunge into Chapter 13, a discussion of common plot problems and cures. Or at the very least, some calamine lotion to help with the itches.

So let's get to it!

Problem: Scenes Fall Flat

Every scene needs some tension, some edge to it. Might be action - external stuff - or internal tension such as the characters worrying, but you need that spark. So what can you do if it isn't there?

Bell suggests looking for the "hot spot" -- the moment or exchange that is the focus of the scene. If there isn't one, you might consider dropping the whole scene. But if there is one, highlight it. Then back up. Is the paragraph before it necessary? What about each sentence, or each phrase? Keep moving backward, clearing out (cutting) anything that doesn't lead the reader right to the hot spot.

Problem: Flashback Blockages

Watch out for flashbacks that kill the momentum and frustrate your reader. Some hints are:

Is this flashback necessary? Is this really the best way to present the info? Could you drop it in some other way?

Is this flashback a scene? It should be just as immediate, confrontational, and a unified dramatic action as any other scene you write.

Did you trigger the flashback? Introducing and getting back from a flashback can be stumbling points. One way to keep it smooth is to provide a strong sensory detail that triggers the flashback for the character - something they see, hear, smell. Then write the flashback. Then go back to the sensory detail again to get back.

Don 't get tense in your flashback. You can use one or two "had" verbs to start, but then just use plain old past tense.

Consider the alternatives such as a backflash in dialogue or thought. A bit of dialogue can convey important background. Or a character can think about it.

Problem: The Tangent!

My favorite digression. But when you thought the story was going thataway and suddenly there's this other path, what do you do? Couple of obvious possibilities are to forge ahead ignoring the allure of the byways, confident that sticking to the plan is best . . . or swerve and take a trip into another place!

Bell suggests a blockbuster approach. Set aside your mainline effort for a moment, and in a new file (or a blank sheet) do a little free-form outlining of the next few scenes as if you had no idea what was next. Let your "inner players" free to stage what they think should happen. Summarize this, and ask yourself: if this happened, what consequences would follow?" Summarize. Take a break. Then look at the tangent and decide rationally if it is better or not.

Problem: Twisting Characters to fit the Plot

Oops. Sometimes the little metal soldiers get all bent out of shape as the author tries to force them to follow the plot. Not so good for anyone. So . . .

Some ideas include spending a little time writing free-form journal notes from the POV of the character ... go out for a night on the town with the character. Where does he or she go to relax, who does he or she talk with, what happens when someone throws mud (literally or metaphorically)? Go back and get to know the characters better, then make sure that the plot flows naturally from who they are.

Problem: the Mid Novel Slog

Your writing has gotten dull and you just don't know where this treadmill is going? Take a break, and then either go back, jump cut, or randomize! Go back? Back up to where things were cooking and then consider taking off on a little different angle. Jump cut is just that, jump ahead and perhaps sideways, and pick up there. Look for a high-conflict juicy scene that excites you and write that. Then figure out how to fill the gap.

Randomize? Bell suggests flipping the dictionary open and finding a strong word on that page. Then flip it open again and pick another. Now write something that uses those two words. What does this fragment suggest about your story?

Problem: Shutdown.

Oops. The imagination is on strike, and there is nothing doing.

Don't despair, everyone gets stuck now and then. Here are some kickstarts. Take a look, then pick one and use it.

First, you may need a recharge. If your inner editor is blocking the works, remember that you have permission to be bad and that you can and will go back later and polish. But right now you need to get it down first!

Or may be you're just feeling fraudulent? Who are you fooling, claiming to be an author? Take a break, consider what you are about, talk with a friend. I'd also suggest reading some slush or bad printed stuff -- come on, you can do better than that!

Second, relive your scenes. Go back through, and imagine yourself in the scenes. Punch up the feelings, let things dance and shift, pickup the pace. Make sure your scenes grab the reader and don't let go at the endings. Good endpoints include the moment when a major decision has to be made, just as something terrible happens, a hint at something bad about to happen, a strong display of emotion, or with a question posed but not yet answered.

In other words, tighten up your existing work.

Third, recapture your vision. Sometimes we need to step back and take a look at the over all shape and goal. Think about the meaning and there. Remind yourself of your mission as a writer. Many people find a short pithy statement of their reason d'writing to be useful.

Bell starts his exercises by suggesting you list your own major plot problems, prioritize that list, and plan how you are going to improve. Then second, he suggests looking at a novel you have read that didn't work for you. Identify that was wrong, and how you could do better.

Great! That's Chapter 13! So now we have Chapter 14, A collection of tips and bits, plus a couple of appendices to look at, and that will finish up Plot and Structure.

A couple more weeks, eh? Just about in time to ramble with 6x6.

Current Mood: soothed

mbarker.livejournal.com

Meandering Our Way through Plot and Structure (13)

Where were we before we fell into the summer doldrums? Ah, yes, muddling through the middles in Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell (nothing to do with Muggles, honestly). That means we're in Chapter 5 and we are about to ARM ourselves for confrontation. Action, reaction, more action. Your lead character needs to be doing something to move the plot along. Plot results from the character taking actions to solve problems trying to gain their goal or desires. So we need a character with an objective and the action towards it, along with opposition, obstacles, problems to overcome.

One of the problems is that often you have characters who are on the same side with similar interests. This can result in lifeless scenes without much interest. To spice them up, you need to add conflict or tension. Maybe the surroundings, or perhaps other characters, can add opposition. However internal tension is probably the strongest driver. All you have to do is think about why the characters would not cooperate. Fear, competition, all those good emotions and motives. Of course, as someone suggested, if things are getting boring, have someone pull a gun. Instant tension.

Write actions and justify them. Remember that the lead character should almost always lose, not attain their desires or their goals, actually end up in a worse situation. Action.

And then reaction. Emotional, but then a commitment to more action.

One of the big problems of act two or the middles is keeping the reader interested. Action, reaction, more action, but what keeps them going? Two big principles: stretch the tension and raise the stakes. Now let's see, Bell has 10 pages about stretching and raising.

Stretching the tension. Step one: set up the tension. What problem has the potential to seriously hurt the character? Step Two: Stretch the physical. Slow down. Put in every detail of action, thoughts, dialogue, and description. What is the worst thing from the outside can happen to your character? What is the worst trouble that your character can get into? Have you provided the setup for the danger for the readers? Step three: stretch the emotional. Show us the roiling emotions and doubts and anxieties. Now what is the worst thing from the inside that can happen to your character? What is the worst information that the character could get? Have we set up the reader to care about the lead character? Make sure that you stretch the big picture and the small details.

Raising the stakes. Always ask yourself "who cares?" What will the lead character lose? Is it important enough? Look at the plot stakes -- the threat to the lead character from the outside. What physical harm can occur, what new forces can come in, and what professional duty or commitments are at stake? Look at the character stakes -- the psychological or personal image damage is involved? How can things get more emotionally wrenching, who does the lead care about that can get caught up in trouble, and are there dark secrets waiting to be revealed? Finally, look at the social stakes. Are the conditions in the society dire? What are the social aspects of the story that could affect the characters, are there large issues that they are dealing with, or are there groups of characters that can line up on sides?

Be mean to your characters. Make lists of things that can go wrong and sort them from least to worst. Most of the time you want trouble to increase as the story moves along. And your readers will want to know what happens.

Okay. There's a couple more pages at least talking about middles, but we'll stop at this point. Arm yourself with action, reaction, and more action. Then stretch the tension. Set it up, and stretch the physical and emotional tension. Finally raise the stakes -- plot stakes, character stakes, or social stakes. Got it?

Write!

Current Mood: wrestling
Current Music: It Matters to Me, Faith Hill

Profile

The Place For My Writers Notes

Navigation

February 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Heads Up by momijizuakmori
Theme: A Brighter View by zaluzianskya and skylark_photos

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jul. 5th, 2025 04:12 pm

The Place For My Writers Notes

Entries tagged with tension

TECH: Voila Style! (moldy oldie)

TECH: Foreshadowing? Aka The Shadows of What's To Come? (295 words)

TECH: Suspense Keeps the Pages Turning

TECH: Do you know your bad dialogue?

TECH: Quick Trot?

TECH: Three Secrets of Suspense (with a bonus exercise!)

EXERCISE: Juxtaposition, a.k.a. unstoppable force meets immovable object?

TECH: Quotes from Orson Scott Card

TECH: Stumbling toward Plot and Structure (26)

TECH: Meandering Our Way through Plot and Structure (13)

Profile

Navigation

February 2025

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags