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A few thoughts on "tension."

Helen

Inkling
I was thinking about the concept of tension. What it is, how its created, and what to do with it.

One thing that occurred to me is that tension grows when the reader can figure out what the outcome of a situation is, but wishes it would be something else.

To achieve this, you'll need to make sure your reader understands the "rules" of your story, so that they can, on their own, predict what's going to happen.
You'll also make sure that the reader is emotionally invested in the outcome of the story being one other than what seems to be the most likely one.

What's a good way to achieve this?
What's another way of creating tension?

Really, the above is fairly basic and I'm sure some of you will be able to poke holes in the reasoning. I'm still thinking it'd be cool to have a talk about tension again. I think it's been a while since last.

The old Hitchcock quote: Quote by Alfred Hitchcock: “There is a distinct difference between "suspens...”

It's worth going through every scene from the point of view of tension.
 
A great concept of creating tension is what someone called "napalm". A statement that burns onto the bone, and cannot be overlooked or forgotten. Thiss colors the scene, which could be later in a book. Like the ticking bomb under the table in that Hitchcock example in the beginning of the thread. Napalm converts a superficially normal scene into a suspenseful one. For instance, you know the mc has a secret, and how she saves her skin in a dialogue with someone raising questions who absolutely may not know about that secret.
 

ShadeZ

Maester
I would actually say tension comes from the reader trying to figure out how it COULD go better. For example I was recently reading Ashes Remain (Nothing But Bones Series) and in it there is a scene where an inhuman(sorta vampire) is trying to say his love interest from his evil adopted dad. The vampire dude has "rules" one of these is he wont harm his friends and family. But the adoptive dad is abusive of him. I recall reading this and my mind racing trying to figure out what the character would do and even what I would do in that situation and how to get free of it. It was a VERY tense well written scene and popped into my head as an example of what causes tension
 
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