# Let's talk about tension.



## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Ok, I had to sleep on this one because I've tried to have this discussion on three separate occasions over the past few years and every single time got shot down in a blaze of glory.

But I'm a glutton for punishment.

Tension is a tricky one to master because it is terribly nuanced. There are so many facets to creating tension, and it changes depending on the type of story you are writing and the writing style.

But I will say this. Tension is NOT _action_. Stop for a moment and read that again. Tension is NOT _action. 
_
A few years back there was a certain philosophy on this site that tension = car chases and fight scenes. The more of these. you had, the more the reader would be turning pages. This is absolutely not true. That is not what tension is. I have no clue where that idea came from... probably film, but in fiction it is not what tension means.

In fiction _tension _refers to that feeling you get as a reader when questions are raised in your mind.

What will happen next?
How will she get out of this one?
When she find out the truth?
Will she ever get her boyfriend back?

Those questions are what makes reader's keep turning pages. If they are connected enough (care enough) about the character and the plight of the character, you can have basically NOTHING HAPPENING and they will still be riveted. That is because tension runs under the surface. Tension is that bubbling pot of questions in the reader's mind.

You can create this in romance, historical drama, fast paced action thrillers, children books.... everything. On its most basic level the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carl is packed full of tension for kids. Why? The very first line is:

_Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? 
_
It is an explicitly stated question. What does he see? Let's turn the page to find out. We are presented with another question. We keep turning pages to find the answers.

In your work you don't need to write explicitly stated questions... but if you are finding that reader's are just not connecting to your work, or having trouble turning pages, there are definite tried and true ways of increasing tension. Methods that have been around for thousands of years. And these methods DO NOT include adding more action.

1) Simply making sure the character's goal is clearly shown is a valuable tool for heightening tension. Having a direct through line of "This is what the character wants"... and "these are the obstacles he will have to face" gives the reader an idea of what might happen, and raises questions of "How are they going to achieve that?"

2) Creating a character that readers really care about is a great way of creating tension. When reader's care about the character... when they really love the character, then they will care what happens to them.

But at the end of the day, simply remembering that tension = questions raised in reader's minds is a good place to start.

What do you think, Scribes?

What are your tried and true ways of creating tension for your readers? What are some methods have you learned that work for you? What is some of the worst advice you have heard in regards to tension?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 16, 2018)

Not sure I totally agree that tension is raised questions in the reader’s mind. That’s part of it for sure. Tension piques interest. 

I think tension is, simply put, the result of well-rendered conflict. 

That conflict can span from a small disagreement to an epic standoff, and everything in between.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Tension piques interest.



Hmmmm, interesting. I'm wondering how piques interest is different than raising questions? 

If I see an interesting scene that piques my interest, I feel like my head is swimming with questions. Who is that guy? What is happening? How will this play out?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 16, 2018)

I’m saying that’s the part of your presentation that I agree with.

I’m not totally in agreement though. In my opinion, tension is the result of conflict. That’s the simplest way I can define it. 

Conflict may not necessarily raise questions, however. For example, tension might still be present when the reader knows precisely what is happening.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I’m saying that’s the part of your presentation that I agree with.
> 
> I’m not totally in agreement though. In my opinion, tension is the result of conflict. That’s the simplest way I can define it.
> 
> Conflict may not necessarily raise questions, however. For example, tension might still be present when the reader knows precisely what is happening.



Example? I’m still thinking, even if I knew exactly what was happening, I don’t know how it will play out.... so there is still the mystery there...


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 16, 2018)

Consider an omniscient POV as one example. Since this is a fantasy site, there are pieces of The Hobbit/LoTR, written in omniscient, where the reader knows precisely what each character thinks. Because of this knowledge, tension is raised. Without it, it wouldn’t be so engaging because the POV would be in the dark regarding other character motivations.

Some of the LoTR-ophiles here will have to point to exact excerpts, but they do exist. 

Dune might be another example. The reader knows what each character thinks and their motivations. 

Yes, at some basic level the question, “what happens next?” is still present, but that's inherent in any story.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Consider an omniscient POV as one example. Since this is a fantasy site, there are pieces of The Hobbit/LoTR, written in omniscient, where the reader knows precisely what each character thinks. Because of this knowledge, tension is raised. Without it, it wouldn’t be so engaging because the POV would be in the dark regarding other character motivations.
> 
> Some of the LoTR-ophiles here will have to point to exact excerpts, but they do exist.



Yes, so like dramatic irony, where the reader knows more than the characters?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Yes, so like dramatic irony, where the reader knows more than the characters?


Yes. That’d be one possibility.

FYI: I edited the above to include the example, “Dune”.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Yeah, so I would still argue that even with dramatic irony, where there is literally ZERO mystery... all the thoughts and motives are on the table... there is still the questions as to the outcome.

Will Paul make it out of this okay? Will he find out about the plan? Will he be able to stop them?
Will Frodo be able to complete this task? Will they figure out the way into the dwarves caves? What will they find in there?

Even if the question get's answered in the same page (they do get into the cave, Gandolf does come back, etc, etc) then there are new questions being raised, which leads you to keep turning more pages. 

Etc, etc, etc.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 16, 2018)

I don’t disagree. I simply believe that any tension, and it’s succeeding questions, are simply the result of conflict.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I don’t disagree. I simply believe that any tension, and it’s succeeding questions, are simply the result of conflict.



Ahhhhhhhhhh, yes. Truth. And as you said, conflict does not necessarily have to be action. It can be as simple as a road block in the way of a quest... a wall. Or a locked door. At any rate, the conflict raises the questions.


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## Penpilot (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> But at the end of the day, simply remembering that tension = questions raised in reader's minds is a good place to start.



This is the way I think of things. It's doesn't matter if you know the ending, because in a lot of stories the ending is known at least in broad strokes. But the question remains how they got there, which I find to be the most important thing. To me, there's the overarching questions, that get answered only when the tale is finished, and the small scale questions that come and go as things unfold.



Heliotrope said:


> What are your tried and true ways of creating tension for your readers? What are some methods have you learned that work for you? What is some of the worst advice you have heard in regards to tension?



One of the things I try to remember is to pay the reader off from time to time with definite answers. If all I ever do is bring up questions without answering anything, I think chances are the reader will get tired of it and think I'm just toying with them and stop reading.

I don't have any worst advice, but I have some worst mistakes. In some of my earlier stories, I tried to avoid answering a question because I though it would be a great reveal. But no, the answer to the question made for better tension, because it brought up an even better question of how will they get out of and avoid the mess created by that answer.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 16, 2018)

I think tension is probably the one aspect of storytelling that it's taken me the longest to figure out - and that still doesn't mean I actually get it.

At first I just didn't want to see the need for it. I figured my characters were interesting enough without it and that the unmade promises of things unhinted at would be enough to keep readers interested (if it wasn't going to be interesting, I wouldn't write a book about it, right?).

I think I may have been a victim of the implication that tension means action, and I wasn't interested in writing action. I wanted to try and keep the readers interested in other ways, and that's probably why I latched on to kishotenketsu as soon as I heard about it (see thread about plot structure).

I've since learned that tension isn't action, and I think I've got a better grasp on it. 

Helio and TAS talk about tension as the result of questions or conflict. I think both are right. A conflict is a type of question, and a question is a type of conflict. You may have to stretch your regular definitions of conflict and question to agree fully, but it works for me.

I think part of what made tension difficult for me to grasp was that I also didn't have much of an idea of the importance of reader expectations. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how readers read and how to best to immerse them in the world of my stories. What I didn't think about was why readers read.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> . A conflict is a type of question, and a question is a type of conflict. You may have to stretch your regular definitions of conflict and question to agree fully, but it works for me.



Totally makes sense to me. 



Svrtnsse said:


> What I didn't think about was why readers read.



Love this so much.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 16, 2018)

Mmm. I love tension. My favorite is between characters at seriously ridiculous moments. People are so complicated. I once read somewhere that fiction characters need to have their shit together as people more than real humans because of reader expectations. I agree to an extent. People are complex, crazy, loving, interesting, all kinds of things. Bringing out human nature in story is the very essence of what makes it exciting. 

So for me, tension depends on many factors. There's emotional tension, physical tension, sexual tension, awkward silences and conversations, etc. What helps me in any given scene is to focus on the viewpoint character and their relationship with whatever or whoever is their opponent in that scene: could be her/him, another character or the story world. 

For example, in one of my stories the lead male has a tremendous amount of anxiety over where he lives. He hates the town he lives in. There are various reasons for that but it's something that slowly boils underneath the surface in some scenes vs others. Particularly when he's having conversations with another character about having moved back home. It's a source of annoyance for him and it makes him respond in asshole ways sometimes. It added to the tension in various scenes with the heroine because it fueled his emotional distance. In another one of my stories, the heroine had an ongoing feud with one of the other characters and it caused a lot of problems between her, the hero, and her work environment. Anything can be tension.


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## Nimue (Jan 16, 2018)

Out of all the hot-button issues we're reviewing, this is the only one that's really gotten my goat...  I don't like thriller pacing and I don't like endless anguish.  Whenever I read books that ramp up constant tension, it genuinely gives me anxiety--if it gets to a certain fever-pitch I will skim to get to the damn ending just to see how it resolves, which is all too often with not-quite-cliffhangers and further character torture.  I don't re-read those books and I don't pick up anything else by those authors.  I want to be able to breathe sometimes when I'm reading, I want to trust that there will be a satisfying ending that resolves all that tension, that will make me grin with delight.  I understand that there are people who read to make their heart race, but I'm just not one of them.

Having said that, I understand what you guys are going to say--tension doesn't necessarily mean the thriller approach, it can be more subtle than that.  The problem is, I do believe that my stories lack scene-to-scene tension.  I keep catching myself trying to resolve tension early, having characters reassure each other, all of that.  But when I go looking for advice about building tension, it seems so extreme--what's the worst thing that could happen to your character right now, throw in some random awfulness, never let them accomplish anything without throwing a wrench in their face first. I've tried to read Maass and just could not get through it.  I go looking for tips on how to structure scenes and pitfalls to avoid and it feels like I'm being told to bend my story into a wildly different shape.  Maybe I need to find a Regency Romance guide to tension, I don't know.

Optimistically, I'd like to think that part of that reaction is because there is inherent tension in the stories already--what's the worst thing that could happen to your character right now?  Oh, I don't know, her situation staying the same for the rest of her life would be pretty damn awful, things suck for her right now.  I've never been shy about having my characters suffer, but I'm just not sure it feels compelling.

I just...don't want to hear "make it worse".  I want to hear how I can convey to the reader that things are already bad.  How I can keep that at the forefront of their mind without throwing "more" into my plot.

I think this is where writing advice rankles...when you know something's wrong, but the advice feels like it's trying to shove you too far...and you don't, or at least I don't, have the confidence to say for certain that it doesn't apply.  I just want to read moderate, nuanced advice about this...maybe I just want someone to coax me into seeing the point instead of being slapped in the face with it.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Hmmmm, I think the only way I could coax would be to use gentle examples?

It really bugs me that tension has become synonymous with "ramp up everything bad you can possibly think of until your head explodes" and Make It Worse has become synonymous with Make it Grimdark.

I'm not sure how that happened, but I think the way it is presented has a lot to do with that.

Tension is any underlying, bubbling under the surface question. There is tension in Curious George cartoons. I will use that as an example because it is hardy grim dark, and nothing really bad ever happens to Curious George. Remember, the way I'm explaining tension is tension for the reader, not for the character. So at the beginning of a Curious George story George always _wants _something. Maybe to make a birthday gift for the man in the yellow hat. George maybe wants to paint him a picture. But... (and here is where they ramp it up... lol), George has no crayons! He lent them to Bill for a project! Oh No! This is, literally, the worst thing that can happen to George _in that minute. _So he goes to Sally to get some crayons. On his way it rains... and his paper gets wet. Oh dear! Things are really getting bad for George. Will he be able to finish his picture before the man's birthday? Let's keep reading to find out!

That is all tension is. Tension is just the conflict and the questions. It does not have to be Game of Thrones intense. It can be very tame. Very simple stuff.

As far as Make it Worse. That does NOT mean make it Grim Dark. Make it worse just means "make it more complicated".

So maybe a girl goes to break up with her boyfriend. It is already pretty bad. Tears. Angry words.

Could you make it worse? If you are thinking only in terms of yelling and screaming... no. It would be overly dramatic and dumb. But what if the girl showed up to break up with him and he thought she was coming to make up from a fight and he had bough an engagement ring? Maybe he had been saving for a car, but thought she was more important and spent the money on a ring. Maybe he even had made a romantic dinner, and bought her favourite dessert. Here she shows up to dump the guy and crap... This is terrible. That would be pretty bad. Going to break up with a guy you fought with is one thing. Going to break up with a guy who thinks you are the one and just spent his car money on your engagement ring is a whole new ball game.

I hope those examples make sense?


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

I just did the above in my own WIP. For the longest time in my draft I had Andy come home from school after missing the auditions for a major speech competition (because of her dad). She comes home and sees him giving the landlady one of her mother's treasures because he has been having trouble paying rent. Andy is pissed. She is ready to slaughter the guy. Originally she just stomped into the house and gave him what for.

The other night I thought, what if she stomped into the house and he had tried to throw her a "congratulations party"? What if he assumed she would win the contest, had no clue that he delayed her so much that morning that she missed it, and went to all the trouble to make a banner and a cake and get her a gift that he couldn't afford? That would suck. She rushes into the house to fight with him and is faced with all this love. His pride for her is literally hanging from the ceiling. It created some amazing inner conflict. 

That was how I made the scene worse.


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## Nimue (Jan 16, 2018)

I get it, I do, but when you say make it more complicated...is that necessary?  To be honest, a lot of examples to require characters going to extreme lengths (i.e. engagement ring guy) or horrible, unlikely acts of god author.  I like conflict that arises _despite_ characters being sensible, communicative, thoughtful fucking adult people.  Saying that oh, now a character should twist herself into a pretzel in order to put herself in the position that's exactly contrary to what she wants, even if she'd never go there if the author gave her reasonable choices... I just don't know.

When do you know that you need to make things worse?  When do you stop making things worse, instead of turning the plot into a Gordian knot of complexity and worms?  How can you identify a lack of tension on a scene level?

Talking in generalities again.  I can bring the story I'm actually thinking of into it.  I feel like there is a lot of "yes-but" and "no, and" built into the plot, that happened without me sitting down and wondering if I could make it worse.  At the beginning of the story the witch heroine is freed from her prison, but she returns to find her mother dead and faces the risk of starvation over the winter.  An old friend from the village finds out she's there and brings her food, but as she's beginning to find her feet again, the thane's son arrives at her doorstep, having hunted her down.  He doesn't want to burn her at the stake, but he asks her to return to her prison to lift a curse... when she lifts that spell it turns out to only be a symptom of the real curse, etc, etc.

The thing is, maybe that's not enough, maybe it's shit tension, I don't know.  Should I not have her friend show up, should I make her crawl into the village?  What if she would rather die alone in her cottage than strike out for help?  And if I load that moment up with tension and awfulness, doesn't that just keep me from getting to the more important plot point of the thane's son showing up?  I don't want to emphasize something for the reader that isn't important--I don't want to contradict the characters and the world.  I mean, I could have the thane's son drag her out of there in irons and force her to come with him--that's what he intended to do, it wouldn't be crazy.  But that'd put a hell of a damper on the trust between them, which is absolutely essential later.  I can think of a million ways for things to go worse, but I remain unconvinced that it would help the story...


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

All amazing questions.

I think, to answer them, one must consider the point of the story. The themes. What is the story _about. _In my case, the story is _about _the girl and her dad. The relationship. The scene did a ton of extras besides just "making it worse". It showed the inner conflict the girl has for her dad. He is not a bad guy. He is actually a really kind, loving, proud father who is struggling to do what he can for her. He messes up sometimes. She wants him to be perfect and he isn't. That is her character arc. She has to accept that he isn't perfect, and she isn't either. So the scene set all that up for me.

In the past three months I have cut at least five characters from my first draft. Entire story lines, character arcs, relationships, romances. Gone. Delete. Entire "make it worse" scenarios cut. Gone. So that I could simplify and focus on what mattered to the story. The true theme.

You could go crazy bending characters backwards into pretzels, and you may want to... but only if it serves the story you are writing.



Nimue said:


> is that necessary?



So it's not that it is necessary, but thinking about it sometimes helps you to stretch a scene further. Give it more impact. Make it do double duty. Use it as a way to really showcase what you are trying to do with the story. Offer an emotional moment of change and transformation where one maybe didn't exist originally.



Nimue said:


> To be honest, a lot of examples to require characters going to extreme lengths (i.e. engagement ring guy) or horrible, unlikely acts of god author. I like conflict that arises _despite_ characters being sensible, communicative, thoughtful fucking adult people. Saying that oh, now a character should twist herself into a pretzel in order to put herself in the position that's exactly contrary to what she wants, even if she'd never go there if the author gave her reasonable choices... I just don't know.



The examples are given to show what is possible. Not to say "Do this in your story." You have to know your own story. You have to know where a tool like this could be valuable and where it would be junk. Where it is not necessary.



Nimue said:


> When do you know that you need to make things worse? When do you stop making things worse, instead of turning the plot into a Gordian knot of complexity and worms? How can you identify a lack of tension on a scene level?



Sometimes you don't know. Sometimes a moment of inspiration will hit you where it is like an aha moment. Many thousands of words later you may think Oh! That would really heighten the moment! That would really highlight what I'm trying to show here!



Nimue said:


> At the beginning of the story the witch heroine is freed from her prison, but she returns to find her mother dead and faces the risk of starvation over the winter. An old friend from the village finds out she's there and brings her food, but as she's beginning to find her feet again, the thane's son arrives at her doorstep, having hunted her down. He doesn't want to burn her at the stake, but he asks her to return to her prison to lift a curse... when she lifts that spell it turns out to only be a symptom of the real curse, etc, etc.



I'm not sure you can look at plot and make it worse. I think you can look at themes, and find ways to showcase those themes. To really showcase relationships and character change in different ways. To offer opportunities for inner conflict and growth that don't always have to be negative experiences.

I don't think one can look at plot alone and say where things should be "made worse". I just read a lovely James Herriot story to my son about a stray dog. James Harriot is a small village vet and he sees this dog at the market, begging. He wants to help it, but the little thing is skittish and keeps running away from him. One day the Police officer brings the dog to Mr. Harriet. It has been hit by a car and needs surgery. Now, of course Mr. Harriet is going to do the surgery... but he takes this opportunity to flesh out his wife as a character. Before the police officer comes with the dog he shows that he and his wife were getting ready to go to the horse races. They are getting all dressed up. It is their first afternoon out together in many months. They are usually so busy. Helen has packed a picnic and even bought a new hat... then... oh no! The police officer shows up with this dog. The dog needs surgery. The angelic Helen takes off her hat and gets into her scrubs. She doesn't say a word.

So in this scenario, Mr. Harriot uses a "make it worse" strategy in order to characterize his wife as this angelic being, who never complains, and always does her work dutifully. The scene does a lot of extra things, but he didn't have to add it in. It would have been a perfectly fine story without it. The officer could have just shown up, Harriet done the surgery. There is already enough tension in "Will the dog be okay?" But with it in, it just gives it that little bit extra to the character, and makes you love them both all the more.


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## bdcharles (Jan 17, 2018)

I suppose conflict might pique questions but it might also introduce tension of its own - I don't know what's going to happen; argh, this is going to be awkward. It depends how readers respond to tension. Some are curious about it and ask questions, others want to run and hide, yet more freeze.

I know what you mean about ramping up the action and just bombing in more explosions and karate. I've been guilty of that before (I blame Raymond Chandler and his "man with a gun" plot coupon) but I try and make it more subtle sometimes, like when you know an argument is brewing. It's an ongoing challenge, let's say.

I'm reading _World Without End_ by Ken Follett at the moment. It's 1,200 pages about a bridge. Oh, and some villages. But I am reluctant to put it down just because there is so much unresolved stuff. So it seems to me that the clue to tension is to present stuff that is unresolved.


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## pmmg (Jan 17, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?



But...what happened to brown bear? What did he see? You cant just leave me like this!

Its hard to have a good thread when no one disagrees, and...I fear I don’t disagree with Helio on this. (Maybe this should be an article instead?)




Nimue said:


> Having said that, I understand what you guys are going to say--tension doesn't necessarily mean the thriller approach, it can be more subtle than that. The problem is, I do believe that my stories lack scene-to-scene tension. I keep catching myself trying to resolve tension early, having characters reassure each other, all of that. But when I go looking for advice about building tension, it seems so extreme--what's the worst thing that could happen to your character right now, throw in some random awfulness, never let them accomplish anything without throwing a wrench in their face first. I've tried to read Maass and just could not get through it. I go looking for tips on how to structure scenes and pitfalls to avoid and it feels like I'm being told to bend my story into a wildly different shape. Maybe I need to find a Regency Romance guide to tension, I don't know.
> 
> Optimistically, I'd like to think that part of that reaction is because there is inherent tension in the stories already--what's the worst thing that could happen to your character right now? Oh, I don't know, her situation staying the same for the rest of her life would be pretty damn awful, things suck for her right now. I've never been shy about having my characters suffer, but I'm just not sure it feels compelling.
> 
> I just...don't want to hear "make it worse". I want to hear how I can convey to the reader that things are already bad. How I can keep that at the forefront of their mind without throwing "more" into my plot.



At the moment I have a friend who keeps talking to me about this without being aware, saying he likes stories where things keep going from bad to worse, and worse to worser, and worser to worser still. I've been filing that away thinking how I might choose to make use of it, but ultimately, I think that is not very helpful, or really insightful. It works in some aspects, an action film that is meant to be a roller coaster ride perhaps, but I am not sure its a clear template I could just apply and whamo! have a wonderful story. (It strikes me that this might be the current trendy thing to say on the subject--I don't know.)

I think part of the success of a story does come from a type of surface tension, that is always present. I am always wondering how this will play out over the length of the story, always wondering how the MC survives this mess, always following with some type of hope (maybe dreadful hope) that even as the pot gets hotter, somehow they will pull through, and it will be a worthwhile journey after all.

This tension does not have to be something like the dark lord getting his ring back, or the hobbit breaking his leg just as four more orcs appear, it only needs to be that I care about what is happening and/or the people in it, and I want to see what happens with it all. It can be as simple as, I just want to see things turn out okay for young struggling hero. Like Mr. Brown bear? What did he see?

In my current story, if you are not into my heroine, and with them for the journey of how they take personal tragedy and unlikely circumstances, overcome their own grief and anger, and become again a whole person in spite of the dark things going on around them, then you wont really stick with it, even if I throw in a few more explosions and 'Oh, Shit!' moments. (Can I say that? Sorry if that was against the rules.) Window dressings will not an engaging story make, least not this time around.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

pmmg said:


> even if I throw in a few more explosions and 'Oh, Shit!' moments



Ha! I call them "big set pieces." I think a lot of the time when we start out we think about the cool factor, or the big set pieces. The brave hero jumping from the flaming tower onto the flying dragon with magic arrows shooting at him! We think if we making it bigger and scarier and "cooler" with the most impressive set pieces than readers HAVE to love it.  You summed up why that doesn't work perfectly!


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## pmmg (Jan 17, 2018)

I do liken the way I tackle stories as, the enthusiasm that gets me started, the long slog in the middle, and all the cool stuff that happens at the end. Its that long slog in the middle that's the hard part. If there is no surface tension, no one will stick with it, perhaps, not even me. The cool stuff at the end though, may have explosions and fiery swords cutting into dragons, but really its cool cause all of a sudden all that stuff the reader did not know was building starts to come to light.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Ha! I was on the other thread and I caught that. Good save pmmg.


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## pmmg (Jan 17, 2018)

Heheh, I knew people would notice 

I may have been momentarily confused by the titles of some of these threads. I will try to return to my more permanent state of confusion.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

On the murky middles... Read how James Scott Bell views the midpoint. He teaches at conferences about how you can write from the middle & that if you know your midpoint is a gut check moment, what it looks like and means to your character, it helps everything fall into place. It’s the point you move toward at the beginning & from toward the end. 

James Scott Bell: The "Write From The Middle" Method ~ WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®


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## pmmg (Jan 17, 2018)

Well...I found it interesting enough to read the article, I may even buy his book. The wheels in my head are already turning on the middle. But...that might be a topic for another thread.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

pmmg said:


> Well...I found it interesting enough to read the article, I may even buy his book. The wheels in my head are already turning on the middle. But...that might be a topic for another thread.


I attended a conference where he spoke on this subject. I can’t think of middles any other way now. They’re fully realized (or close to) before I start drafting now.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 17, 2018)

Nimue: I can't get past Maas either. I've tried numerous times but his books are so stuffy I can hardly breathe. No offense. Just not for me. Regarding tension, the make it worse advice is the worst I've heard. Tension comes from page 1--the story--and it's not about adding things in to cause problems. It needs to be a deeply rooted problem that is big enough to last an entire book.

Look, right now my husband is on the Tool webpage hogging the desktop. When he's done I'm going to post something I hope will be helpful. What I'm saying Nimue is stay tuned.


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## pmmg (Jan 17, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> Look, right now my husband is on the Tool webpage hogging the desktop.



Sounds like tension building to me.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

pmmg said:


> Sounds like tension building to me.


What will happen next?


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## Nimue (Jan 17, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> I'm not sure you can look at plot and make it worse. I think you can look at themes, and find ways to showcase those themes. To really showcase relationships and character change in different ways. To offer opportunities for inner conflict and growth that don't always have to be negative experiences.


Hum.  I’m not sure this distinction came up in previous discussions, but it has a whiff of promise to it.  Though making decisions based on theme has always felt tenuous to me, perhaps because for me theme appears after I’ve painted in characters and big story moments, not during brainstorming.  So it always feels like retroactive justification.  I mean, theme doesn’t move a plot—characters do, the world does.

But using it to decide what moments should be heightened by conflict (if we must, “made worse”)...that does make sense.  I guess if I were to apply this to the example I was thinking about...  One of the big themes of this story, if not the theme, is isolation vs reaching out to others.  At the beginning of her arc, my MC is completely withdrawn, distrusting, and I don’t believe having other characters shun and threaten her, as tension-filled as that might be, makes sense.  They reach out to her and that begins her character arc (and then I can use breaking those relationships as leverage for tension later).

...Or is that just bullshit?  Because you could easily swing in the other direction and say that she needs to be _more_ isolated at the beginning of the story to emphasize that arc, and I’m just coddling the characters.  This is my problem with the rule of “increase tension”: the “how” is obvious.  The “when” and “why” are much more elusive.  And whenever these conversations come up we get a lot of examples of “I did x and it made everything great!”  But why did you choose to do x?  Why did you not do x in three other places?  Is “make it worse” an actionable premise, or is it just something you identify as happening when an idea clicks?  Oh, I added this new moment and it bounces off characters this way and that way... That’s great, but did you really go in thinking vaguely that “things need to GET WORSE” or did you go in following a story thread into its own particular tangle?  Or both?



Heliotrope said:


> You have to know where a tool like this could be valuable and where it would be junk. Where it is not necessary.


That is the problem—I don’t, and I can’t find a resource that adequately explains it.  Maass is too involved in pushing it as the solution to everything to explain when you do and don’t want to use it.  I entirely understand that this is just hitting me at the wrong point, that in a couple years maybe I’ll  have a handle on it and think tension is easy beans.  I’ve turned over on a bunch of issues this way.  But damn if this doesn’t hit me in my sore, low-confidence point.  I’m sitting here with a massive outline, a chunk of first draft and a chunk of second-attempt-at-first-draft and absolutely no faith that this story will hang together and not be a collection of tonally-dissonant, slack-tension scenes.  When I’m struggling to make heads or tails of the big picture, I can’t get any purchase with “add tension” or “make things worse” or “more conflict”.  As catchphrases, they can encompass any story point that worked and claim panacea for anything that’s boring—if only there weren’t a million ways to do it and do it wrong.


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## Nimue (Jan 17, 2018)

Just to be clear, I don't expect anybody to be able to fix my story issues for me... I understand that the answer is mostly common sense and following your instincts, I just...cannot trust mine.  I've wandered around in story swamps for _years_ believing I was going somewhere.  And if I could conjure up that perfect blend of tension, that'd fix things, wouldn't it?  It's silly, I know, but I save all my bad attitudes for writing.  This turned into far too much venting, but I hope it stands as something of an explanation of where I'm coming from with a knee-jerk negative reaction to this advice.  I can't remember how much I posted in that big "Make it Worse" thread a while back, but I do remember being just irrationally irritated by it.  And I know it's irrational, because it's something I've always struggled with.  And to be sure, Helio isn't the only person to espouse this advice and probably get snapped at..it's not personal.  It's all between me and my goddamned story.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 17, 2018)

Nimue, would you be willing to let someone take a look at your outline? Or can you share what your main character's story conflict is? You might just not know what it is yet (and it's probably there already).

I wanted to address the "make it worse" point because it's something that had annoyed me as well. I get what he's saying. However, story needs to come from within (like Helio always refers to themes). Story is a statement. It's an experience the writer wants to share with the reader. It cannot be forced. I believe the "make it worse" forces story like squeezing the last bit of goop out of the toothpaste tube.

Okay...so tension is an important part of story but it's just one more tool. Another layer of the story cakes. Many scenes contain tension in a book. Some don't. These are what I call respite scenes, allowing the reader a chance to breathe and marinate on what came before. It's important to know when readers need these breaks. A story with constant tension and explosive drama will only irritate and wear out readers. They need a chance to breathe, too. So that said, tension begins on page 1, preferably paragraph 1. How to do this? We don't need explosions or a character being chased by a monster through a forest. It just needs to be real.

Tension= conflict. And conflict can be anything. I'll use an example from one of my stories because it's easier for me to explain things using what I know. The opening scene of my last book was the heroine preparing to go on stage for an audition. She's very nervous because she hasn't been on stage in well over a year. She really, really wants to catch the lead role in this musical. Acting is her passion, her life's work, and she's back from a long break. This is important to her. Tension shows in her mannerisms, when she talks too much to fake that she's actually super nervous, how she brags about having been on Broadway but is so annoying about it she irritates the director. This is how I played on that opening tension throughout her half of the first chapter:

layer 1: nervous about play, does and says stupid things (shows where the character is emotionally and mature-wise, used to give the reader an idea of who this person is).

layer 2: her ex-boyfriend, who she still carries a torch for in her heart, enters the auditorium and throws her off. She misses her cue twice and her body betrays her (tension here used to bring in the reason for the plot trope, which leads into the main conflict).

layer 3: she runs into her ex-boyfriend again in the hallway but this time he's with the hero. The interaction doesn't go well. Tension here is used to show the hero's interest in the heroine and bring them together into conversation, introduces the reader to the heroes together in the same room and talking.

-a respite scene comes next where the heroine flirts her way to a favor from the hero, used to give the readers a chance to see the heroes interact further. 

Chapter 2:

layer 1 tension: heroine's roommate comes home with her new boyfriend and reminds the heroine how she lonely she feels. Inner conflict here used to show her emotional state to the reader. Story/plot trope introduced as her idea (to use the hero as her fake boyfriend to make the other dude jealous).

layer 2: hero runs into the heroine at a breakfast joint. She invites him to sit with her and her friends. The friends leave and the heroes end up having breakfast together. Heroine asks the hero for his help: major tension here. He already likes her and is somewhat insulted that she wants to use him to get back at his best friend. Oh, which reminds me, there is tension between the hero and the ex-boyfriend because they are best friends and the ex was once engaged to the heroine.

layer 3: they have a fight. She feels like a jerk in the end and he's like...whaa??? 

But I need to be able to carry this seemingly petty conflict through 55k words. How? By using conflict between the cast of characters in order to carry my scenes and plot:

hero: conflict with the heroine and his friend

heroine: conflict with the hero, the ex, and the ex's fiancee, also conflict with several of her co-workers for various reasons relating to the plot.

ex: conflict with the heroine and his friend, further complicates several scenes

Other characters with viewpoints throughout the story: they all have conflict with the heroes, but the main one is Opal, who has a crush on the hero and is trying to get in on that but the situation between him and the heroine is confusing. Opal helps the heroine grow emotionally in one scene, too...and it's huge.

*So, this is just a detailed example of how I do it. I use the characters, their relationships with one another, their desires goals and fears, use it all to fuel me to the end. If I used "make it worse"...how the heck would all this have happened? I would have tried adding in a bunch of things that didn't make sense with the characters and plot. To me, "make it worse" is external things happening to the characters. Conflict and tension (to me) means the problems must be caused from what the characters do, say and feel. The fuck ups need to be caused by their internal struggles. How humans act. Saying "make it worse", imo, does not allow for a human to intuitively write a story about other humans in their human nature struggles.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Nimue said:


> Hum. I’m not sure this distinction came up in previous discussions, but it has a whiff of promise to it. Though making decisions based on theme has always felt tenuous to me, perhaps because for me theme appears after I’ve painted in characters and big story moments, not during brainstorming. So it always feels like retroactive justification. I mean, theme doesn’t move a plot—characters do, the world does.



So don't even think about any of this until after your draft is finished. I'm on draft 3. I'm still thinking up random "make it worse's" after deleting other "make it worse's" that didn't fit.

For me, as I said to Skip in the structure thread, theme is what comes to me first. I get a glimpse of a character _after _the lesson. It is a bit like seeing Ebenezer Scrooge holding Tiny Tim on his shoulders. I know in my heart he used to be a bad guy, but now he is a good guy. How did that happen? It's like I have to reverse plan my stories. I see an image of a girl and her dad, singing old sailor Shanty's on a deck of a boat. They are going off on a quest together, and I know, somewhere, they used to not get along. They managed to understand each other. How did that happen? That is how my stories emerge in my brain. Not everyone is like that. Theme might come way later, in which case you may not know what your story is about until you are finished it.

So how could you _make it worse_ when you don't even know what it is about yet? Don't.

Don't worry about it. Forget about it. Disregard this entire thread.

Do a draft.

Do two drafts.

As you start to compost all that material you wrote down to your little nugget of a theme you will know what needs to be heightened, and what needs to be taken out. You will know where to illuminate a moment and "make it worse", and where you maybe need to give the reader a breather.

But until you are finished your draft, seriously, don't think about it.

And please, don't base it on plot.



Nimue said:


> So it always feels like retroactive justification. I mean, theme doesn’t move a plot—characters do, the world does.



For me, theme does move plot forward. It is my character's decisions and emotions and choices that move the plot forward. Plot is not the world happening _to_ her, plot is the world happening _because _of her. All the plot moments happen because she is faced with new obstacles, and makes new choices, based on what she _feels _is the right thing to do. This causes her to have to confront new obstacles, which forces her to have to make new choices. It keeps going and going until she is forced to figure out, "Oh, the way I have be doing things isn't working." And then she changes. She sees the world a new way. Eureka! Climax and Success. She is a new person. The theme is complete.

So absolutely, 100%, for me theme moves plot. Theme _is _the plot. _The plot is the theme. _



Nimue said:


> This turned into far too much venting, but I hope it stands as something of an explanation of where I'm coming from with a knee-jerk negative reaction to this advice.



I love venting.  Venting is the best.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Nimue said:


> One of the big themes of this story, if not the theme, is isolation vs reaching out to others. At the beginning of her arc, my MC is completely withdrawn, distrusting, and I don’t believe having other characters shun and threaten her, as tension-filled as that might be, makes sense. They reach out to her and that begins her character arc (and then I can use breaking those relationships as leverage for tension later).



This is great. So you have a nugget of a theme. It may be underdeveloped and sort of abstract in your brain right now, but that is okay. So she is withdrawn and isolated. Awesome. No, you don't have to make it crazy intense. And no, having other character's shun her and threaten her is not necessary. I love how you have other character's reach out to her. That is lovely.

But, but I'm all about theme, I would have her make a _choice. 
_
Trust them, or not?

Because the theme is about isolation vs. trusting others, I would make her choose not to trust them. She isn't ready yet. So she refuses, or she is skeptical of them.

The repercussion of this choice lead to ---- next plot point.

She is faced, again, with a choice. Trust, or not?

Nope. Still not ready. Still going to go off on her own and do it her own way.

Crap. Now facing repercussions of that choice. Dang. Why is nothing ever working out for me?

New choice. Trust, or not?

Hmmmmmm..... well, not trusting hasn't worked out so good for me. Maybe I will allow someone to help me. Just this once.

Result of that choice is.... positive. Oh. This is maybe a good thing! Maybe I like people!

Ooops, nope. That person sucked. They were just using me. I hate people after all.

Now I'm in a pretty bad situation and I have no friends. Hmmmmm. What to do?

New choice.....

Etc.... until finally, by the end, she had found true friends.....

So in that way, Plot = theme.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> *So, this is just a detailed example of how I do it. I use the characters, their relationships with one another, their desires goals and fears, use it all to fuel me to the end. If I used "make it worse"...how the heck would all this have happened? I would have tried adding in a bunch of things that didn't make sense with the characters and plot. To me, "make it worse" is external things happening to the characters. Conflict and tension (to me) means the problems must be caused from what the characters do, say and feel. The fuck ups need to be caused by their internal struggles. How humans act. Saying "make it worse", imo, does not allow for a human to intuitively write a story about other humans in their human nature struggles.



Oddly enough, I totally agree with Chessie on this. But I think "make it worse" can, and should, work this way. "Make it worse" should never, EVER be external plot stuff that is added for the sake of "tension" but doesn't make sense to the plot. That makes seriously zero sense. It should ALWAYS happen from within the characters, to showcase the theme, the growth, the internal struggles.

Having Andy's dad plan a celebration party for her really highlighted the theme. It came from inside the characters. It highlighted his love and pride in her, which created some crazy bad inner conflict for her when she really just wanted to be angry at him.

So I think Chessie hit on something super important. "Make it worse" is about really thinking of finding ways to make it internal. Don't think of it like adding external conflicts.....More guys with guns! Now it is raining fire bombs! Gah!

No, ewwww. Gross. Please don't think I would ever suggest something so stupid. Think of it as seeking out little ways in your manuscript to provide that inner conflict. The choices. The inner debates.



Chessie2 said:


> heroine's roommate comes home with her new boyfriend and reminds the heroine how she lonely she feels. Inner conflict here used to show her emotional state to the reader. Story/plot trope introduced as her idea (to use the hero as her fake boyfriend to make the other dude jealous).



It was this sentence that nailed it for me. The roommate. Strutting into the apartment, man on her arm.... really turns the screw and shows the intensity of how the heroine feels.

Chessie didn't need to think "make it worse". This came naturally to her as she was writing because Chessie is amazing. But sometimes, little moments like these come to us later, when we think "Oh man! What if she had a roommate with a new boyfriend! And she was sort of showing him off and the MC could really show some real emotions there!" So you add it in, because, fun! Or, you are going through your manuscript and an emotional moment is falling flat. It is too "on the nose"... it just doesn't have the nuance necessary to make it feel truly _human. _So you might think... hmmmm, this is a lovely scene, but it is missing something. It feels a bit flat. The emotions are coming off a bit cardboard. How can I make them shine? How can I make this feel more nuanced? More conflicted?

Chessie writes romance, so she can attest to this more than me... but I like to read romance novels (the really trashy kind with the shirtless man on the cover and ripped open ballgown all over the place and racy sex scenes on exactly page 72.) Often times in these novels the woman has a "ward" or a child she is caring for. It is either a nephew, the son of an estranged or dead brother, or something significant like that. The ward is often times a minor character, relatively insignificant as far as dialogue goes... but super significant for story because it gives the heroin external stakes. The ward gives her something else to care about besides herself. It's these small little details that can sometimes make a massive impact in how a story works. That is just another example of how a little thing can "make it worse." It's not necessarily something the writer was cognitive of. She didn't think "Oh, I need to make it worse. I'll add a small boy who is crippled.".... But sometimes you _can_ do that if you find your manuscript is missing a little something...


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

pmmg said:


> But...what happened to brown bear? What did he see? You cant just leave me like this!



Okay, okay.... he sees a yellow duck looking at him. 

But wait... it gets better. The next line is _Yellow duck, Yellow duck, what do you see? _

And you have to turn the page to find out. 

For my four year old daughter with autism, the tension/ resolution sequence of this book blows her mind. She giggles hysterically every time and has me read it a thousand times/day. 

Oh, and the vibrant pictures. That helps.


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## evolution_rex (Jan 18, 2018)

Hadn’t thought about how complicated the definition of tension is in writing. But lets not forget the literal definition in the dictionary; the state of being stretched tight.

To me, that’s what it’s about. You’re stretching the enivitable to engage the reader (or at least what you’ve led them to believe is going to happen). When you stretch it out, you allow it the audience to prepare for what they expect, and the longer you go the more they anticipate it. It’s easy to go not long enough or for too long, and it’s about finding the right balance. You can also subvert the expection and bring relief or    irritation, depending on the context of the attempt.


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## skip.knox (Jan 18, 2018)

Excellent discussions here, not least because the tone is positive. I have a couple of morsels to bring to the feast.

One, I like the word suspense over tension. I like it because the aim is to suspend the reader, which fits nicely with the colloquialism to leave them hanging. That leaves open whether the suspense is exciting or terrifying or sad or joyful. Tension does not need to have negative connotations, but at least in English it does, and that tends to color discussions of tension in story. Anyway, just my personal morsel. The thread title is tension and so we'll use that.

Two, I would add another element to the consideration of tension. As the author, I have to make the reader care. I know, obvious--but I'd argue it's important enough to be obvious. If some part of the story isn't working, perhaps it's because we did not make the reader sufficiently invested in the character generally and specifically the character in that moment. If I don't care about the character and his plight, I'm not going to care much about whatever tension is presented.

Three (three is a couple, right?), I'll offer up a variation on "make it worse."  How about "make it different?"  This is relevant to fantasy writing and especially to epic fantasy and its close kin. Part of why the reader is there--and, no doubt, why the author wrote--is the expectation of a sense of wonder. Showing marvels as mere decoration is no good, of course, but many such works have passages where the unusual is followed by the marvelous. By revealing ever-greater wonders, the author pulls the reader further into the story. The reader may not wonder what's next, but she may very well look forward to finding out. And so turn the page, and tell her friends about the marvels she saw.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> One, I like the word suspense over tension. I like it because the aim is to suspend the reader, which fits nicely with the colloquialism to leave them hanging.



Wow. Yes, I like that better too. 

Dem always uses the imagery of "spinning plates", which I think fits this nicely. He talks about how all the questions and expectations you raise in the reader's minds are like throwing spinning plates in the air, like these guys: 






As a reader, all these questions and expectations (spinning plates) are _suspended _in your brain, causing _suspense _in you. Are they going to crash? Will he catch them?


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## pmmg (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Okay, okay.... he sees a yellow duck looking at him.
> 
> But wait... it gets better. The next line is _Yellow duck, Yellow duck, what do you see? _



I hope he sees the bear...

I like the example of the spinning plates. I sometimes use the example of spinning tops, but that is essentially the same. I think that is a good way to develop tension and add to it. I don't need explosions, I need things that are set in motion and the complexity keep adding and I am still watching to see what happens even to the first plate, as all the other ones are still spinning.


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## Nimue (Jan 18, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> Nimue, would you be willing to let someone take a look at your outline? Or can you share what your main character's story conflict is? You might just not know what it is yet (and it's probably there already).



Unfortunately my outline is this long summary thing that makes a lot of references to what’s in my head/notes/first draft and is also pretty dumb in places, so I don’t think it’d be good for anyone’s eyes.  I don’t really have a pithy conflict outline—maybe I should, I don’t know.  The primary point of this longer outline was to set up scenes so I could write them, because I have trouble going directly from nebulous idea to draft.

I’d share the main story conflict, but I’m not sure what you mean by that.  Like the longline, fantasy trappings and all?  Or the main character’s arc/driving motivations?



Chessie2 said:


> Many scenes contain tension in a book. Some don't. These are what I call respite scenes, allowing the reader a chance to breathe and marinate on what came before. It's important to know when readers need these breaks. A story with constant tension and explosive drama will only irritate and wear out readers. They need a chance to breathe, too.



Agreed.  I don’t think this is paid enough lip service, from my perspective.  Makes me worry about every scene I have that isn’t jam-packed with tension.



> So, this is just a detailed example of how I do it. I use the characters, their relationships with one another, their desires goals and fears, use it all to fuel me to the end. If I used "make it worse"...how the heck would all this have happened? I would have tried adding in a bunch of things that didn't make sense with the characters and plot. To me, "make it worse" is external things happening to the characters. Conflict and tension (to me) means the problems must be caused from what the characters do, say and feel. The fuck ups need to be caused by their internal struggles. How humans act. Saying "make it worse", imo, does not allow for a human to intuitively write a story about other humans in their human nature struggles.



That’s also what baffles me, is the idea of “more conflict” divorced from the specific story, the specific characters.  Just more conflict in general, for everything.  I understand there’s a lot out there that says new writers make their stories too slow, easy, unengaging, whatever.  But we all know there’s more to fixing that than putting the MC in a shittier situation that gets worse by the minute.  There must be a balance.  This is probably a result of having discussions that aren’t rooted in someone’s actual work.  What can you do...


These are really detailed responses, thank you... I’ll reply more later, I hate quoting posts on my phone and I’m pretty sure my answers get more incoherent at the touchscreen keyboard...​


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 18, 2018)

I view tension as uncertainty. Unanswered questions. If conflict arises but is resolved in the same scene so that it leaves no unanswered questions, it doesn't raise the level of tension in the story.

For me, "making it worse" equates to "raise more doubts that can't be easily resolved." I'm referring to doubts in the reader's mind, not necessarily the character's. In my multiple-POV story, some of my POV characters are in situations they don't recognize as troublesome, but other POV characters know differently, and so the reader learns of the truth this way. This creates uncertainty in the reader's mind concerning whether the first POV will discover the truth in time for her to deal with it, or how well she can deal with it once she becomes aware of it.

Pictorially, I like the concept of a rope that the character is hanging onto. The rope consists of numerous intertwined threads. As tension increases, some of these threads snap. Maybe a thread will be repaired at some point, helping to bring some degree of respite, though even then many threads might still need repair before the rope is restored to a secure state. An unanswered question causes a thread to snap. When the question is answered, if it helps the character's situation, then the thread is repaired. But answering the question might not repair the thread, and maybe now the character knows the thread will never be repaired. This knowledge might even lead to more unanswered questions, snapping more threads.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> For me, "making it worse" equates to "raise more doubts that can't be easily resolved." I'm referring to doubts in the reader's mind, not necessarily the character's. In my multiple-POV story, some of my POV characters are in situations they don't recognize as troublesome, but other POV characters know differently, and so the reader learns of the truth this way. This creates uncertainty in the reader's mind concerning whether the first POV will discover the truth in time for her to deal with it, or how well she can deal with it once she becomes aware of it.



Totally. This is how you can have a scene that is a respite scene, but actually, the tension is still lurking there under the surface. It may feel like a "break" for the reader or the character, but the overall conflict has not yet been solved, so therefor, tension is still there.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Totally. This is how you can have a scene that is a respite scene, but actually, the tension is still lurking there under the surface. It may feel like a "break" for the reader or the character, but the overall conflict has not yet been solved, so therefor, tension is still there.


Not at all. They are not the same things, not meant to have the same effect. If it's set up right, your respite scenes should already have tension built up from the last one; the idea being the reader is still mulling over what they learned in the scene before while learning something new in the new scene without the heightened or obvious tension.

EDIT to add: what I'm saying is respite scenes do not introduce new tension.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Totally. This is how you can have a scene that is a respite scene, but actually, the tension is still lurking there under the surface. It may feel like a "break" for the reader or the character, but the overall conflict has not yet been solved, so therefor, tension is still there.



I'm in the editing phase on my WIP, and I just finished editing a scene in which a group of characters think they have successfully escaped from the big bad, and they're now taking it easy. But from the POV of another character who isn't with them, the reader knows they aren't as safe as they believe. I love how the multiple-POV nature of the story is allowing me to create this kind of tension.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> Not at all. They are not the same things, not meant to have the same effect. If it's set up right, your respite scenes should already have tension built up from the last one; the idea being the reader is still mulling over what they learned in the scene before while learning something new in the new scene without the heightened or obvious tension.



What Mike and I are saying though, is so long as there are unanswered questions there is tension (or suspense). So even if there are no new questions raised in a scene, any unanswered, old questions (like, will the guy and girl ever get together?) are still lingering under the surface. That "will the guy and girl ever get together?" plate is still spinning in the air.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 18, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> If it's set up right, your respite scenes should already have tension built up from the last one; the idea being the reader is still mulling over what they learned in the scene before while learning something new in the new scene without heightened tension.



In my case, the group of characters are at ease. They are taking it easy, believing they have dealt with the situation and the story is all but over. All they have to do is wait out the storm. But the reader knows the storm is on their doorstep because of the other POV. I think this is similar to what you're saying, so maybe we are on the same page?


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 18, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> what I'm saying is respite scenes do not introduce new tension



Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that, and maybe Helio wasn't either. The respite scenes I'm talking about don't introduce _new_ tension. The tension is either already there from the knowledge gained from a prior scene, as you said, or it comes in a later scene, when the reader learns from another POV (and hence another scene, the way I write my multi-POV scenes) that maybe the characters in the respite scene should have been more worried than they were. I don't think this contradicts what you're saying.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that, and maybe Helio wasn't either. The respite scenes I'm talking about don't introduce _new_ tension. The tension is either already there from the knowledge gained from a prior scene, as you said, or it comes in a later scene, when the reader learns from another POV (and hence another scene, the way I write my multi-POV scenes) that maybe the characters in the respite scene should have been more worried than they were. I don't think this contradicts what you're saying.



Yep. This is what I was saying too. They don't introduce new tension. They don't have to, because underlying tension from previous scenes may still be there.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> I think a lot of the time when we start out we think about the cool factor, or the big set pieces.


Indeed. This is why I shied away from the concept of tensions. I was not comfortable laying it on big and impressive and I just felt like I was faking it when I tried.



Chessie2 said:


> Many scenes contain tension in a book. Some don't. These are what I call respite scenes, allowing the reader a chance to breathe and marinate on what came before.


I like this. I think it's important.

Also, it's not just about letting the reader breathe, it's about them getting to know the characters in their "normal" state, when they're not under pressure due to things going wrong in one way or another. This in turn gives us the opportunity to increase tension in more and subtler ways later on.
The better we know a character, the easier it is for us to understand the significance of what's happening to them. If we only know the stressed out conflict-haunted version of a character then we might lose sight of who they really are under normal circumstances.

I'll try and tie this back to kishotenketsu like I mentioned in the structure thread. In the first act the characters and the setting is introduced, and it's pretty straight forward. In the second act however, rather than escalating the conflict of the story we develop our knowledge of the characters and the world.
This means that once the complication occurs in the third act we have a better understanding of the implications of it, and there's a tension created through that rather than through a conflict escalating. Then there's the fourth act in which the world in the first two acts is reconciled with the complication in the third act, but that's a different matter.

The point I want to try and make is that if you give the reader time to get to know the characters better, then you've got more opportunities to create tension in different ways later on. Kind of like in the example with the room-mate showing up with a new partner while the main characters is unhappily single.



skip.knox said:


> Three (three is a couple, right?),


It took me years to realise that a couple is just a word for two. The corresponding word in Swedish means anything from two to about a handful or so.


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## Nimue (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> So how could you make it worse when you don't even know what it is about yet? Don't.
> 
> Don't worry about it. Forget about it. Disregard this entire thread.
> 
> ...


Yeah.  Yeah, I know… I’ve had huge problems jumping into drafting with nothing but my hopes and daydreams, and as a result I’m probably going overboard with plotting and troubleshooting this time. To be honest I’m dreading getting stuck and failing to finish a draft again.  ...So I’m getting myself stuck before the draft is really underway, apparently.



> For me, theme does move plot forward. It is my character's decisions and emotions and choices that move the plot forward. Plot is not the world happening to her, plot is the world happening because of her. All the plot moments happen because she is faced with new obstacles, and makes new choices, based on what she feels is the right thing to do. This causes her to have to confront new obstacles, which forces her to have to make new choices. It keeps going and going until she is forced to figure out, "Oh, the way I have be doing things isn't working." And then she changes. She sees the world a new way. Eureka! Climax and Success. She is a new person. The theme is complete.


Right...that’s all about character, not theme, to me.  Themes can be identified in a character’s struggle and arc, but you can’t reduce a character or a story to a single theme and use that to make all of your decisions... Idk, maybe we’re using terms differently.

To me, I can see a lot of themes in my story, some more important than others: Self-sacrifice, isolation, duty, freedom, embracing one’s power... They tie into different character arcs and subplots, but no single theme drives the entire story.  Maybe that means I’ve designed it badly, I really don’t know.  If you were to ask me what the story is about, I wouldn’t name a theme, I’d say it’s about two lonely, beset people finding hope in each other and fighting for it until the bitter end.  You can see sacrifice, isolation in that sure, but it’s more of a story, not a thematic idea...



Heliotrope said:


> This is great. So you have a nugget of a theme. It may be underdeveloped and sort of abstract in your brain right now, but that is okay. So she is withdrawn and isolated. Awesome. No, you don't have to make it crazy intense. And no, having other character's shun her and threaten her is not necessary. I love how you have other character's reach out to her. That is lovely.
> 
> But, but I'm all about theme, I would have her make a choice.
> 
> ...



So...sort of?  But it’s just not that clean, that pat. Uh, how I have it currently… The subplot with her friend/the village is a gentler one that resolves around the midpoint, so though there is tension between them at first, she does begin with trusting them, if not opening up.  So when they need her help, she’s willing to leave safety to do so--but this leads the thane’s men to her.  The hero she absolutely does not trust, and feels forced to cooperate with him.  He tempts her with the chance of freedom from being hunted.  But after he shows her kindness and good intentions, she willingly chooses to help him further, going with him to the thane’s castle--where bam, she’s captured and imprisoned.  But the hero frees her.  So it’s not as plain as choosing isolation=bad outcome, opening up=good outcome, but the end result of that first act is that though the worst happened, other people reached out and saved her, and her world has opened up and she’ll choose to engage deeper in it…  I have a tough time completely reconciling her isolation/openness arc because it turns out nearly tragic--she continues to make the wrong choice in a crucial way up until the very end: keeping secrets, believing that she can fix everything alone.  I think it still works because the progress she made in building relationships with those around her is what saves her, even if she’s still stubbornly choosing to go it alone and sees the error of her ways only in the denouement…

It’s all complicated by other dynamics and circumstances and things.  Sometimes I feel like I could be creating stories with nice clean structure built on straightforward character arcs and clear theme, but instead I’m over here chewing on my crayons and going on about how I just want my heroine to be locked in a tower and turning into a fuckin’ raven and at the end there’s gonna be a dramatic sacrifice in a stone circle at midwinter with snow blowing everywhere.  The really important things.  So now I have to try and find structure and theme in that mess, and it feels so artificial, that I’m clutching the scenes I like and justifying them with that or another stretch and does anything _really_ work?

Oh my godddd I need to stop ruminating over this and just deal.  Is this even remotely on-topic anymore?


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## Caged Maiden (Jan 18, 2018)

Hey guys, nice thread!

I wanted to say one little thing about a "make it worse" moment that happened for me. I hope it helps Nimue maybe isolate some story elements in the same way?

I had a young soldier who was supposed to discover there were undead creatures up north, and then his story was him defeating them. 

The first draft, he went into a tavern and some people were talking about how terrible these things were, and he eavesdropped and eventually went in search of them. BORING! It was terrible. Eavesdropping at a random table on a completely unrelated journey? It had no tension, no purpose other than feeding him and the reader the information. 

I thought it would be better (made worse) if he stepped in to help these poor travelers and then they told him how thankful they were and that they were fleeing a town plagued by undead. Okay, better, but I didn't feel that really made the story better, even if it was possibly more believable.

I skipped on to another idea.

Instead of overhearing travelers at dinner, or even offering to buy the poor folks a meal (being a charitable priest's son), I decided if he was really a priest's son, he'd want to put his religious talisman to good use. He now begs for a room in the local temple, where he'll eat and sleep free of charge. Right before supper is served, a group of poor travelers burst into the temple and one woman is nearly dead, her extremities necrotic and her companions in desperate need of clerical healing, which my MC just happens to be able to help the priest with.

I isn't better because I included danger or death, it's better because I turned the character's situation into one where he's more active, there is something at stake, rather than him deciding to go north on a whim, and the scene is more powerfully linked to his main internal arc--what kind of man is he becoming, a soldier like his father, or a priest like his mother? 

By making the scene more dramatic and less D&D in my living room feeling, the story is better. I didn't have to make the woman's necrosis spread to my MC and have his hands fall off. That would defeat the point of the scene and it wouldn't make this story better. Also, if this woman died in a really gross way, it doesn't fit with that particular story. It was more important he show that he is a potentially very capable priest...because that's his main journey. 

Hope that helps. I'm a big supporter of making things worse, but it only works if you feel connected to the underlying point of WHY we should do it.

I've read and critted a lot for many writers (both published and aspiring), and one thing that's very common in manuscripts is that things happen to characters, but readers don't really care or feel connected. To feel connected to a character, we need to see their vulnerabilities, their flaws, their inner workings, their secret hopes. And the best way to make sure that a reader notices those things is to turn the logical plot situations into little mirrors that will echo over and over their inner struggle. BECAUSE...odds are a reader will only really see one out of four of those. So, in this young man's story I mentioned above, I not only have the people around him commenting on what kind of priest/ soldier he is, I have his situations reflecting it too, making him think about it. If all I had was his mother saying over and over what he should do with his life...you know...blech.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

Caged Maiden said:


> I didn't have to make the woman's necrosis spread to my MC and have his hands fall off.



Lol'd so hard at this.


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## skip.knox (Jan 18, 2018)

>It took me years to realise that a couple is just a word for two. The corresponding word in Swedish means anything from two to about a handful or so.

Which creates interesting possibilities with the English phrase "a married couple."  ;-)


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## Nimue (Jan 18, 2018)

CM, I hear you...  I wonder if a better phrase than "make it worse" is "challenge the character".  To, as you say, illuminate their flaws/goals/arc rather than add an external threat.  A challenge isn't necessarily the worst thing that could happen in a given moment, but it is personal.  CM's priest character needing to heal a dying woman, Helio's father character's party as a thwart to the daughter's righteous anger, Chess's ex-boyfriend character piquing her MC's pride and loneliness...  Maybe that's not much different from the actual intent of the phrase "make it worse", but for some reason that change in wording is easier for me to parse.  I need to think about this stuff...


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

I haven't read through the thread yet, but I thought that I would start by commenting on the OP and getting my thoughts together before I see how the conversation has been going.



Heliotrope said:


> A few years back there was a certain philosophy on this site that tension = car chases and fight scenes. The more of these. you had, the more the reader would be turning pages. This is absolutely not true. That is not what tension is. I have no clue where that idea came from... probably film, but in fiction it is not what tension means.



I have no memory of this.  I remember Michael Sullivan starting a thread on how a book should open - and in his sample it was a kind of fight training scene - and nobody liked it.  I'm not doubting you, but I don't remember the trend you're describing.




> In fiction _tension _refers to that feeling you get as a reader when questions are raised in your mind.
> 
> What will happen next?
> How will she get out of this one?
> ...



Right now, I view tension as.... how do I put this.  In the anime Magi, there's a magical substance called the rhuhk.  And the rhuhk, when given the right command by a magician, becomes an element, like fire or water.

To me, the word _tension_ gets unfortunately used in both ways.  It's the _rhuhk_ beneath, and it's the _element_, "tension," that we're trying to summon in many forms of writing.

Since I've been writing the Ladybug fanfiction, which is romance, I feel like nodding and going, "Yep, yep, tension, only in romance we call it _something-or-other_ and it's just a little different."  _Yearning_, perhaps.

So my initial thoughts are that I agree with the underlying principles, but I'm not sure that jargon here has been developed well enough to do those principles justice.


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## Hallen (Jan 19, 2018)

The word I have always used for this is conflict.
No, conflict does not mean war. It does not mean fighting, necessarily.
It means that a character is having to deal with something that is opposing their goals.
If your goal for your character is learning to read, the conflict will be the derision of others who can already read and finding time to do it when not working in the mines. It's a simple conflict. It causes tension. It raises the stakes.

There is also suspense. A situation that begs the question. That question can be anything. What is it that the magic talisman does? Will it make the character all-powerful? Will it destroy the world? Will it make pink calico cats? This part isn't really conflict. There will be conflict in finding out, but the what it is part is not really conflict. Part of the thing I love about the Stormlight Archive is because the characters are constantly discovering more about the magic system and their world all the time. It's not like you get it all at once and then there's no new cool stuff. It bets the question of what is next.

There are some very old techniques for managing the conflicts through the story.

Often, you will have you character solve the problem. Then two possible things happen.
The problem is solved and things get better. But this is really boring unless it's your happily ever after ending.
The problem is solved, and things get worse. This is a great way to go. Hero saves friends, but gives up something to the bad guy to do it and that makes things much worse. Now, this new problem has to be solved.
Or, the character fails to solve the problem. Same thing; it could make things better, but will probably make things worse.

Anyway, conflict drives tension.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 19, 2018)

Nimue said:


> Maybe that's not much different from the actual intent of the phrase "make it worse", but for some reason that change in wording is easier for me to parse.


Words are important like that. The same advice can be understood very differently when said with different words.

I'd been hearing about reader expectations for ages, but it wasn't until it was framed as making a promise to the reader, that it finally dawned on me how important it was to keep that promise. It can be really helpful to rething/rephrase the advice using different words/examples/expressions.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Nimue said:


> "challenge the character"



I have trouble with the wording too. It is very vague. "Challenge the character" is nice. I also, in my mind think "Make it matter."


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## Nimue (Jan 19, 2018)

I do think that prompt works better for me—“make it matter” is much alike because I think the inherent object of that is “make it matter to the character”.  For the example I was using earlier, having an old friend find the heroine while she’s living a solitary life and grieving isn’t a _bad_ thing to happen; it doesn’t harm her, and in fact greatly increases her well-being in the long run.  But it is challenging to her.  The friend was with her mother when she died, she’s asking for the heroine’s help, she’s bringing hopes and expectations and stirring up painful memories of the life the heroine has lost—even speaking to another person is challenging at that moment.  So I do think there’s tension in that scene, even if things aren’t explicitly going downhill.  This schema feels much easier to apply to my writing—instead of “always make it worse”, it’s “is this scene challenging the character?”  Still have the hard work of figuring out what’s enough and what’s too little, but it’s a start.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Devor said:


> I have no memory of this. I remember Michael Sullivan starting a thread on how a book should open - and in his sample it was a kind of fight training scene - and nobody liked it. I'm not doubting you, but I don't remember the trend you're describing.



Ha! I remember that.

There was another member (I wont name names) whose infamous phrase went along the lines of "Turn disagreements into arguments, and arguments into fist fights!" (You don't remember that?)

Anytime anyone posted anything into into the showcase the common response (from this member) was.... there is no tension. An intro must start with a car chase, or a fight scene! Explosions! The more explosions you have the more readers will turn pages.

Again, PM me if you want names. I can probably point you to exact posts that were just plain terribad.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Nimue said:


> So I do think there’s tension in that scene, even if things aren’t explicitly going downhill.



But remember, tension does NOT mean things are going downhill. Tension is simply a conflict. Any kind of conflict. Raising questions. I imagine there would be a ton of tension in that scene, because as a reader I would be wondering: 

Oh, how is she going to take this? This must be so hard for her! Is she going to come out of isolation to help this woman? 

There is actually so much reader tension in just the summary you described!


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 19, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> But remember, tension does NOT mean things are going downhill. Tension is simply a conflict. Any kind of conflict. Raising questions.


Yes. Furthering that idea, it’s important to remember that tension doesn’t always mean _negative_. Though that’s how we’re conditioned to view the word, tension can be a positive thing.

Another thought:
Change might also equal tension. Change can come with altering circumstances, or the introduction of new characters or settings.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Change might also equal tension. Change can come with altering circumstances, or the introduction of new characters or settings.



I'm finding more and more that this is my go-to method. I'll be typing along, do-do-do-do-do... when I find even I'm getting "over" the scene. I'm like... ok, I'm yaddering on... better switch it up a bit...

But I'm using my third graders as a gauge for my "audience" and they have the attention span of a cat in a catnip castle.... so, about 15 words or less before something new has to happen. Lol.


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## Steerpike (Jan 19, 2018)

Forgive me if I'm repeating anything said above.

It seems to me that tension is anything that causes certain emotional responses in a reader, whether its anticipation, anxiety, stark terror, or what have you. As such, it can come from any number of sources. As mentioned above--change. But not just any change, but a change that instills emotions such as those mentioned in the reader. A change might cause a reader anxiety for the character. It might cause the reader's mind to leap ahead in anticipation of something that is yet to come. These are examples of tension. Of course, easy examples like a fight to the death (anxiety, anticipation) or a race against the clock (again, anxiety, anticipation) represent tension, but instead of trying to define tension itself as something that is happening on the page, I think it is useful to define it as something happening inside the reader.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> I think it is useful to define it as something happening inside the reader.



So much! Yes! Exactly.


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## Hallen (Jan 19, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> Not at all. They are not the same things, not meant to have the same effect. If it's set up right, your respite scenes should already have tension built up from the last one; the idea being the reader is still mulling over what they learned in the scene before while learning something new in the new scene without the heightened or obvious tension.
> 
> EDIT to add: what I'm saying is respite scenes do not introduce new tension.



The classic structure we're talking about here is generally called scene and sequel. The scene is the part where the conflict happens. The sequel is the part where the characters absorb what just happened and react to it. Classically, that means what we generally call a "scene" a section of writing that has a coherent goal, generally has both the "scene" part and a "sequel" part. The "respite scenes" I think would be another name for this concept. 

For example, your characters just finished exploring something and have found information that either creates conflict or changes the conflict, or heightens the conflict. They the generally will talk about it. Or think about it. They'll digest what happened and what it meant. They'll often come up with a plan for their next actions. Then they are at it again trying to resolve conflict. It might only be a few sentences, or it might be multiple pages. It just depends on what you want to accomplish.

A classic scene might be broken up into several "scene" and "sequel" sections. (I really don't like the terminology, but it is what it is. It's from the classic craft book, Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham).

It's a way of managing the tension. It gives the reader some relief, and time to digest and understand via the characters doing the same thing, and then diving off again to more adventure. It's important because it sets the pacing and provides a natural rhythm for your story telling. You can't have tension all the time or it stops feeling like tension. The sequel section provides that deep breath that's needed to reset the expectations and the tension.

And, it's really hard to master -- at least for me -- but I think we all naturally do it to an extent because it's a way to try and explain natural storytelling technique.


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## Nimue (Jan 19, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> But remember, tension does NOT mean things are going downhill. Tension is simply a conflict. Any kind of conflict. Raising questions. I imagine there would be a ton of tension in that scene, because as a reader I would be wondering:
> 
> Oh, how is she going to take this? This must be so hard for her! Is she going to come out of isolation to help this woman?
> 
> There is actually so much reader tension in just the summary you described!


Right, to return to the thread topic after railing against “make it worse” when nobody was actually pushing it....  How do you make sure a reader feels the tension in a scene?  

So you have this setup of change or intra-character friction, something more subtle than imminent violence, there are plenty of implications...but how do you bring them to light, and make sure that tension continues past the end of a scene?  I think this is closer to my actual problem here.  Cue rambling about things I feel like maybe might help, based on identifying shit I don’t like out of my last draft:

- Less narrative distance.  I’m writing in these mythic/fairytale inspirations and often just end up drawing images of the character and making the reader guess how they feel...  Clearer feelings and stakes, more direct thought, maybe.

- Vary word/detail choice and style more?  I’m afraid I tend towards ”pretty and thoughtful” (probably unsuccessfully) in my prose no matter what’s happening.  So maybe I should use harsher words and resist the urge to paint in that bit of scenery while my POV character is on the verge of freaking out.

- Make sure opposition from other characters doesn’t just get handwaved away.  This might be harder to explain so I’ll use that example again, but it boils down to ensuring that other characters act according to their own reasons even if that leans against the plot or their “role”. Like when that old friend finds the heroine a) her child is sick and she’s come up to visit a shrine by the witch’s cottage for that reason and b) she has every reason to believe the heroine disappeared to become a sorcerer’s apprentice of her own volition.  In my first draft I had her come up, knock on her door, ask for help with her kid, and let her do whatever.  There were gestures towards tension, but the friend wasn’t really acting like someone with genuine concerns.  If the heroine just worries that people will shun her but everyone essentially treats her okay, there’s no tension in that.

I know this is wildly obvious, but I think I need to keep these ideas higher in my mind while I’m writing.  Think I just figured out why I hated so many scenes in my first draft.... there’s an even more egregious example of this right before I gave up on that draft.

If anybody has any other advice or examples or links to resources about tension building, I’d appreciate it... No matter how common-sense, because I think I’m an idiot.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Devor's going to hate this... because this is exactly what we are talking about in the Show/Tell thread, (lol)... but yeah, it sounds like showing issues to me.

So, when presenting the information to the reader, I feel it is important to show them a few images (scenes) side by side, and let them infer the emotions that would come from that. So the example I used for my WIP was that a special artifact that had deep significant emotional value to my MC was given away. So in order to create emotional impact in the reader I can't just say "This is important to her. Now it is gone. She is sad". I have to set up the scenes to make those emotions happen _inside _the reader.

So first, I would have a scene showing the importance of the _thing _to the MC. She is loving on it and taking care of it and the reader thinks "Oh, yes, I identify with that. I have a thing that is special to me to. I can relate to her wanting to take care of it."

Then I show a scene where she thinks she has lost it, she panics for a second, and then relief! The reader can identify with that as well. "Oh, yes, that would be terrible to lose that thing. I would hate to lose my precious thing that I have too."

Then I take the thing away for good. Grief. But now, instead of just telling the reader "The character is sad about this...." The _reader_ can actually feel the sadness within themselves, because I have built up, over a few short moments, the reader's connection to the character and that artifact. They have already had a few opportunities to put themselves in her shoes. To relate to her. To make a connection to how _they _feel about their own special thing. So when I take it away, the reader can actually feel that grief as if they had lost _their _special thing.

Everyone gets hung up on word choice, or "show don't tell" on the sentence level. Creating deep emotional reader impact is not about word choice. It is about spoon feeding them little images they can connect to so that when put together, the images evoke emotion.

So for your example... I don't know the full context, obviously, so I'm not telling you what to do... but just for example... .to go with spoon feeding.

1) Show MC's grief for loss of mother.
2) Show how hard it is to face people connected to her mother.
3) Show how life is easier on her own, where she can be in isolation. Her home is her refuge. Show how hard it is to help people because she can't even help herself. She is a disaster.
4) Now show the friend of her mother's coming to her place of refuge. Her place of peace. This in itself feels like a violation. Go away! Get away from here! You can't be here! I can't handle this. But this person is desperate for help. Help the MC knows she can't provide.

Do you see what I mean? Am I making any sense at all?


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 19, 2018)

Nimue said:


> I’m writing in these mythic/fairytale inspirations and often just end up drawing images of the character and making the reader guess how they feel...


I do this a lot.
When to do it and when not to do it is probably part of the Show vs Tell discussion, but I do use it a lot. I describe the physical reactions of the character and let the reader infer the emotions. I'm hoping that in this way the reader will get more of a feel for the character's personality and get to know them better. 


Nimue said:


> So maybe I should use harsher words and resist the urge to paint in that bit of scenery while my POV character is on the verge of freaking out.


Yes. When the character's world is falling apart and they're freaking out about it, they're not going to spend a lot of time looking at the scenery (unless that's exactly what they're doing). When I'm in such a scene I try to keep the reader very close to the character and not distract them with things that aren't absolutely necessary.
Then, once the character gets a moment to breath, so can the reader.


Nimue said:


> Make sure opposition from other characters doesn’t just get handwaved away.[...]


I cut away the example here, but yes, what you're saying makes sense. If the friend really is concerned it ought to show in some way.

I'll try and think of some additional examples on the way home.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Sometimes, when thinking about "theme" in my novel, I think of it like an essay. You know how with an essay, you have your thesis statement, but then you sort of break it into logical steps, so that by the conclusion you have formulated an entire argument?

So my "thesis" for my WIP is "Dreams are a lot like stars. They may seem out of reach. But without them we would be lost".

I have to spoon feed this thesis to my readers in steps.

1) Stars used to be used as navigation tools.
2) We navigate the choices in our lives based on the dreams we have for ourselves.
3) Sometimes, our dreams can seem really far away. Even impossible.
4) Sometimes, we may even lose sight of our dreams, the same way stars can be covered by clouds.
5) But even when we lose sight of things, it doesn't mean they are gone. We can still find them again.
6) And even when dreams seem impossibly far away, we can still use them to navigate our choices.
7) So therefore... "Dreams are a lot like stars....."

Each scene, or chapter in the WIP "shows" each step to the reader in a concrete way. I never explicitly "tell" them any of this. I show the little images so that by the end, the entire thing together makes a big picture idea that makes sense.

This is how I try to manipulate an emotional response, both on the larger scale of an entire novel, and in the small, scene by scene scale. Spoon feed little bits of info to hopefully create one dramatic emotion.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 19, 2018)

None of us can control how readers perceive things. Aiming to try is pointless.


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## Steerpike (Jan 19, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> None of us can control how readers perceive things. Aiming to try is pointless.



Seems to me the entirety of fiction is attempting to control reader perceptions to one degree or another. It doesn't mean all readers will come away with the view the author intended, or that there might not be multiple divergent views, but even if you're just telling a simple story what are you doing if not trying to control reader perceptions?


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## Chessie2 (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> Seems to me the entirety of fiction is attempting to control reader perceptions to one degree or another. It doesn't mean all readers will come away with the view the author intended, or that there might not be multiple divergent views, but even if you're just telling a simple story what are you doing if not trying to control reader perceptions?


Manipulate them emotionally? Yes. But control assumes one has impacted readers in just the right way. That's impossible to do. You can't please everybody.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> Seems to me the entirety of fiction is attempting to control reader perceptions to one degree or another. It doesn't mean all readers will come away with the view the author intended, or that there might not be multiple divergent views, but even if you're just telling a simple story what are you doing if not trying to control reader perceptions?



As a reader, let me just say, that if I think you as a writer are trying to manipulate me, I will put the book down.


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## Steerpike (Jan 19, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> As a reader, let me just say, that if I think you as a writer are trying to manipulate me, I will put the book down.



Manipulate isn’t my word, but it’s a form of control. But if you don’t think every book, movie, etc is trying to control your perceptions I’m not sure what to say about that, except that they all are.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> Manipulate isn’t my word, but it’s a form of control. But if you don’t think every book, movie, etc is trying to control your perceptions I’m not sure what to say about that, except that they all are.



I want them to present both sides and let me make up my own mind. If it's one-sided and heavy-handed, the book goes down.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> Manipulate isn’t my word, but it’s a form of control. But if you don’t think every book, movie, etc is trying to control your perceptions I’m not sure what to say about that, except that they all are.


Wouldn't influence be a better word than control? It's semantics, but controlling seems a bit too strong (as can be seen from some of the responses).


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 19, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> I want them to present both sides and let me make up my own mind. If it's one-sided and heavy-handed, the book goes down.


Even then, a writer is influencing you to consider multiple avenues of viewing something in the way they present them.


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## Nimue (Jan 19, 2018)

Just as a note, nobody actually said “control”—I asked how you can make sure the reader feels tension, which is admittedly a stronger statement than I realistically feel is possible.  How you can convey tension is more to the point.

Let me put it this way—I’m probably the ideal reader for this draft, seeing how invested I am in the characters and story going in.  If even I don’t buy the tension on the page, what hope is there for anybody else?  So I wanted to make tension clearer and more immediate, that’s all.  To be sure, there are people for whom my story could never be tense enough, given its basic premise, but I’m not trying to convince them, I’m trying to aim for reasonable.


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## Steerpike (Jan 19, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> Wouldn't influence be a better word than control? It's semantics, but controlling seems a bit too strong (as can be seen from some of the responses).



It think it’s largely semantics. Influencing is to exert a form of control. Everything from how we are meant to feel about characters, theme, atmosphere that may be set in how a film is shot, and so on—that’s all control. If you can’t exert control over a reader’s perceptions, you’re not going to have an effective story.

I think the thing is, people want it to be subtle. Think of the most emotionally-impactful book you’ve ever read. The author was likely extremely skilled at exerting control, and probably in subtle ways. It’s when the curtain is pulled back and the reader or viewer sees the person behind pulling the levers that you have a problem and rub a viewer or reader the wrong way. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t all about control, it’s just all about handling it skillfully.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 19, 2018)

Art, in general, is about manipulating/influencing/controlling perceptions to alter our emotional state and/or change our way of thinking.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 19, 2018)

Nimue said:


> How you can convey tension is more to the point.


One thing (or word) that hasn't been brought up yet is contrast. It can be viewed as a conflict or a question, but let's stick with calling it contrast for now.

One way to think about it is that you have two things that are different, but which want to exist in the same space. You don't show your reader that the two things fight about being in the space, or even that there's a conflict between them. Instead you show how the two things are different, and you show that their ambition is to exist within the space. Once you've done this, the reader is left to imagine the potential conflict that might arise between the two things, and they're also left to imagine the possible consequences of the conflict for the space.

A practical example may be a small village with a tree that grows golden apples (actual 24 karat gold, not Golden Delicious). The village lies right in the middle of two large cities. One of the cities is suffering from some economical issues and could do with some extra money to help fund their war effort in far away lands. The other city has a very rich major who's obsessed with the idea of creating the most exotic botanical garden ever.
The conflict here isn't explicitly stated, and it doesn't have to be, because you can figure it out on your own.

Perhaps the village is really small and no one in the town knows about the golden tree. Well, no one except the mailman of town A and the mailwoman of town B. Sometimes they will have letters that need to be delivered to the little village, and sometimes they even meet up there and have a chat about the cool new post stamps that are due to be issued. Perhaps they sometimes sit in the shade of the weird apple tree.
And you know how people are, they talk to each other about things they see, and maybe someone says too much and it gets picked up by the wrong ears.

There's still no conflict actually stated, but you're inferring it from the information you're getting. You're assuming there is a story though and that the conflict will happen, because it's sort of a story and we're talking about stories and tension. It doesn't have to be that way. The story could end with the mailman and the mailwoman running off with all the golden apples and opening a post office on a tropical island.

So where does the tension come from here?
It's from the contrast between the current state of the world and the potential state we're imagining in our heads. We know what the world looks like. We know that there's a way for one of the cities to get what they want (the golden apple tree), but we don't know if the cities know, and we don't know if both cities can get what they want.

This is a pretty abstract example, but it can be applied in more practical situations as well.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> One thing (or word) that hasn't been brought up yet is contrast. It can be viewed as a conflict or a question, but let's stick with calling it contrast for now.
> 
> One way to think about it is that you have two things that are different, but which want to exist in the same space. You don't show your reader that the two things fight about being in the space, or even that there's a conflict between them. Instead you show how the two things are different, and you show that their ambition is to exist within the space. Once you've done this, the reader is left to imagine the potential conflict that might arise between the two things, and they're also left to imagine the possible consequences of the conflict for the space.
> 
> ...



Ummmmmm, that was awesome.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> Manipulate isn’t my word, but it’s a form of control. But if you don’t think every book, movie, etc is trying to control your perceptions I’m not sure what to say about that, except that they all are.


Of course they are. Whether they succeed or not is out of their hands/control. Yes, I added in the word control to the conversation because I was trying to make a side point but it went nowhere. So, whatever. I should be working.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Nimue said:


> How you can convey tension is more to the point.



So Svrt gave a great example on a big scale. Keep it under the surface. Let the reader figure it out.

Another way is by using micro tension. That is the line by line tension on the sentence level.

If I started a story with:

_Steven stared at the stupid running shoes. 
_
The sentence already starts raising questions. Why are they stupid? What does Steven have against running shoes?

You can use these sorts of micro-tension sentences throughout the manuscript quit effectively as a way of withholding information, or not being too explicit (at Svrt noted above)... but still giving enough information that the reader's interest is piqued.

Sometimes we lay it all out there, instead of holding it back. Simply twisting the words a bit so they form a question is an effective way of creating tension. 

My first line is,


_My dad and I have two unspoken rules: 
_
It raises a question... what are the unspoken rules? The reader has to keep reading to find out.

I answer it right away:

_One: Never mention my mother.

Two: Avoid the landlady at all cost._

But the answer just raises more questions. Why not mention the mother? What happened to the mother? And what is up with the landlady?

But the line is only followed by more questions:


_The first rule is easy. The second is challenging, especially when she is pounding on your door at seven in the morning. _

It's easy to not talk about her mother? Why? Oh, oh, the landlady they are supposed to avoid is banging on the door, what is going to happen?


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## Chessie2 (Jan 19, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> Wouldn't influence be a better word than control? It's semantics, but controlling seems a bit too strong (as can be seen from some of the responses).


Semantics indeed. But I think all of us are pretty much on even terms with this topic. Usually if I start to get bored when writing it means there isn't enough conflict. In that case, I go back and find where I messed up. To me, conflict is the key to crafting a story idea to the end of a book.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 19, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Even then, a writer is influencing you to consider multiple avenues of viewing something in the way they present them.



But I want it to be transparent.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 19, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> But I want it to be transparent.


Of course. No one wants to feel like they're being controlled - that's the tricky part.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 19, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> Of course. No one wants to feel like they're being controlled - that's the tricky part.



Right. Another word that gets thrown around is "preachy." Don't be that. You'll raise my tension level too high, and I'll put the damn book down. I swear I will.


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## Steerpike (Jan 19, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> Right. Another word that gets thrown around is "preachy." Don't be that. You'll raise my tension level too high, and I'll put the damn book down. I swear I will.



Heh. Don't read _Atlas Shrugged_. You'll get a 40 or so page speech from John Galt


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> You'll get a 40 or so page speech from John Galt


I skipped that part, intending to get back to it later, and then never did. I'm still not sure it was anything more than pure stubbornness that got me through the rest of the book.

I mean: "Who?"


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> _Atlas Shrugged_.


 Ayn Rand is famous for being too transparent. lol.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 19, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> Heh. Don't read _Atlas Shrugged_. You'll get a 40 or so page speech from John Galt



Yup, I couldn't read it.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

The Fountainhead was her best. IMO. But still pretty transparent.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 19, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> Right. Another word that gets thrown around is "preachy." Don't be that. You'll raise my tension level too high, and I'll put the damn book down. I swear I will.



I don't mind preachy, so long as I agree to what is being preached


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## pmmg (Jan 19, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> I don't mind preachy, so long as I agree to what is being preached



Preach it, sister.

I rather liked Atlas Shrugged, at least the opening third had me interested in trains in a way I never thought I would expect. 40 pages of John Gault, I don't even remember (who was that again?), but I do remember I did not care for a 40 page chapter on a hobbits birthday party. Though, I think just Mrs. Rand's name is enough to bring a good deal of tension to a writers forum 

I don't think anyone would deny that Mrs. Rand was trying to make an argument with that book (I did not read Fountainhead, but I am sure its the same), but you know, a lot of books do that. I don't mind. Sometimes they have something to say. I do mind if I feel the story trying to be a backdoor way of hooking into an issue. I'll see through it and think less of it for trying. But maybe that is just me, and I do suppose some have done such an excellent job of masking themselves that maybe I did not even know...

But, I think I may have to go with all books are controlling things, the author gets to make the world and present it. I don't know how it can be otherwise. I just don't have enough space to present it all. And when writing for dramatic impact, I don't think I would ever want to. I want to paint the scene and have it unfold in a way I think is impactful, and to do that, I must assert control over the readers experience, at least a little.

I think maybe we are taking the word control or manipulate too strongly. I would like to control the scene well enough that when the book is supposed to be scary, it paints a unsettling scene and leaves the reader with the feelings I would like to convey. That is not the same as seeing if I can round up some mindless masses and make them all vote to ban internet forums... But then, maybe I am...Muhahaha

The comment that attempting to control reader perceptions is pointless, I don't think I can agree with. I can attempt, maybe I will fail. But, if I did not attempt, I would be failing to deliver the story in what I would hope was the most impactful way.



Nimue said:


> Right, to return to the thread topic after railing against “make it worse” when nobody was actually pushing it.... How do you make sure a reader feels the tension in a scene?



I don't think there is any hard fast formula for this. I attempt this by making people care about the characters and their issues and goals. The characters always want something, some of its long term and some of it is more urgent, but I feel, if I've gotten you hooked into the characters, you'll stick around to see how it turns out. If you don't care, you'll move on I am sure. I want my characters to seem like real people, with real issues that are bigger than their combat prowess. I want there to be things that are just out of their grasp, and I want them to keep reaching for it. I want them to get tripped up by the goals of other characters who are also reaching for things, and sometimes these things conflict. I want there to be a type of danger that these conflicting things may dreadfully affect different characters as we go through the story. But I also want to reader to connect to them emotionally, feel their anger, their hate, their love and their joy. And of course everything else that may come up. Could by my own skills are not up to the task, but that is my story, I'll just have to keep reaching for it myself.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 19, 2018)

pmmg said:


> But, I think I may have to go with all books are controlling things, the author gets to make the world and present it. I don't know how it can be otherwise. I just don't have enough space to present it all. And when writing for dramatic impact, I don't think I would ever want to. I want to paint the scene and have it unfold in a way I think is impactful, and to do that, I must assert control over the readers experience, at least a little.



Making the world and presenting it is not the same as controlling or manipulating the reader. When I write, I give no concern to how to best manipulate the reader to feel certain emotions. If the plot, characters, and theme don't give rise organically to scenes that will impact the reader, then I feel I don't have good plot, characters, and theme.

I'm editing my WIP now, and I've come across scenes that I never thought when I wrote them how emotional they might be. In reading through now, some scenes bring me to tears, and I never planned that. I feel I'm not asserting any control over the story or potential readers, but rather the story is asserting control over me. Does that sound weird? Okay, I'm weird.



pmmg said:


> I think maybe we are taking the word control or manipulate too strongly. I would like to control the scene well enough that when the book is supposed to be scary, it paints a unsettling scene and leaves the reader with the feelings I would like to convey. That is not the same as seeing if I can round up some mindless masses and make them all vote to ban internet forums... But then, maybe I am...Muhahaha



For me, when the book is supposed to be scary, it will organically be scary if I stay true to the story. But I have no idea yet if my organic approach will be successful. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. If I had a degree in Creative Writing, I might have a different outlook on all these matters.

I do agree we might be taking the words _control_ or _manipulate_ too strongly.



pmmg said:


> The comment that attempting to control reader perceptions is pointless, I don't think I can agree with. I can attempt, maybe I will fail. But, if I did not attempt, I would be failing to deliver the story in what I would hope was the most impactful way.



I don't want to control perceptions. I want to create art (stories), and allow the observer (reader) to react to it in her own way. But I can see that if your goal is to sway people to behave a certain way or agree with a particular point of view, then you'd attempt to control their perceptions and not feel the attempt was pointless. If you're trying to force emotion or tension in a scene, I think the intelligent reader can see through your attempt, which means your attempt to control their perceptions is weak at best. If the emotions and tensions arise organically in the scene, it will feel more genuine, and to me that's more effective than any attempt to _make_ the reader feel a certain way.


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## skip.knox (Jan 19, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> None of us can control how readers perceive things. Aiming to try is pointless.



I agree we cannot control how readers perceive things. That's why readers will often find things the author never consciously put there. I must disagree, however, that aiming to try is pointless. We must try to present our vision ... or what's a heaven for? (to coin a phrase)

I'm fine if the reader doesn't notice all that I put in; this is especially true for me because I put in lots of historical touches. If the reader doesn't know that I'm referencing the death of Constantine XI, that's fine, as long as they think the final desperate attack out from the city is exciting. If they don't perceive it's exciting, then I've failed. Or, I should say, if *most* of my readers don't perceive it so. I'm ok if a few think it was dull, though my heart will break in private.


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## skip.knox (Jan 19, 2018)

I ought to have read more of the thread before responding!  But still. I want the reader to feel the emotions that my characters are feeling. To me, that is successful communication. I want to succeed on all the main story elements. I want them to understand the plot, be involved in it, and not be confused or bored by it. I want them to like my likable characters and dislike the others, but I want all characters to be interesting. I want the theme to be meaningful, even if they understand it differently, or don't understand until they read it again twenty years later.  I want them to be intrigued by the setting and to feel they have been some place new.

I don't think control is the right word. I don't think manipulation is the right word.

I think storytelling is the right word. _Sui generis_.


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## skip.knox (Jan 19, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> I ought to have read more of the thread before responding!  But still. I want the reader to feel the emotions that my characters are feeling. To me, that is successful communication. I want to succeed on all the main story elements. I want them to understand the plot, be involved in it, and not be confused or bored by it. I want them to like my likable characters and dislike the others, but I want all characters to be interesting. I want the theme to be meaningful, even if they understand it differently, or don't understand until they read it again twenty years later.  I want them to be intrigued by the setting and to feel they have been some place new.
> 
> I don't think control is the right word. I don't think manipulation is the right word.
> 
> I think storytelling is the right word. _Sui generis_.



[edit, because I can't help myself:  sui generis = open-handed pig]


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## Peat (Jan 20, 2018)

A few thoughts off the top of my head that may echo what others have said because I haven't read all 6 pages as I'm a bad human being and these thoughts have been burning a hole in myself -

For me as a reader, tension is where I'm genuinely unsure about what's going to happen next and really eager to know. If I'm pretty sure I know what happens next, or don't really care, there's no tension (which isn't to say someone else might find tension in those words).

The big part of uncertainty to me is - I think, this is a fairly recent thought I haven't talked to that many people about - is the stakes. For there to be tension, I have to believe the author is really willing for the character to win or lose the stakes.

Which is a big problem if the stakes are the character's life and the blurb has led me to believe the character won't be dying anytime soon. To get tension out of a life or death struggle for a character at that point, you're going have to write it so well that I completely forget logic and my clinical detached self. See also: McGuffins that the character can't have yet because there's still another hundred pages to go, villains who return in the next book etc.etc. An author can surprise me to great effect by taking an action I'm not expecting, but they can't really cause tension in me about it happening until its happened.

The other part of it - caring - is mostly driven by pacing for me. Or to put it a better way, the tension has to resolved before I get bored of it, and endlessly ratcheting it up when I know the author has to release it in a safe fashion increases the chances of me getting bored. I can get bored by tension over characters I like as much as those I dislike; the last book of Song of Ice and Fire and GRRM's attempt to play "Will they won't they" with Jon Snow is my big example there.


Anyway, add these together, and I find action a risky way of achieving tension. It tends to put the stakes too high too quickly with the effect that either I don't believe the author is serious (no tension) or the pace is too quick (I'm bored and over it).


Mystery is a far better way of achieving tension for me. I think the two tensest books I've read are _Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy _by Le Carre and _Feet of Clay _by Pratchett.

The big clever thing Pratchett did with _Feet of Clay _imo is that it investigated an attempted murder that was likely to become a real murder if they didn't succeed. That gave the book really good stakes. The tension was also well cut with a comedic subplot or two to stop it getting overwrought. I'm not sure its all tense looking back but it got me at the time.

The real masterpiece though is _TTSS_. Because there's no cutting of the tension there, just an incredibly well paced slow build. I think maybe the cleverest thing about is that for most of the book Smiley is not so much investigating who did it, but whether it happened at all and how. Building up that picture increases our desire to know Who and Why without really giving much away. But in general, its mostly a masterpiece of pacing and writing. Le Carre really captures and gets us to share Smiley's frustration, slow comprehension, occasional bouts of fear.


Which segues nicely into the thing about manipulating/influencing the reader. I agree with a lot of what has been said in the past few pages about it being art - I think I'd sum it up best as "Art is usually about provoking responses from the viewer" (although I suppose sometimes Art is about capturing something - an emotion, a moment, a place). I'd also agree that its really hard to reliably provoke the same response from a lot of people - or at least it seems to be for most of us, and those who can do it are very rich - its why I think accurate observation is at the heart of a lot of good storytelling. If you haven't observed what humans do, what makes them tick and the odd little things they do that make the rest of us smile, how are you going to reliably provoke responses in us? (Or, to use the other thing of Art, if you haven't observed something accurately how can you capture it?)

edit: This said, provoking emotion is frequently done subconsciously, and sometimes conscious appreciation of it can make a writer worse at it. end edit.


Anyway. I guess if I had to summarise it (so that I at least can understand it) -

Tension is about provoking and maintaining our desire to know Why/What/Who.

Doing it successfully often depends on knowing what readers expect from books and the world, and thus presenting them with scenarios and stakes they find genuinely compelling

Scenarios and stakes aside, the biggest issue with doing tension well is pacing


Also, you don't need tension to write a successful book.


I wish I could think of a good example of a book/art form where the tension wasn't with whether the MC succeeded, but whether they were still able to keep their moral compass when succeeding. _Best Served Cold _was what sparked that thought, but I never had too much tension, as this is Joe Abercrombie so I know well enough where Shivers' attempt to be a better man will end. But, having thought of it, I can't. And the best example I can think of for a story where a Moral Compass is the stakes is Order of the Stick, but I don't think its quite what I was thinking of.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 20, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> I don't want to control perceptions. I want to create art (stories), and allow the observer (reader) to react to it in her own way.


This should probably go in the _show vs tell_ thread, but...

The way you write this seems to be like you think controlling the reader and allowing them to react in their own way are opposites. Optionally, you're using _control_ in the sense of "force the reader to experience a specific emotion" in which case I would agree with you. I basically get the impression you focuse too much on the word control - but we're probably talking about the same thing.

This is also why I like the word _influence _instead of control.

The way I see it, througout the story I set the reader up for what's to come later on, both at the end of the story and in the next scene/chapter. The reader's memories of what they read in the previous chapter will influence how they relate to the events in the current chapter. In this way we will guide the reader in a general direction. Hopefully they'll come along without feeling like they're being led or pushed, and hopefully they'll reach a destination that has something in common with the one we envision for them.

I'm not talking about pushing them forcefully into the emotional bullseye, but rather about making them want to hit it themselves.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 20, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> I'm not talking about pushing them forcefully into the emotional bullseye, but rather about making them want to hit it themselves.



We still have different perspectives on this, and I believe I understand yours. Not sure you understand mine. People read things with tinted glasses, and we as authors can't do anything about what glasses they wear. We can show or tell or racket up the tension or have respite scenes or adhere to certain structures or use purple prose or hide our prose, but you ask readers about their experiences with a specific book, and they are going to vary, sometimes vastly so. Otherwise, every review would be the same and have the same rating.

Sometimes it's the discussion of the book after it has been read by many people that will influence readers, rather than the work itself. Some readers will bring up points the story seems to be making for them, and the writer never had that in mind at all.

I don't have the goal of influencing readers to believe a certain belief or understand a certain concept or even experience a particular emotion. I present the story and let them make of it what they will. If I present them a story rich in conflict and fairly balanced viewpoints on both sides, then readers will have plenty to discuss. If I want to _make_ readers do anything, it's to read my stories and talk about them. That's where all the rules of writing come into play for me: what do I need to do to attract and keep readers.That's it.

What does this have to do with tension in a story? We maybe all agree that stories need some degree of tension. We maybe all agree that tension helps to pull the reader through the story. But if you have a particular goal for your story to influence the reader, I think the tension you'll try to create in your story must be shaped according to the direction you want the reader to go. Whereas, if you don't have a goal of influencing the reader's opinions, you'll care more about shaping the tension in a way realistic for your characters. Having the thought in your mind that you want the readers to learn this particular thing or understand this particular principle of science or law colors how you craft your scenes. To me, it would be a distraction from telling the story.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 20, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> We still have different perspectives on this, and I believe I understand yours. Not sure you understand mine.


I'm pretty sure we're on the same train of thought, except we're sitting in opposite facing seats and arguing about whether the train is going forwards or backwards, but not about the destination.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 20, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> I'm pretty sure we're on the same train of thought, except we're sitting in opposite facing seats and arguing about whether the train is going forwards or backwards, but not about the destination.


It wouldn't be as fun here if we didn't try to disagree on some things, at least.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 20, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> It wouldn't be as fun here if we didn't try to disagree on some things, at least.


<grumpyoldfart>It's not my fault he picked the wrong seat!</grumpyoldfart>


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## Chessie2 (Jan 20, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> This should probably go in the _show vs tell_ thread, but...
> 
> The way you write this seems to be like you think controlling the reader and allowing them to react in their own way are opposites. Optionally, you're using _control_ in the sense of "force the reader to experience a specific emotion" in which case I would agree with you. I basically get the impression you focuse too much on the word control - but we're probably talking about the same thing.
> 
> ...



This is it right here for me. The part in bold. It's all about the build up. I like to do it slow and sneaky. Other authors I read are more intense. So long as it's entertaining that's all I care about. And believable.


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## Peat (Jan 20, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> We maybe all agree that stories need some degree of tension.



Maybe, depending on our definitions of tension.

Arguably any book you're re-reading is devoid of tension because you know what's happening and arguably if you can reread it happily, the story never truly needed the tension.

Less tenuously, I can think of stories I've read and enjoyed that didn't really have anything in the way of tension. David Eddings and Brian Jacques have somewhere between minimal to no tension depending on how you define it because they wrote classically structured stories with happy endings. Maybe some would say there's some tension in how it happens?

Even less tenuously I just finished reading Wootton of Smith Major and there's just no tension at all there as I recognise it. Its simply a series of unusual events that eventually come together to reveal a hidden mystery. Its a very unusual story, but a wonderful one too.

To me, tension is as salt is to cooking. It goes in just about everything; it improves just about everything if not overdone. But it is not necessary. There are recipes that don't need the addition.



> But if you have a particular goal for your story to influence the reader, I think the tension you'll try to create in your story must be shaped according to the direction you want the reader to go. Whereas, if you don't have a goal of influencing the reader's opinions, you'll care more about shaping the tension in a way realistic for your characters. Having the thought in your mind that you want the readers to learn this particular thing or understand this particular principle of science or law colors how you craft your scenes. To me, it would be a distraction from telling the story.



I don't think this is true; if an author has a set goal in mind, then that will be reflected in the characters and there should be no discernible seam in between looking to nudge the reader and shaping things to fit the characters' realistic actions. Similarly, there is no distraction from telling the story, as it should be part of the story, part of the blood and bone and brain.

Obviously not for everyone, but to those with a strong thematic bent of mind, generally how it works. It's all one.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 20, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> People read things with tinted glasses, and we as authors can't do anything about what glasses they wear. We can show or tell or racket up the tension or have respite scenes or adhere to certain structures or use purple prose or hide our prose, but you ask readers about their experiences with a specific book, and they are going to vary, sometimes vastly so.


Absolutely true, with one exception. You're not writing for every person in the world, or even every reader. You're writing to _your_ audience. You know who that is. They're that person you're thinking about as you're drafting and editing. They're you, in fact, or readers just like you.

The following comes from Donald Maass, and I agree with him wholeheartedly on this point:


> Readers turn to fiction...to have an emotional experience. They want to be blown away by stories and changed by the novels they choose. You can write your story and hope to have that effect on your readers, or you can craft a story to make sure it does.
> - The Emotional Craft of Fiction (Maass)


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 20, 2018)

Well, I can't argue with Donald Maass, especially on this forum.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 20, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> Well, I can't argue with Donald Maass, especially on this forum.


Of course you can. Doesn't stop others.

What exactly do you disagree with?


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 20, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> What exactly do you disagree with?



"or you can craft a story to make sure it does"


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 20, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> "or you can craft a story to make sure it does"


If you're writing to your audience, readers like you, you should be able to ensure that emotional & changing experience.

It isn't easy, and as you said, not every reader world-wide will have that same experience. But we're not talking about every potential reader. I prefaced that statement with an understanding that we're taking about you writing to your audience, those readers most like you.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 20, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> If you're writing to your audience, readers like you, you should be able to ensure that emotional & changing experience.
> 
> It isn't easy, and as you said, not every reader world-wide will have that same experience. But we're not talking about every potential reader. I prefaced that statement with an understanding that we're taking about you writing to your audience, those readers most like you.



And earlier I remarked how I had written passages that I never _planned_ for them to move me the way I find they are now during editing. I did not _make_ myself have the emotions that came from what I wrote. It came about _organically_.

It has taken a lot of work to create my story. Maybe if I had formal training in creative writing, I'd have reached the point where I am now a lot sooner. But I don't think so. I think, with training or not, if I'd been concerned about trying to evoke certain emotions, the story would have been much different. In fact, with the first version of my novel. I had certain concepts I wanted to force the reader to think about. When I finished it, I decided not to publish it. The same thing happened with the second version of the story, and even then I didn't fully understand why I didn't want to publish it. For the third version, the current one, I let go of all the crap I thought I wanted to impress upon people and let the story have a life of its own. That's when I hit upon a story with real emotion. So even with me as the audience, I was not able to _make_ myself have an emotional experience with my own writing.

To your point, I kept at it until it clicked. But I didn't start out thinking to evoke the particular emotions the story evokes in me now.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 20, 2018)

Forgive me for continuing, but I really want to understand what you're saying.

I'm not sure if you're telling me the emotion came about accidentally, as you wrote, with no intent on creating an emotional effect, or if you're telling me that during revision the emotional tones came to the surface.

Further, are you also saying that a writer can't ensure an emotional experience in a targeted audience, or that it's just not your way of doing things?


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## skip.knox (Jan 20, 2018)

I had something of the same experience, Michael. 

I wrote a couple of novelettes where I wasn't aiming at anything much more than "cool."  By the time I'd finished with them, all I felt was "finally."  I can't speak to how they struck others.

With my novel I was not aiming at much more, either. More epic in scope, so maybe I was going more for "cool" in all caps, but honestly my main goal was just to tell a coherent story. But late in the final editing (the book took me years, because it was my first), I found there were certain scenes that genuinely touched me. _Pathos_ is the correct word. I have at last some evidence others felt that as well, which makes me happy. 

I did not set out for that effect when I started the story. Once I recognized a scene as tragic or comic or some other emotion, at that point I did indeed try to craft it, to improve the chances the scene would work for the reader the way I wanted it to.  So far, even in my current novel, such scenes are something of a surprise to me. Or, at the very least, the details of the scene can surprise me--a touch, turn of phrase, bit of dialog--that really makes the scene succeed. It's like finding a gem while combing through detritus. I know I'm looking in the right place, but the actual find is still a surprise and delight.

Isn't it odd that we who trade in words find it so difficult to describe that trade?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 20, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> Isn't it odd that we who trade in words find it so difficult to describe that trade?


Exceedingly odd, but also common.

This quote comes to mind whenever in the midst of a craft debate:


> A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people" - Thomas Mann


Seems the same is true for discussions on writing.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 21, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Forgive me for continuing, but I really want to understand what you're saying.
> 
> I'm not sure if you're telling me the emotion came about accidentally, as you wrote, with no intent on creating an emotional effect, or if you're telling me that during revision the emotional tones came to the surface.
> 
> Further, are you also saying that a writer can't ensure an emotional experience in a targeted audience, or that it's just not your way of doing things?



I gave an example of where my audience was myself, and I couldn't make myself have the emotion I wanted from my writing when I tried to force it. If my target audience is like me, then how can I hope to make them experience something I can't do for myself on purpose? _I_ can't guarantee a particular emotional response from everyone in any group, even if that is a group of one and just me. It's my way of doing things only because that's how it is, not because it's my choice. I don't see how any writer can _ensure_ an emotional experience for even a targeted audience. Everyone is different from everyone else, no matter how similar they are, and what one person cries at, another may laugh at, while both are still in the target audience. I laugh at movies at times when other people don't, but we all agree we enjoyed the movie. I felt the movie had gone for the laugh, but the joke went right past others around me.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 21, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I'm not sure if you're telling me the emotion came about accidentally, as you wrote, with no intent on creating an emotional effect, or if you're telling me that during revision the emotional tones came to the surface.



Sorry, I didn't directly address this. I set up situations with the potential for emotion, without intent to create any particular one. As I wrote the first draft, I wasn't sure if the scenes I wrote would evoke emotion, though I suspected they might. When I edited, I discovered that the reading (as opposed to the writing) brought the emotion out for me. I did what I could to refine the emotion during editing, but it was already there from the writing, even though I hadn't recognized it when initially writing the scenes. So it was accidental to a degree, hoped for to a degree, and refined during revision to a degree.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 21, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> I set up situations with the potential for emotion, without intent to create any particular one.


Everything else, I understand. This, I just don't get.

How can you set up a situation with the potential for emotion, without the intent to create any particular emotion? It seems if you're writing a scene with potential for, let's say anger, you'd have to have an intent to create anger.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 21, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Everything else, I understand. This, I just don't get.
> 
> How can you set up a situation with the potential for emotion, without the intent to create any particular emotion? It seems if you're writing a scene with potential for, let's say anger, you'd have to have an intent to create anger.



I don't plan on anger being the emotion that comes of the situation, or sadness, or fear, or any particular emotion. I let it play out organically, let the characters react as they will, and let the readers respond to it all as they will.

For instance, say I have a scene involving murder where three characters are involved, in addition to the victim. One character is shocked by the murder, another is relieved, another is ambivalent. Who am I to say how all this will affect the reader? The reader will have her own emotion about the murder itself, and possibly react to how the characters react, but I have no idea how the reader will feel about any of it. Some readers may be outraged that one of the characters is ambivalent about the murder, while other readers might not have the same reaction to the ambivalent character, but might feel a lot of sympathy for the shocked character. I've set up the scene with potential for emotion, and I hope the reader feels something, but I am not trying to force the reader to feel shock or relief or ambivalence or outrage or sympathy or anything else.


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## FifthView (Jan 21, 2018)

First, a caveat. I haven't read this entire thread, only the most recent discussion re: conveying/inspiring emotional responses. I want to address this; I'll leave a separate comment returning to the focus of tension.

I may be an oddball because a) I've given the subject of "call-answer" a lot of thought over many years, and b)  consequently I've developed a quirky theory that I think goes to the root of human _being_, heh.

Here goes. We are social animals, and our evolutionary history has wired us accordingly.

At the most basic level, humans individually were relatively weak.

“Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.” ― Blaise Pascal​
Besides the general danger of weather, climate, terrain, and other "acts of god," many vicious creatures better suited to killing prowled  his neighborhood. But of course, the thinking reed also had other thinking reeds: dangers _without_ the close-knit family group and dangers _within_. In numbers, we gained strength and security for contending with exterior threats, but we also had the need to bond together in our small family groups to survive those threats and, on an individual level, to survive whatever threats might exist within our small group also.

Long story short:  Very early in our evolutionary history, we developed ways to both see signs and communicate signs to our closest companions in order to increase our chances for survival, and we've been doing it ever since. It's in our nature—most of us—and I believe we do this constantly, often without realizing this is what we do.

In-group vs out-group signs would probably have been rather blunt. If some stranger appears, well, that's a stranger; we don't know him. His clothing is different, his speech is different, his face is showing earnest calculation that might be hostile or at least—his goals don't align with our own.

But similarly, our own companions show signs—does my brother have the same goals I have? Or will there be conflict and potential danger? Let's move this into the modern era: Does my employer enjoy fantasy fiction, or will he look down on me, scoff at me, when I tell him I spend my off time (and perhaps even on time) contemplating the book I'm writing?  Heh. What are the signs?

All this predates language. Other social creatures do the same things, generally.  Call and answer. But language added a new method of influence between humans. I personally believe that we use language to _influence_ our interlocutors in order to achieve some measure of _control _over our environment. [I am harking back to Svrtnsse's post.]  We are reassuring others, fishing for reassurance, trying to get them to change their minds perhaps so that their own endeavors afterward don't interfere with ours, heh. [Goals.] Maybe we are offering a warning; "Don't stand in my way, don't work at cross purposes to my goals and endeavors!" Or we are laying the groundwork so that they actually might help us in the future if we call for help.

Two prospective applicants arrive for a job interview for a sales position. One is wearing a new, crisp, clean suit, is impeccably groomed, and has an easy, friendly manner, and the other is dressed in baggy sweatpants that appear years old, unwashed, and seems to ignore the questions asked by the interviewer while going off on tangents about how his previous employer was too demanding. What are the signs?  Heh.

TL;DR: It's in our nature to attempt to influence others when we communicate with them. Ignoring whatever evolutionary basis might exist for this, we still have our own life history filled with many attempts to influence via language (spoken, written, body language.) It's what we do. And we wouldn't be doing this if our efforts have no effect. How do we know we have an effect? We see the changes in our interlocutor, we experience the consequences of the signs we put forth. We've called, and we've studied the answers. This would be impossible if there was no correlation between our calls and the answers we've received.

That said, written language is clunkier than spoken language—and ironically, almost stone age technology compared to the effectiveness of body language, heh.

So an example from very recent experience. In the last few days, I've seen many cars with "Wash me" written in the dirt and grime.

One person might see that message and become very angry; he's insecure, don't others know he's too damn busy trying to earn a living, overworked, always on the road, and doesn't have time to wash his car _yet_?

Another person might laugh. She knows her teenage daughter wrote it.

Another might think, "Good idea." It's about time he did wash his car.

But. "Wash me" is a very short novel, heh. See how I added different contexts to those three examples above?


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## Peat (Jan 21, 2018)

I would agree that no level of craft can make sure a story has the intended emotional effect on everyone, even in the desired audience (unless we defined the desired audience as "reacts with X to the event of Y", which may be a fair way of defining it after all). Individual people have many odd quirks.

But you can craft a story to dramatically increase your chances of getting the intended emotional effect. Maass is wrong to state it as an absolute but the jist of it is correct. Individuals are hard to predict but people in general have some known biases that can be used. 

I also think that setting up a scene where reader sympathies and emotions are likely to be split still counts. Just because there is no one specific intended emotional effect doesn't mean the author doesn't intended for there to be some emotional reaction. Its the looking for a reaction that counts imo.

On further consideration, Maass' advice maybe works better on a macro level than a micro level. Its pretty hard to always hit the aim with every scene but by the end of the book, the author has plenty of opportunity to set up the reader's expectations and get them invested in the characters. If they get the last big scene right, then I believe they're probably going to get the desired emotional thrill out of the reader.


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## FifthView (Jan 21, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> But I will say this. Tension is NOT _action_. Stop for a moment and read that again. Tension is NOT _action.
> _
> A few years back there was a certain philosophy on this site that tension = car chases and fight scenes. The more of these. you had, the more the reader would be turning pages. This is absolutely not true. That is not what tension is. I have no clue where that idea came from... probably film, but in fiction it is not what tension means.
> 
> ...



I remember one previous discussion about tension. I think I wrote then, and would reiterate here, that I view tension as being solely a description of what the reader feels—_not_ what the character feels.

So I am in total agreement about car chases and fight scenes. My reaction as a reader may very well be _Meh. So what?  _The fact that the character is freaking out, or is about to fail in achieving a goal, or whatever, may be immaterial to me.

_Meh _might not be my reaction, even before I know much about the characters or the story. A car chase or fight scene could be thrilling in and of itself if it is particularly odd, clever, whatever. The scene could tell me something about the world that intrigues me. Science fiction and fantasy might have that advantage: the very weird technology and/or magic on display during the car chase or fight scene might instantly provoke those...questions?

But I think I might take a step back and look at the issue of questions vis-a-vis tension. I think questions might only be a symptom of what's happening when tension is created.

While reading over the early posts in this thread, the thought occurred to me:

Tension correlates to moments of _change_. Or, potential change, perhaps.

For the reader—and that is the only real consideration—whatever is happening on the page is in flux whenever there is tension.  Yes, questions of some sort are likely to be occurring also (even if not consciously considered by the reader.) But the "questions" arise because the reader is reading along as if walking across a gap between two skyscrapers on a tight wire and the wire shakes. Or maybe the better metaphor would be a walk across a taut rope that is fraying nearby or at its end even as the reader crosses the gap over a canyon. Does this line continue all the way to the end—or is something about to change that path?

Another metaphor, or example, might be the line break in a poem. For me, that line break had better be important. It had better signal a _potential change_ in the path of the line. [Here, best to think of "line" as line of thought.] Otherwise, it will come across (!) as irrelevant, pointless, random, etc.

It isn't necessary for what comes after the line break in a poem to be odd, unexpected, or a total break in the line of thought:

It isn't necessary for what comes after
the line break in a poem
to be odd, unexpected, or a total break
in the line of thought,
so long as the lion
gets to eat the reader
at the end.​
Well now, _that _was odd.

Just pulled that out of my _whatever_.  A silly example, perhaps. The point I would make is that each moment of change introduces the potential for the line of thought—or, the story's line; throughline?—to veer into an unexpected direction.

With a lack of tension, everything would play out more or less as expected. With tension—yes, no, maybe. So yep, there are "questions" of a sort, but there's more to it, I think.

All of the above kinda ignores the importance of stakes and reader investment in the particular characters and story. These, I think, are necessary additional considerations for the writer wanting to create tension for the reader. But I just wanted to shoot an arrow deeper into the hole to see if I could strike the bottom.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 21, 2018)

I mentioned earlier that my post might fit better in the Show vs Tell thread, because the way I'm viewing the ways to influence the reader is based heavily upon how I write descriptions.

I do not try to give my reader a detailed and accurate image of a scene or a setting or character, or what a character is seeing. Rather, I try to give my reader the tools to create their own image of whatever I'm describing. As long as the reader knows that there's a big cardboard box on the floor of the room it doesn't really matter what color the walls are (basic example to show the principle).

Any image the reader creates in their mind will be stronger than whatever image I try to describe on the page of the book, regardless of how detailed I am or how pretty words I use. In fact, beyond a certain point it's pointless to try and add more detail because the reader has already created their impression of what I'm describing and anything new I try to add will just distract them or contract the image they already created.

Now, I haven't spent a whole lot of time reflecting on how this applies to tension and plot, but I believe the same general principle applies.

I can't control what exactly my reader will feel, but I can give my reader tools they can use in order to build their own emotional connection to the story and its characters.

Some of these tools are created in the early planning stages, and they're probably pretty rough and clumsy. It's stuff like: make sure the reader understands Roy has issues with women and relationships.
Later on, throughout planning and drafting, new and different options to enhance these tools show up. Some of them appear through planning. _How can I make my reader like my character more? Have him save a cat._ Others just show up more or less by accident when writing or redrafting a scene.

It's not rocket surgery. Sometimes things just happen and it works out real nice, there's no secret formula that will achieve that with certainty. 
However, that doesn't mean I can't lay my story out in a way that will allow for such things to happen.


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## FifthView (Jan 21, 2018)

So Heliotrope another example of what I discussed in my last comment, but this time using one of your early posts as an example.



Heliotrope said:


> I just did the above in my own WIP. For the longest time in my draft I had Andy come home from school after missing the auditions for a major speech competition (because of her dad). She comes home and sees him giving the landlady one of her mother's treasures because he has been having trouble paying rent. Andy is pissed. She is ready to slaughter the guy. Originally she just stomped into the house and gave him what for.
> 
> The other night I thought, what if she stomped into the house and he had tried to throw her a "congratulations party"? What if he assumed she would win the contest, had no clue that he delayed her so much that morning that she missed it, and went to all the trouble to make a banner and a cake and get her a gift that he couldn't afford? That would suck. She rushes into the house to fight with him and is faced with all this love. His pride for her is literally hanging from the ceiling. It created some amazing inner conflict.
> 
> That was how I made the scene worse.



First, I want to use this example because I know from past experience that you and I approach these considerations in somewhat different ways. 

You tend to use your MC as a vehicle. You make it worse "for her." You stress the importance of leveraging _the character's goals, _the stakes for the character_, _the effects of events upon the character.

Whereas, I wrote above that my focus is on the _reader's_ sense of tension. I would add here that, for me, it's the reader's stakes and the effects of events upon the reader, that are important.

We are not entirely at odds here however, heh. I think that sympathy with the character, identification with the character will often be one consequence of the intimate, limited third person (or even first person) approach. I.e., the reader experiences events vicariously through the POV character.

To the degree that this blending is strong, then making it worse for the character is making it worse for the reader, the character's goals become the reader's goals (the character wants to succeed, and the reader wants to see the character succeed), and so forth.

I still think that considering the reader's experience is ... more to the point? There are more distant narrative approaches that can work well, and there are even many ways to reveal information to the reader without revealing it to the character—which, I think, speaks for itself re: creating tension _in the reader_ rather than focusing only on the character's sense of tension.

Second...your example is good for showing how a wrench can be thrown into the works. In line (ahem) with my previous comment:  The reader is reading along, MC mad as heck at father, and....simply having her storm home and confront her father in a mad argument might be the line the reader's been set upon.  If it just plays out exactly like that...ho-hum.

But the congratulation party alters that mental course. 

I think that a limited POV works here to build a "perfect line" for the reader which is bound to be upset—just because the POV is limited! It is perfect in the sense that it is the whole of the reality of the world/story that the reader's received. But it's in fact merely a limited portion of that reality.  Your MC's sudden sensation of the tight wire being struck by a meteor becomes the reader's. A change has occurred. How does this change affect all that will follow? Read on, dear reader, to find out...


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## Chessie2 (Jan 21, 2018)

FifthView said:


> there are even many ways to reveal information to the reader without revealing it to the character—which, I think, speaks for itself re: creating tension _in the reader_ rather than focusing only on the character's sense of tension.


_Love_ this. An often forgotten piece of the pie.


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## skip.knox (Jan 21, 2018)

If there was no way to influence the reader, then there would not be general agreement that this novel is comedy while that one is tragedy. Sure there's room for variation; why not grant also there is room for commonality?

I also suggest that, however neutral we imagine we are being in the presentation of a scene, the words we use to describe it are influential. To what degree do we engage the senses? What colors, smells, sounds, do we invoke? What is the context for each character in the room--do they come in fresh from a triumph? A tragedy? Do they enter frustrated, joyful, worried? Even the pacing of our sentences and paragraphs influence the reader. We may write the scene consciously choosing each word, or we may write it deep in the moment--and don't forget, we *rewrite* that scene multiple times, each time in a different frame of mind--but the cumulative effect of all these variables is to cast a certain tone. The result is never guaranteed, but neither is it utterly random.

To relate this to the OP, I have to believe that it is possible to create emotion in the reader because that's where tension (suspense, question, whatever we wish to call it) lies. The thing that makes the reader keep reading. If I did not believe I could create suspense, I don't know that I could keep writing. But if I grant that as an assumption, then I move on to the questions of craft: how do I create a particular tension, how might I vary that, what works, what doesn't work? And therein lies the discussions we've been having.


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## skip.knox (Jan 21, 2018)

And now I have to amend. I fully agree with Michael that I cannot ensure a response in everyone. I don't see how I would even try, much less go about trying to figure out if I had succeeded. Once again I return to the sage advice: always reject absolutes. 

I make an adjustment when I read writing dicta. If the rule contains absolutes--always do this, never do that--then I can reject it out of hand. But if the advice is without qualifiers--reads as do this or don't do that--then I do not automatically add the absolute. I read it as "consider doing this, think about not doing that." It then becomes a tool I can pick up or put aside as I wish.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 21, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> I fully agree with Michael that I cannot ensure a response in everyone.


I also agree with that point, but do you write for everyone?



skip.knox said:


> Once again I return to the sage advice: always reject absolutes.


I agree with that advice, but I'm unsure what's been presented as an absolute.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 21, 2018)

FifthView said:


> Tension correlates to moments of _change_. Or, potential change, perhaps.



...just as tension _correlates_ to the presence of unanswered questions. 

One can have change without tension. A character changing clothes might or might not create tension. It depends on whether it creates a question in the mind of the reader. Change unaccompanied by questions isn't likely to cause tension.



T.Allen.Smith said:


> I also agree with that point, but do you write for everyone?



Should we exclude those from our discussion who read our work but don't fit our self-imposed definition of our target audience? Does it matter who we write for? It matters who actually reads, and most of us are not personally choosing who buys or reads our books.



Peat said:


> I would agree that no level of craft can make sure a story has the intended emotional effect on everyone, even in the desired audience (unless we defined the desired audience as "reacts with X to the event of Y", which may be a fair way of defining it after all). Individual people have many odd quirks.
> 
> But you can craft a story to dramatically increase your chances of getting the intended emotional effect. Maass is wrong to state it as an absolute but the jist of it is correct. Individuals are hard to predict but people in general have some known biases that can be used.
> 
> ...



I feel Peat has expressed the matter very well here, as regards controlling the reader's emotions with our writing.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 21, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> Should we exclude those from our discussion who read our work but don't fit our self-imposed definition of our target audience? Does it matter who we write for? It matters who actually reads, and most of us are not personally choosing who buys or reads our books.


That depends entirely on the writer. Do you write for everyone, or do you write for a specific audience?



> "Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia."
> -Kurt Vonnegut


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## Peat (Jan 21, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> That depends entirely on the writer. Do you write for everyone, or do you write for a specific audience?



If you're writing just for yourself, a lot of this advice goes out of the window.

If you're writing just for one person who's not yourself, some of it goes out of the window... but lets be honest, I think we all have stories about the time we did this thing that we were sure would make one individual we know very well very happy and found out we were wrong. Anyone who could get the emotional response they wanted from one person all the time would be an absolute genius.

And there are authors who show every sign of writing for a wider audience - of wanting lots of people to like and buy their story as much as anything else. And their stories have plenty of people who like them, its a workable approach. And one that I think a lot of authors have to consider at some point if they're going to publish - even if they don't consider it before submitting, they'll probably have to once the editor starts suggesting changes based on what will work for the wider audience. 

Tbh, when I consider it, I doubt the audience thing is a singular thing, but a spectrum, something where we write maybe 45% for ourselves, 35% for genre fans, 20% for everyone. Or something like that. I know that personally, while I write first and foremost the stories I want to read, I do sort through my story ideas in terms of commercial viability, and I do consider storytelling in terms of genre expectations from time to time. I think I' on a spectrum.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 21, 2018)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> Should we exclude those from our discussion who read our work but don't fit our self-imposed definition of our target audience? Does it matter who we write for? It matters who actually reads, and most of us are not personally choosing who buys or reads our books.


I'm not sure about actively excluding anyone, but I think it's very important to recognise that not everyone is going to appreciate what we write. The question is how we respond to that.

This is why it's so important to know the people who test read your stories. If someone gives me feedback on a story and say that some aspect of it didn't work for them it's really important for me to know if they're part of my "target audience" or not. Does this person enjoy the kind of story that I'm trying to tell, or is it the wrong story for them? 
Will my test reader enjoy my story better if I make a few tweaks here and there, or will I have to throw in a swat team and a hostage situation and a dragon before they start to warm up to it?

In this way, it definitely matters who we write for.

I can't pick and choose who buys and reads my books, but I can present my story in a way that appeals more to some people than to others. It's in how I write my blurb, and in how my cover image looks. It's also in how I pick my advertising. Do I target single mothers age 40-50 or do I target young males who like computer games?

Can I write a book that will appeal to both of these groups? It's possible. I doubt I can do it myself, but I'm sure there are those who both can and have done it (though I can't name anyone off the top of my head (Rowling?)).


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 21, 2018)

Peat said:


> If you're writing just for yourself, a lot of this advice goes out of the window.
> 
> If you're writing just for one person who's not yourself, some of it goes out of the window... but lets be honest, I think we all have stories about the time we did this thing that we were sure would make one individual we know very well very happy and found out we were wrong. Anyone who could get the emotional response they wanted from one person all the time would be an absolute genius.
> 
> ...



Peat gets it.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 21, 2018)

Okay, so that’s where we differ, I guess. 

When I write, I do so to please myself, with the belief that there are many more readers just like me who will enjoy the work. I know what moves me, & therefore, it should move readers who are similar to me. 

I’m perfectly fine with the idea that not everyone feels the same as a writer & that not all readers will have the desired emotional experience. That’s as it should be.


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 21, 2018)

I think I may have lost it. I'm not quite sure what we're talking about anymore.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 21, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> I think I may have lost it. I'm not quite sure what we're talking about anymore.



Well, the main topic is tension. 

Is tension used to control the reader's emotion? _Can_ a writer control the reader's emotion? Maybe we should have broken out the sub-topic of controlling reader emotions in a separate thread?

Back to the main topic, does anyone else have any thoughts on FifthView's thoughts regarding _change_ and _tension_? 



FifthView said:


> I remember one previous discussion about tension. I think I wrote then, and would reiterate here, that I view tension as being solely a description of what the reader feels—_not_ what the character feels.
> 
> So I am in total agreement about car chases and fight scenes. My reaction as a reader may very well be _Meh. So what?  _The fact that the character is freaking out, or is about to fail in achieving a goal, or whatever, may be immaterial to me.
> 
> ...


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 22, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> I think I may have lost it. I'm not quite sure what we're talking about anymore.


Right, so, sorry about that.

It was pretty late and I was quite tired after a long day (a few pints didn't help). It felt a bit like we were all saying more or less the same thing, but with words that had different meanings depending on who wrote them - or the other way around. 

The idea of controlling/influencing the reader is an interesting one, and it might be good for a different thread. Gonna have to let the thoughts settle a little before I create that one though.

As for tension in itself. Gonna have to have a think about that too, or I'll just be rehashing something I've already said (not that I don't do that all the time anyway, but I'd like to at least put some effort into changing it up a little).


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## Heliotrope (Jan 22, 2018)

I'll address what FifthView said. I wanted too.... but had a busy weekend.

So, I pretty almost agree with everything FifthView says, and this is no different. For sure there has to be change... a change of heart, and change of mind, a change of path, a new choice, a new obstacle... _something _that raises _new _questions.

If the through line only has one question "Will they stop the T-Rex?" and no other questions are raised, they simply find the t-rex and stop it, than it isn't really that great of a story and there is very little tension.

*Jurassic Park*
Will they stop the T-Rex?
Yes.
The end.


However, let's pretend we keep the through line the same "Will they find and stop the T-rex?" But then we add, like FifthView showed with the poem "line breaks" (Which, in fiction, would simply be obstacles... or choices, or new stuff happening) then it puts the through line in question.

*Jurassic Park *
Will they find and stop the T-rex? Maybe?
But there is a storm and the communication system is down.
And there are kids out there who could get harmed.
And the vehicles can't work in the mud.
And they are out of ammunition.
And the electronic fence is down, so now the raptors are out of their cages...
Etc, etc, etc
Until you finally get to "YES!"
The end.

The story is identical. But, every change adds a new choice to make. A change of heart. A change of mind. It all adds new tension. New questions raised, even though the outcome is the same.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 22, 2018)

Change is essential on a chapter to chapter basis, not purely for tension, but it is part of it. It can be a peg along the character arc, threat level, theme, whatever, but a chapter without change that retains the status quo in its entirety probably has issues. The Story Grid by Coyne is one the better in detail explanations of this process.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 22, 2018)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Change is essential on a chapter to chapter basis, not purely for tension, but it is part of it. It can be a peg along the character arc, threat level, theme, whatever, but a chapter without change that retains the status quo in its entirety probably has issues. The Story Grid by Coyne is one the better in detail explanations of this process.



I’d argue that change is essential, for my young audience, on a page by page basis, let alone chapter by chapter. I try to add something “new” every 250 words.


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## Peat (Jan 22, 2018)

What Heliotrope just posted reminds me a lot of the whole Scene-Sequel thing as Jim Butcher has written about - particularly the bit about no solution ever going perfectly. Its all those additional complications that keep the tension alive. If it ends quickly, you can't keep the tension going. If it goes on with nothing happening, the tension falls flat. If things keep happening, keeps changing...

Creating tension is "easy". But sustaining it, keeping it going and going without annoying the reader or having it go soggy like a bad loaf of bread... to me, that is the hardest bit.


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## Devor (Jan 22, 2018)

I still haven't had the chance to fully catch up on this thread, so forgive me in advance if I'm repeating anybody or missing something important that's been brought up already.

I figure if Heliotrope can bring up Curious George, I can toss up another scene from my Ladybug fanfiction.

This one needs a little context.  After they just defeated the sewage villain Pipeline, Alya, Ladybug's friend who writes a blog about them, just asked Chat Noir whether he was going to turn supervillain when Ladybug breaks his heart.  Chat Noir made a joke and a pose and took off like it was nothing.  Ladybug, however, is pissed and tries to follow him to see if he's alright.



> Chat Noir was supposed to be humbled by a little sewage, not humiliated with the question of their lives, asked by a friend but phrased like a high school bully, for his feelings to be put on display and mocked for the public.
> 
> He looked cute in the dripping muck, Ladybug thought when she had thrown the surfboard into the air, which then dissolved into her Miraculous Ladybug damage-fixing wave that cleaned up the sewage everywhere but her kitty. She still didn’t understand how that power worked. Did it leave him in a mess because part of her wanted it to or because that was somehow lucky?
> 
> ...



For myself, I consider this passage to be extremely tense, and I had a lot of fun trying to capture the sense of panic and freakout happening in her head. She doesn't mention it here, but she's deeply afraid that after she breaks Chat Noir's heart, and tells him flatly that they'll never be together, he's going to quit as her partner (a thought which never once occurs to him).  But for the most part, she's reflecting on events that have already happened.

There are a few things I did here to create tension.
 - Right from the first paragraph I used a lot of power words.
 - Yes, I kept making it worse.  Nothing "worse" actually happens here, but her thoughts keep getting worse.  She goes from reflecting on what just happened, to how it's all Chat's fault, to how it's her fault, to how she can't help it anyways.  *Each paragraph escalates on the one before it.*
 - She uses somewhat extreme characterizations, as if she's trying to make it worse for herself.
 - I used this phrase, "Chat's heart was hers to break in the time and manner of her choosing," which sounds horrible and manipulative out of context, but actually reflects how much thought and consideration she's put into getting things right with him.  I feel that double-connotation creates tension.
 - I deliberately raised questions for the reader right near the end, about how she had something she wanted to talk to Adrien about.  It ends with a cliffhanger - not a bad one, especially since it's mid-chapter and the next scene answers those questions.  But the questions are there.
 - I used gimmicks - _She couldn't help it, she was in love with -  "Adrien?"_ - to signal to the reader (again) that even their expectations in grammar are not safe.
 - I posted this chapter on ArchiveOfOurOwn, and from the comments, some readers found this scene hysterical because of how obvious it should be here that Chat Noir is Adrien.  "Where did Chat Noir go?  Ohh, hey, there's Adrien, right where Chat Noir should be....."  I was snickering when I wrote it and was really hoping readers would feel the same.  I think it diffuses the tension built up to that point nicely.

Finally, the thing that drew me to this story was the situational irony.  She's in love with her friend Adrien; he's in love with his partner Ladybug; if only they knew their identities, they'd realize they're in love with each other.  I find that irony so much fun to play with.  The story is a romance, so these two characters are constantly thinking about each other.  Readers _know_ that they're supposed to end up together.  That's not a secret.  So anything that comes between them, even a little - any time they're thinking about each other - creates tension because they're thinking all the wrong things.... that's all in there.

So, where does that leave me with my thoughts on tension?

"Tension" - and I don't think that word quite captures it - is any kind of *a micro-reaction that you're trying to pull from your readers*.  People have used phrases like "make it worse," and "conflict," and "questions," and I don't think that quite covers the breadth of what those raw micro-reactions can be or what you can do with them.

I said in a previous post that I thought tension was like the Rhuhk in an anime I watch, where the Rhuhk is a raw power, which you can transform into an element like fire or wind.  *I think the word tension denotes fear, which is why I think it's the wrong word.*  Tension is a type - and a common one - of the different micro-reactions you can shoot for with readers, but I think it's hardly the only one.

I said before that I think the scene above is full of tension, and it is.  She's _scared_ for what's going on between her and her partner.  But in other scenes I've written, the mood might be excitement, or sadness, or determination, or a number of other things. Is that tension?  Well, not if tension is about fear.  But those scenes are no less compelling, and the work you have to put into getting those micro-reactions is no less important.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 22, 2018)

Devor said:


> Readers _know_ that they're supposed to end up together. That's not a secret. So anything that comes between them, even a little - any time they're thinking about each other - creates tension because they're thinking all the wrong things.... that's all in there.



THIS is super important to talk about. Why is that we keep going back to the same books over and over again? Or the same movies, over and over again, even though we know the ending? You would think, because we already know "what happens" we would be bored and move on to something new. But it is not the case. People have their favourite movies or books they keep re-reading, even though the "big question" has been answered.

This is why these "changes" we are talking about are so important. To me, it is not the questions that matter so much to the reader. It isn't "Are they going to stop the T-Rex"... what is interesting is HOW are they going stop the T-Rex? If the _how _is really cool, complicated, fresh, exciting, new, novel, etc, than that is what matters to readers. How many wrenches can you throw in, but still come to the same outcome?

One of my favourite movies is Inception. Oh man, the more complicated it gets the more I love it. The question is not "are they going to plant the idea?" because I already know they will... the question is "how?" When all the obstacles and challenges and "make it worse-s" and changes to the plans, and changes to the relationships all happen it makes me wonder _how? how are they going to achieve this? 
_
I keep watching it over and over because the _how _is the cool part.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 22, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> To me, it is not the questions that matter so much to the reader. It isn't "Are they going to stop the T-Rex"... what is interesting is HOW are they going stop the T-Rex?



Um... _How_ is still a question.


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## Steerpike (Jan 22, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> To me, it is not the questions that matter so much to the reader. It isn't "Are they going to stop the T-Rex"... what is interesting is HOW are they going stop the T-Rex?



I think that's really it the vast majority of the time. You have instances where a writer may establish that no characters are safe or outcomes safe to presume, in which case the _if_ is also part of the equation, but in most cases the reader can be fairly confident they will stop the T-Rex. Maybe you can make the reader forget that for a moment, in the excitement of the read, but finding out what clever strategies the characters come up with is always fun.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 22, 2018)

This lastest bit of conversation takes me back to one of the ultimate examples of How... Columbo. In Columbo the question is never who dunnit, it’s how does Columbo figure it out?

The big sellers (most often) fulfill the reader’s/viewer’s expectations but (preferrably) in an unpredictable or at least exciting way.


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## FifthView (Jan 22, 2018)

I'm reminded of a post I once made about micro-tension:  Micro-Tension Strategies.

The two structures, anticipation-arrival and statement-extension, can apply to larger structures, not only sentence structure--nor only paragraph structures.

This still relates to change. But how is the change presented?


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