# General Strategies for Increasing Tension



## Heliotrope (Jan 9, 2016)

There has been some talk about tension recently, and I have been reading a ton of great books, so I thought it might be fun to make a list of some of the ways that we can create tension. 

Here are some of the great ones I have discovered: 

1) Combine characters. 

So you have a story where James is cheating on Jennifer with a co-worker. You have four characters. James, Jennifer, The 'girlfriend' and Jennifer's best friend who she confides everything to. What if you combined the girlfriend with the confident? Made them one character? So now Jennifer is confiding to her best friend about her husband's affair, and the confident is actually the girlfriend? Now you have some serious tension. 

2) Shortening Timelines. 

This is used to death and people never get bored of it. "Oh no! Our space craft is hurtling off course and we only have enough O2 to last three more days!" …. midpoint… "Oh no! An alien craft smashed our O2 reserves and we only have enough for six more hours!" 

3) Take away weapons. 

Instead of having a sword fight, why not have a guy lose his sword, and now you have two guys and only one sword? Or, one guy has to try to dodge the blows while crafting a new weapon out of whatever random object happens to be in the room? 

4) Place your characters in a dangerous setting. 

Instead of just a sword fight, why not a sword fight on the top of a moving carriage? Or on horse back? Or on the topmost peak of a burning castle? 

There are TONS more… so if anyone wants to add to the list please do! I will probably add more eventually when I have more time…


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## Heliotrope (Jan 9, 2016)

5) Make it worse. 

Whenever you have planned a scene or story, sit back and brain storm, how could this be worse?

Try to come up with ten answers, then stretch your brain and come up with ten more. 

Example: 

Two guys are having a sword fight, one guy loses his sword and now it is two guys with one sword. 

How could this be worse? 
- They are in the princesses room where there are literally no weapons except some perfume bottles and some lingerie. 
- MC gets sprayed in the face by perfume and is partially blinded. 
- He has to try to make a weapon out of the princess's lingerie… but it is cleaning day and there is nothing in the drawers. 
- The only lingerie available is currently _on_ the princess. 
- The princess is his sister and last thing he wants to do is have her take her clothes off. 
- The poor princess has to take her clothes off and now he is evading the swords man, swinging, blinded, from the rafters of her room (or the top of her canopy bed?) trying to craft a weapon from her delicates.
- the princess is actually not the princess at all, but an assassin disguised as the princess and taking his clothes off will reveal his identity. 
- The assassin disguised as the princess trys to conceal himself with a sheet, knocks over a candle and lights the canopy bed on fire… 

Etc. 

Make it worse.

*maybe it isn't as assassin at all, but the king's footman, who likes to go to the princesses room and wear her underwear? And if he is caught then he would be executed? And the prince is too blinded from the perfume to notice?


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## FifthView (Jan 9, 2016)

I posted a somewhat humorous video in Chat, of a monkey leading a dog via leash across stone steps bridging a rushing river, as a "tutorial" on creating tension.  For me some of the key aspects can be related to what I posted elsewhere re: types of conflict.

*Types of Conflict*


Hurdles/Obstacles
Actual Physical Conflicts (Fights/Battles, Environmental Opposition)
Interpersonal Conflicts (Relationships, Personalities)
Internal Conflicts (Doubts, Desires/Fears, Madness/Confusion/Illusion, etc.)

How these intersect w/ motivation and goals for the two characters plays a role, also.

The steps are types of hurdles/obstacles, insofar as they are spaced out and must be traversed—a long step or hop.  But the river itself is also an obstacle, if the goal is to get to the other side.

Near the end of the journey, there is a fight between the monkey and dog, as one pulls on the leash and the one on the leash is like, "Heck no!"

The previous point is also an example of interpersonal conflict.  The leash is a great symbol also, since one is "master" and one is "follower/servant."

Internal conflict can be seen at the very beginning and throughout, as the monkey is shown first doubting even crossing the river, then doubting an early step, and then doubting the final leap.  The dog also has doubts about that final leap.  You can see desire/fear in conflict for the monkey, in his doubting the final leap.  You see fear in the dog at that point.

I would add a couple other features:

These two characters are just _barely_ competent for their task.  The final leap, especially in slo-mo, shows the minimum/maximum of their competency.  But also, important for the viewer, these are two non-human _animals_.  What level of intellectual capability do these two possess?  There's something very precarious about the whole situation.

There's always the suggestion of danger.  Those close-up views never fail to show the rushing of the river water.  Both monkey and dog naturally sense this danger; to the degree that they have intelligence (and they do), they are aware of the precariousness of their situation (which is another important point:  being aware of the danger.)

I suppose you could also add the mysterious on-looker, that human.  The video is so much better when viewed on mute.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 9, 2016)

6) wHat monsters do is much scarier than what they look like. You can spend weeks crafting a Lovecraftian style beast, what what is really important is that they do something terrifying.

Do they only eat the victims eyes, and then plant larvae in their brain?

Do they plant their young in the victims chest, to burst out of the live victim when mature?

Do they inject the victim with a venom that liquifies their innards and then they suck the liquid out of the body with tentacles in their mouths? 

Being creative in what the monster does is important. Show the reader what the monster does, but save the visual reveal of the beast for closer to the end.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 9, 2016)

FifthView said:


> Hurdles/Obstacles
> Actual Physical Conflicts (Fights/Battles, Environmental Opposition)
> Interpersonal Conflicts (Relationships, Personalities)
> Internal Conflicts (Doubts, Desires/Fears, Madness/Confusion/Illusion, etc.)
> ...



Also, another thing to add is "Clear goal stated." The title of the video you posted was: "Monkey helps dog to cross river" so the viewer knows exactly what the goal is. 

My son watches a show called Ninjego about some Lego Ninja kids and their adventures. Every episode starts with one of the characters explicitly stating the goal and the stakes if they don't succeed: 

A = Where are we? 

B = We are all in space! 

A = We have to try to get out of here or it will mean destruction for all of Ninjego! 

B = Yeah, but the controls are all broken and we can't even get through the hatch to the control room! 

Thus starts the episode… 

Too often I do see it in the showcase where a piece is presented that has no clear goal or stakes, thus significantly lowering the tension of the piece. What exactly are they trying to do and why? When you give that answer to the reader then the reader can follow along in anticipation instead of scratching their head as a clueless by-stander.


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## FifthView (Jan 9, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> Also, another thing to add is "Clear goal stated."



I think that's a good point.  I'm wondering if the goal needs to be _stated_ clearly, necessarily, but it needs to be known by the reader.  So for instance, you could have a scene where an MC learns that his beloved may have been unfaithful, and in the next scene he could be racing to her rooms in the castle.  It's pretty obvious that his goal is to clear up the issue, to confront her, but you never have to state this explicitly.

I'm wondering if I should have numbered some of the points I previously made, in keeping with your listing system.    So maybe I'd make:

7) Put your character into a situation where he may have little competency but the stakes are high.  Playing off the idea of two animals trying to cross a river, one leading the other....i.e., limited intelligence, I could throw out examples such as

a) The young thief breaking into a wizarding school trying to steal a magical item (been done lots of times.)
b) The naive young lady being thrown into the midst of a king's court & all the high-stakes, life & death political machinations.
c) The kidnap victim escaping his captors after he's been hauled into a foreign land where he speaks none of the language and doesn't know any of the customs.​
More generally:  Play off your character's inexperience or limited competency.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 9, 2016)

FifthView said:


> More generally:  Play off your character's inexperience or limited competency.



Yes, which brings me to number 

8. Raise the Stakes

A cute monkey leading a cute doggy over a stone bridge is cute. 

But, if the doggy had life saving medicine around his neck, and had to take it across the bridge to his owner who was dying of diabetic shock (and he is a world class surgeon on his way to perform life altering cleft palate surgery on tiny African orphans), but the dog was terrified of water because he was almost drowned as a puppy, so the monkey had to help him across or the man would surely die (and the orphans would not be able to drink from a bottle and so would eventually starve to death or be cast from their village). Then you have tension. 

Would we have cared as much about Forrest Gump if he wasn't needed by so many people? If he weren't so important to Jenny and his mother and Luitenent Dan? Raising the stakes... Making your character _valuable_ to the world outside of just himself, increases the tension.


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## MiguelDHorcrux (Jan 10, 2016)

Keep em coming, peeps. I'm having a bad case of writer's block and I need all the help I can get.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 10, 2016)

9. Make it personal. 

All too often "high stakes" comes to mean "destruction of the world as we know it". 

This is all well and good, and public stakes are very important... But public stakes need to be balanced by personal stakes. 

How many people do you know in Syria right now fighting for the refugees? Are you hopping on an airplane to fight for Syrian children? Probably not. Why? No personal stakes. 

What makes the characters in stories like War of the Worlds or World War Z so plausible is that they have families they need to protect, raising their personal stakes. 

If we look at Jaws part of the main tension is that each of the main characters personal stakes conflict with each other. 

- The policeman  has a young family and after the initial attack wants to close the beach to keep his family safe. 

-The mayor is worried about the fiscal season of the town, and refuses to close the beach because they are a summer town and no beach means no income. 

-The man hired to destroy the shark saw all of his navy comrades destroyed by sharks off the coast of Japan and will stop at nothing to kill every shark he can find. This means that when the other men want to turn back, he sabotages the boat so that they are forced to stay and confront the shark. 

Raise the personal stakes of your characters and you will create more plausibility and more tension.


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## FifthView (Jan 10, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> If we look at Jaws part of the main tension is that each of the main characters personal stakes conflict with each other.
> 
> - The policeman  has a young family and after the initial attack wants to close the beach to keep his family safe.
> 
> -The mayor is worried about the fiscal season of the town, and refuses to close the beach because they are a summer town and no beach means no income.



Which of course leads us to...

10) Create conflict between the members of a group of allies.  Again, the conflict can take many forms, from a simple clash between personalities to conflicting goals & motivations to a conflict of ideas about how to proceed.  Think, Frodo and Boromir; or, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley in _Goblet of Fire_.


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## FifthView (Jan 10, 2016)

Here's a big one:

11) When using multiple POVs, have the characters (whether friendly or antagonistic) operate with a limited awareness of what the other POV characters are doing, so that any given character's actions may be at cross-purposes with another character's goals—or, potentially, helpful in that other character's goals.  E.g., the good-guy protagonist's actions may actually be helping the villain, unbeknownst to him; or, one good-guy character sets off on a course of action that will thwart the goals of another good-guy POV character (although neither knows this is coming.)


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## FifthView (Jan 10, 2016)

And #11 naturally leads to....

12)  Secrets.  Have your MC's keep secrets from each other.  This is the oil in the machinery of soap operas, whether daytime soap operas or the prime time teen/YA soap operas (CW network, anyone?)  I very much hesitate to include this one—because it is _so easy to do_, it's way, way, way, way overused.  You know what I'm talking about:  If the characters would just talk to each other once and tell each other what they know, the whole story would be resolved, everything would come to its conclusion.  But they don't.

NOTE:  Two great cases of this method have solid reasoning behind them, in my opinion.  One was _Smallville_.  Clark Kent, were he to reveal his identity, would have caused ever-so-much more harm than he does by hiding his identity.   The other was _Dexter_.  Both cases involve MC's with dual identities.

But it's still a good method and can be used well—as long as it's not used in a facile way.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 10, 2016)

13. *What if my main character failed?*

This is the ultimate stakes test. Sit back and ask yourself this question. What if half way through, or at the end of your story your main character kicked the bucket? Would someone else be able to pick up where they left off no problem? Would the rest of the world carry on as if nothing had happened? Would anyone know or care? 

Why did Gandolf _need_ Frodo? Because he was the least likely to be affected by greed and the rings power. If something had happened to Frodo Gandolf could not be certain that any other member of the party could be fully trusted with the ring. Frodo was invaluable to the quest.

Try to make your character indesposible. What makes them significant? What is it about _them_ in particular that makes them special, or the only one suited to the task? When your character is critical to the plot then any bump in their path will be felt by the reader.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 10, 2016)

14. Tension is not anger, bickering, or foot stomping.

Simply having characters fighting and being rude to each other is not conflict. This does not raise tension. Characters should have conflicting goals or motives. Simply having them argue with each other for the sake of the appearance of conflict just makes them look childish and mean and will annoy readers.


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## FifthView (Jan 10, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> Simply having characters fighting and being rude to each other is not conflict. This does not raise tension.



...unless there is a nascent love affair.  OR, if the conflict truly threatens to blow up a solid, working partnership that will be important to reaching the final goal.  (Like Harry Potter vs Ron Weasley in _Goblet of Fire_—we _know_ that these two will stay together; but seeing a favorite duo on the brink like that can create uneasiness.)

Edit:  But I suppose the above could be covered under "Characters should have conflicting goals or motives," so never mind. 

Edit#2:  OTOH....at the end of Part 1 of Season 5 of _Teen Wolf_, the MC, who's the pack leader, has basically lost his pack. They've been fighting, there have been breaks because of conflicting goals & motivations, etc.  But the danger is still present and we viewers know they are going to have to be working together in order to have even a _chance_ of not being slaughtered by the end of things.  So I do wonder if simply having such petty disputes can actually create tension when the reader knows these people need to stay together.

But I don't want my concerns with #14 to...cause tension between us.


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## Caged Maiden (Jan 10, 2016)

With secrets, failure, and anger, comes:

15. FEAR. While it's essential to show characters arguing, or terrified by a monster, (and I think you guys have done a great job of creating a list here, so I'm not trying to argue any of the points previously made), fear can take many forms. I use self-doubt as a very real tension-builder. My MC ran from his past and must now take up a sword again for his king and country, but CAN he? Is he too rusty? Is he past his prime? Can he even hang in a battle run by mages?

Maybe "fear" isn't the perfect word to sum it all up, but it's a simple word, one we all understand, and have experienced. We fear for our friends who are in danger, and it makes us do something silly because we don't trust they can get themselves out of trouble without our help. Or, we fear for our loved ones back home, and so we maybe do a shoddy job on something in a hurry to return home, or we make the difficult decision to abandon our party, because our thoughts are elsewhere and we've become a liability.

I think the internal fears of characters are one element I use in about every story, maybe because I'm a fear-driven person myself. I just wanted to mention it as another separate element from the common fear of being in a burning building or facing a monster. That anxious fear one feels can sometimes become an antagonistic force all of it's own.

This list is great!


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## Heliotrope (Jan 10, 2016)

Thanks fifthview. You helped to clarify my point, actually. I used to see a phrase used on this site that went something along the lines of "disagreements should be arguments and arguments should be fist fights" as a way of heightening tension. Having your characters fight with each other without a plausible motive just makes them look childish and is not effective. 

Cage maiden: yes. I think yours might be labelled *Self Doubt*. Having a hero charge into battle with full confidence and no emotion or self doubt is not interesting. Self doubt is a highly effective tool for creating a sympathetic character.


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## FifthView (Jan 10, 2016)

Helio:  I got what you meant from the beginning; you were pointing a finger at the pseudo-conflicts, facile bickering, etc.  It's a good point.


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## FifthView (Jan 10, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> 13. *What if my main character failed?*
> 
> This is the ultimate stakes test. Sit back and ask yourself this question. What if half way through, or at the end of your story your main character kicked the bucket? Would someone else be able to pick up where they left off no problem? Would the rest of the world carry on as if nothing had happened? Would anyone know or care?
> 
> ...



I'm going to add a related one:

16.  *Use try/fail cycles. *  It's been said (e.g., on Writing Excuses, many times) that a character should be shown trying and failing multiple times.  This sets up some doubt about whether he's competent enough to accomplish his goals; and, these are occasions for instigating character growth.  But these are great for creating tension also.  If you show a character failing similar tests multiple times, then whenever another related event happens, the question of his success is brought up front, heightening tension.  So for instance if it's a question of using a new magic ability, and every time he's tried it he has failed, then when the stakes are high and it's the only way he can successfully avert disaster....the reader's going to be on pins and needles.

[On second thought, I wonder if it's related so closely to the other one.    It is related to competency, increasing stakes, etc.]


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## Heliotrope (Jan 10, 2016)

17. *Conflict is not the characters fighting with each other. It's them fighting with themselves.*

Changes are difficult to make. We know we should behave one way, but our instinct is to behave just the opposite (especially when we are stressed, or pressured, or in fear). Often when a person is angry, he's angry with himself or with an unresolved situation Dig deeper. This is three-dimensional characterizing. Having a character think one thing or want one thing but do the opposite is interesting - and it's his own personal conflict. 

Think Mean Girls. The MC _knows_ how she should behave. She knows that her behaviour is effecting her old friends and isolating her from those she loves, but her drive to "fit in" makes her behave in a way that she knows is wrong. 

Conflict should be based on your character's goals, backstories, and motivations. It should represent opposing forces that comes from within the characters themselves. 

- Writing With Emotion, Tension and Conflict by Cheryl St. John


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## FifthView (Jan 10, 2016)

Caged Maiden said:


> That anxious fear one feels can sometimes become an antagonistic force all of it's own.



I really like this.  So many of the strategies for creating or increasing tension revolve precisely around the notion of creating a new antagonistic force or situation that stands in the way of a character's accomplishing his goals.


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## Caged Maiden (Jan 10, 2016)

i have novels that have no antagonist, but the characters (all heroes if you want to call them that) struggle with each other and their individual goals, and themselves. I use internal tension as a major force in my stories, because I have no great evil characters for several of my novels. 

I find that often characters have deep secrets, maybe their identities or their pasts, and those function as antagonists!


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## Velka (Jan 11, 2016)

You can also create tension with the structure of your story. One chapter is the bad guy finding out the good guy's plans and then setting up an ambush in his temple of doom. The next chapter is the good guys sneaking into the temple of doom, thinking they're being all sneaky. The reader knows they're walking into a trap and the tension of how bad the trap will be and how/if they can get themselves out of it keeps them turning pages.


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## FifthView (Jan 11, 2016)

Velka, maybe that would be

18. Create a danger that the reader knows about but the good-guy protagonists do not.  (Relates to #11 above also.)

As for structure...that reminds me of....

19. Use a cliffhanger.  Sure, it's one of those strategies that can be overused or used in a facile way, because it's so easy to do, but when done well it's quite effective for creating tension.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 11, 2016)

Thanks Velka! i was wondering if anyone else was going to step in with more suggestions! Structure is a great one, they also do the same sort of thing with most horror movies (notice how Jaws opens up with the shark attack, and Jurrasic Park opens up with the Dino attack etc?) 

They show the really big, scary problem _first_ so it is in the back of the reader's mind the entire time the MC is wandering around in the forest in the dark all alone with no cell phone. George RR Martin does this in Game Of Thrones with the 'Others'. He starts the series off by showing the threat of the 'others' first, so for the rest of the series we understand the great threat and what they mean by "winter is coming". 

Another way to use structure is to show a brief section of the climax, or an emotionally charged part of the story, then go back to the beginning to show how they got there. This is used in Mission Impossible 2 to great effect. My favourite use of this sort of structure is in the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce. 

Fiction: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge


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## FifthView (Jan 11, 2016)

Helio, that has me thinking of adding a new one, something to do with being vague about threats, or withholding information.  Particularly, I'm thinking about the way the shark or the dinosaur are not shown in full at first.  You see the fin maybe or a blur behind the branches and bushes.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 11, 2016)

Yes, I just read that strategy in Writing Monsters: How to Craft Believably Terrifying Creatures to Enhance Your Horror, Fantasy, or Science Fiction by Philip Athens. 

He notes that letting the reader use their imagination for the most of the book is MUCH scarier then showing them the creature right away. That part of my earlier suggestion… he notes that _showing_ what the creature _does_ (make it original and frightening) and then leaving it up to the reader to imagine _how_ the creatures does such terrible things is much more frightening then showing the reader the creature right away. He suggests you leave the visual reveal until later on, or even until the climax.


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## FifthView (Jan 11, 2016)

Yeah you have mentioned showing what the monsters _do_ in an earlier point also.

I think the vagueness/withholding key information about a threat could be expanded to include many things however.  Like the first season of _24_: There _may_ be a mole in Jack Bauer's unit but we don't know who it is.  Or, say, in a book people around the MC keep dying in mysterious ways.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 11, 2016)

20. Red Herrings. 

If you have a mystery, make a list of 'traits' about your culprit. So for example, my culprit is a child, she has dark hair, she is an orphan and was wearing a blue shirt. 

So at the crime scene they may find that the culprit had to fit through a rather small window in order to get in, there is a blue thread attached to a loose nail, a strand of long dark hair is found in the corner, and dirty smudges were left on the glass. 

Through out the story, leave Red Herrings for the reader to confuse them. Include another character in the story who also has long dark hair, another who wears blue regularly, another who is an expert thief called "tiny" because of his small stature, etc. 

Keep the reader guessing.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 11, 2016)

21. Sexual tension. 

I can't believe this didn't come before # 20!

Sexual tension is great in romance, but it can be used across the board. Why not give some of your characters some "history"? That romance that just didn't work out? This works especially nicely if one character fills the antagonist role, like in Oceans 12 where the detective hunting down Ocean and his team happens to be an ex-girlfriend of one of the team members. 

If any one else has ideas I would love to hear them! I'm basically sharing my list for anyone who needs a little tension boost in their story, but this is by no means a comprehensive list, and I would love to hear others thoughts or strategies!


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## Heliotrope (Jan 11, 2016)

21. Posing Questions

Going back to what fifthview was saying, I think it might be categorized as "posing questions to the reader". Present just enough information that it raises questions in the readers mind. This could also be considered "the hook" if it is a big enough question. 

Is there a mole? 
What just destroyed that park employee and left him dangling on the fence? 
What killed that girl in the water?
Who is killing all the woman named Sarah Conners? And why?


Try to raise as many questions as possible. 

So for examle, my wip currently opens with a news article about a series of jewellery store burglaries that have been going on. Police believe it is the same suspect, and they are looking for something in particular. They believe the culprit is quite small, and was wearing a blue jacket at the time of the burglary. The culprit also seems to leave a calling card of gold sand, sprinkled in a thin layer through out the stores. The employees of every store have been unavailable to comment, as many have either left town unexpectedly, or have been declared missing by family members. Any information would be appreciated. 

So in my first scene I have my MC, crawling into the open window of a jewellery store... But the golden sand is already present, and the jewel cases have already been smashed. The reason her foster father picked the store was because he had noticed it had been empty for a few days. She navigates around the sand, and tries to steal some stuff, but her father is hounding her to hurry up. Finally tired of doing his dirty work, she manages to trap him in the office and pulls the fire alarm, hoping to alert the police. He gets out and chases her, and she throws some of the sand at him. He aprupty disappears. 

She is left alone in the jewellery store, with the police quickly on the way... And the sand begins swirling...

Raise questions. Don't give too many answers. The bigger questions you can raise, the more your readers will be on the edge of their seats reading for answers.


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## FifthView (Jan 12, 2016)

Helio, you have 2 #21's!

I particularly like the way "Posing Questions" can be used in tandem with "Red Herrings."  Again, S1 of _24_ does this very well.  We are told that Bauer's unit may have a mole, and then throughout the season we are given reasons to suspect X, Y, Z, etc. might be the mole.  (It's also complicated by the fact that there might be more than one plant in his unit.)

By leaving questions in the reader's mind, you can get the reader to try to piece together the puzzle; but you can offer clues that lead to "answers" that turn out to be red herrings.


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## FifthView (Jan 12, 2016)

23. *Add a plot twist.*

I don't think a plot twist needs to be extreme, totally altering the direction a story is going.  Sometimes a plot twist merely expands the story.  A reader thinks the story is leading up to point A, and, sure enough, it does; but then a reveal lets the reader know that this story is really about something larger.  Point A, which seemed big, becomes merely a stepping stone.

A plot twist can also change the parameters of the goal in an unexpected way, perhaps complicating the goal:

 “No, I am your father.”  To that point, we'd pretty much been led to expect that Luke would have to confront and defeat Darth Vader.  This threw a wrench into the works.

Incidentally, having recently watched those first three Star Wars movies again, I think that "No. There is another" is far, far more shocking.  Perhaps this is because I've known about both reveals for so long now.  But also, Darth Vader's reveal had been foreshadowed somewhat; at least, the pieces had been laid.  But the reveal about that "other" was totally out of the blue.  Up until that point, the movies had established Luke's sole role as a type of anointed one.  When Yoda says, "No.  There is another," this very foundation is almost obliterated.

But Lucas failed in delivering on that stunning reveal.  In a way, it was a sort of red herring plot twist.  (Used, I think, merely to get Luke out of dangling on that antenna later in the movie, and then for trying to amp up Luke's anger in the third movie.)  If it had been a real plot twist, Leia's role as another Skywalker would have been more significant to the resolution of the plot.  (OH how I would have loved to see the final fight being Luke & Leia vs Darth Vader & Palpatine!)


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## Heliotrope (Jan 12, 2016)

24. *Don't use the first idea you come up with. *

This is actually a Pixar tip, and one that ties into what Fifthview is saying. 

When you reach a conflict or a plot point, don't use the first idea you come up with. Try to make a list (like I mentioned earlier) of ten possible things that could go wrong. Then stretch your brain to come up with ten more ideas. 

If you use the first idea you came up with, chances are that is the first idea the reader came up with… making your piece too predictable. 

Even if it takes a few days, try to achieve at least ten alternative possibilities to keep your plot twisting and turning in unpredictable ways.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 12, 2016)

Which then, I guess brings me to: 

25. *Defy expectations*

Your detective walks into the library where he has received a tip that a murderer is hiding out. He surveys the scene. There is a mother and her child in the check out line. A little old lady and a little old man are sitting at the computers trying to check their email unsuccessfully. A large teenager in a hoodie is hiding in the horror section. A middle aged man is drinking a coffee in the back corner. The Detective strides to the back corner… 

The little old lady pulls out a gun. 

George RR Martin does this successfully when Jon Snow first meets Mance Ryder. He enters the wildling's camp to find it surprisingly un-warlike. He is brought to the tent of the King-behind-the-wall. Inside the scene is, again, not what Jon expected. A grey haired man plays the lute and sings. A pregnant woman roasts a brace of hens. Jon picks out a large bearded man as the king, but he is wrong. The King is the lute player. 

If you keep defying your reader's expectations, they will be on the edge of their seat wondering what little surprises you have in store for them next.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 13, 2016)

26. *Micro-tension*

Micro tension is that line by line, paragraph by paragraph tension that keeps the reader engaged. 

I was thinking about structure, and my example of MI2 and how it started by showing the climax, then went back to show how they got there. 

The same can be done even just for a single chapter or paragraph. Always try to write sentences that don't quite give the reader all the information so they have to read on... 

"I first noticed the gold dust on the night Piper was taken." 

- I could then go on to _show_ what happened that night, and end the chapter with 'them' taking Piper. 

Or, you could just start the paragraph with a 'hook' or a question… 

"Let's get one thing straight. I don't steal because I like it." 
(Reader: So why do you do it?) 

"The black town car was not where it always was."
(Reader: Where was it? Where was it supposed to be?) 


Notice how each sentence creates a small hook... A question in the reader's mind. This is micro-tension. 

If you can build your setting description or exposition into micro tension then you can hold your reader, even during boring explaining parts.

Dont' just save your hook sentence for the beginning of the story. Try to scatter them all throughout, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter.


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## pmmg (Aug 24, 2022)

I failed at 24 a few times.


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## pmmg (Aug 26, 2022)

Just reading through all of these, I think this is an excellent thread, and both Fifth and Helio should be commended as site treasures (course, Helio is not around as much anymore, but....)

Helio's post between 19 and 20 might have me go make one of my monsters less descript....

And I hate no 12. When someone has a secret and wont tell, I start to lose patience with them. That whole 'Trust me, I've got a plan..." does not fly with me. Thought, Clark keeping any from knowing his is Superman, would be a notable exception. In which case, i would want it to hurt him that he cannot.


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## Demesnedenoir (Aug 26, 2022)

There are a bunch of fabulous old threads hanging around in the skein of the forums. As I recall, I think this one formed off of some others. The active members in that period made for some conversations that are rarely rivaled now.


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## pmmg (Aug 26, 2022)

Helio is/was great at starting conversations, which I have no gift for. But members come and go and shift around. MS is still fairly active, so maybe threads like those will pop up again. Last Forum site for me is a ghost town now. But new writers start up everyday, and all us old forum pro's can look all wise when they have questions.


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