Casting the Bait: What lure should I use and how should I use it?

[Demesnedenoir]

Tension between characters can be microtension. One example in Maass, in fact points it out using exactly this in dialogue. Microtension isn't one thing.

Mmmm...maybe. I focus more on tension between characters and try to end my chapters in cliffhangers. Not always though since some chapters need to be breathers. So, cliffhangers for the most part. My books also start slow and increase in conflict and speed as the story develops. They're well reviewed and received so guess it's working so far.

 

[Black Dragon]

Please, folks, take a step back and cool off. Please be kind to one another. Thanks.

 

[Heliotrope]

I never said you were attacking. I said this post is not an attack on your style. That is all. You started with "no offence".. and went into detail about how and why considering these topics is not helpful, and how you never consider them but you are still successful anyway. I'm saying great! But they are helpful to us.

I'm not criticizing your opinion at all.

 

[FifthView]

I'd say you use it and don't know it, LOL. How much is the question. If you literally never used it, it would be astounding. And it's not necessary to worry about it until the edit anyhow, or not at all, if you use it inherently. I sure don't write thinking to myself... microtension, microtension... In fact, I never think that way. But if I go over my writing, it's there, much like the modern 3-act structure, I don't plot it, but it's there.

Yeah, it's a lot like using MRUs, the sort of thing you improve in edit and, if your roughs don't naturally make the most of it, something you can train yourself to do more naturally.

Come to think of it, MRUs probably have a correspondence to some types of microtension...insofar as the reader is constantly wondering about cause & effect.

 

[FifthView]

Ok, I would argue that micro-tension on every page is actually MORE prevalent in literary fiction than genre fiction.

That's a bold claim, heh, and I wonder if the natural riposte is to point out that those who write literary fiction simply take their writing a little more seriously.

Oops, did I hit anyone's nerve, heh?

BUT the response to the riposte might have something to do with the way genre fiction can rely on an array of tropes and other genre expectations for dragging the reader along. Interesting to consider whether what are called "genre expectations" have this effect on the reader of already a) hinting at where things may be going while b) triggering in the mind a kind of Minority Report precog/visualization of future developments. Plus, as you've said, if the literary novels often use lots of microtension to improve the mundane scenes, speculative fiction might be able to include elements of the world building, the unusual, to trigger the gears in the mind. Heck, both of these considerations might have special significance vis-a-vis "raising questions" a la what is meant by the "speculation" of speculative fiction.

Edit: I forgot the first thing that was on my mind when I considered your comment. Pacing, or something like pacing. Perhaps those genre expectations already introduce pacing requirements that preclude use of lots of micotension; or, perhaps the kinds of plots that are used have some built-in tension, limiting the need for heavy use of microtension. Dunno.

 

[FifthView]

Mmmm...maybe. I focus more on tension between characters and try to end my chapters in cliffhangers. Not always though since some chapters need to be breathers. So, cliffhangers for the most part. My books also start slow and increase in conflict and speed as the story develops. They're well reviewed and received so guess it's working so far.

Character tension is a great thing, the tension between two characters and the tension between the desires/goals/fears within one character.

But I'm not sure all of us think of character tension in the same way. For me it's a little like the way a non-chemist and a chemist look at combinations of various substances. For new combinations, we don't know exactly what will happen, lol, for instance will it explode, create a noxious fume, create some unexpected new material with lots of positive benefits or uses, etc. Putting two characters into conflict is a lot like this. What's going to happen? The reader is a bit like the non-chemist at first because the characters are new; but as we learn more about the characters, we can start visualizing ahead of time the kind of interaction they'll have to any given situation. This is a bit like the operation of microtension, and in fact this is one of the reasons microtension can be built into even the most mundane of dialogue scenes between two characters.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I was going to mention this earlier... MRU's can be related. Speaking of something I never really pay attention to. But basic cause and effect if goofed up mess with tension.

Yeah, it's a lot like using MRUs, the sort of thing you improve in edit and, if your roughs don't naturally make the most of it, something you can train yourself to do more naturally.

Come to think of it, MRUs probably have a correspondence to some types of microtension...insofar as the reader is constantly wondering about cause & effect.

 

[Steerpike]

Are we essentially saying that anything that keeps a scene or a page or a paragraph interesting on a smaller scale (i.e. a scale commensurate with what would be characterized as a microtension) is a microtension?

 

[Heliotrope]

Are we essentially saying that anything that keeps a scene or a page or a paragraph interesting on a smaller scale (I.e a scale commensurate with what would be characterized as a microtension) is a microtension.

I think so.... but then there must be varying degrees (sizes ?) of microtension lol.

Mru's are interesting. I've read some writers who suggest mru's must come one after the other in quick succession through the whole book, which I think is geared more toward, as Steerpike suggested earlier, action/thriller stuff.

But I'm wondering how big an MRU sequence can be? As big as a paragraph? As big as a scene (in which case wouldn't it be a scene-sequel sequence?)

So is an mru lik a micro-scene-sequel?

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Sounds like the rabbit hole calling. The MRU is one of those things which makes a good point, but also, if taken in its strictest sense, I don't believe in. But that conversation can go lots of places with plenty of interpretations too.

I would say for this convo, screwing up an MRU can ruin microtension.

I think so.... but then there must be varying degrees (sizes ?) of microtension lol.

Mru's are interesting. I've read some writers who suggest mru's must come one after the other in quick succession through the whole book, which I think is geared more toward, as Steerpike suggested earlier, action/thriller stuff.

But I'm wondering how big an MRU sequence can be? As big as a paragraph? As big as a scene (in which case wouldn't it be a scene-sequel sequence?)

So is an mru lik a micro-scene-sequel?

 

[FifthView]

Mru's are interesting. I've read some writers who suggest mru's must come one after the other in quick succession through the whole book, which I think is geared more toward, as Steerpike suggested earlier, action/thriller stuff.

Aw, no, I don't think that characterizes MRUs well. At root, it's about showing the cause/motivation/outside stimulus before you show its effect.

The M is an objective reality: The shadow surged toward Wendy.

After you show this, you have the character react:

Wendy froze, hoping it couldn't sense her exact location. A flick of her wrist might be all she needed to cast a protective spell, but she was afraid any movement would attract the dark, snakelike thing. Her eyes sought the cellar's entrance as she silently called for Casper and Richie to appear.

After the reaction/action sequence, you begin again with another M:

They did not appear.

And another reaction:

Wendy's heart raced faster. Where were those boys? She had left them only minutes ago; they couldn't be far.

And another M:

The snake slithered closer and began to circle her feet, only inches away.....

And so on and on.

That is, heh, a kind of action scene with lots of tension.

But I suppose the objective M might be some other thing, something not threatening to a character:

The dawn brought lark song,

And a reaction that isn't part of an action scene:

and Wendy let herself drift on the edge of wakefulness, listening to it. Such a pretty song, she thought, and entirely unlike that snaky shadow from yesterday.

All of this might seem ho-hum normal stuff, which it is. We tend to write like this anyway. One way to mess up the MRU is to include the reaction before the motivation:

Wendy froze, hoping she'd escape. A snakelike shadow had suddenly appeared and surged toward her.

Gah, that's horrible, obviously bad. But is this also bad:

Wendy let herself drift on the edge of wakefulness, listening to a lark's song that had appeared with the dawn.

I don't think so. Not as bad, but I think maybe not as good as mentioning the dawn and lark's song first. Of course, what follows that sentence may be a further reaction:

Wendy let herself drift on the edge of wakefulness, listening to a lark's song that had appeared with the dawn. Such a pretty song, she thought, and entirely unlike that snaky shadow from yesterday.

Although, again, I like the original order better:

The dawn brought lark song, and Wendy let herself drift on the edge of wakefulness, listening to it. Such a pretty song, she thought, and entirely unlike that snaky shadow from yesterday.

I'd mentioned MRUs in connection with microtension, because...they seem to have something of a similar effect. If you are reading along and you come to the beginning of a new scene that starts "The dawn brought lark song," then, well what's the significance? Heh. I think as readers, we tend to automatically imagine that anything a writer puts in the book is important. Why's he telling us there's lark song? Well, we have to read on to find out.

What's interesting is that one of your examples of microtension seems to do something similarly:

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

That giving of advice was an objective event. Some of the reaction has been included; the narrator has been turning it over ever since. But the exact advice hasn't yet been provided to the reader, and we don't know why the narrator has turned it over in his mind. We'll have to read on...to find the exact nature of that advice and its exact effect. What follows is a rumination...A lot of the advice on MRUs seems to concern activity in the present and may not apply to such internal, abstract rumination, heh.

So is an mru lik a micro-scene-sequel?

Similar, I think. I've thought of them this way before.

 

[Heliotrope]

Hmmmmmm, so now I'm thinking, I agree with you on this, especially the "goal/motivation" aspect of MRU's or scene sequal. Goals or motivation act as a sort of hook (or lure?) that keep the reader reading. They pose a question. Why does he want to kill that guy? Investigate the house? Go swimming at the lake? Bet on this hand? Whatever the goal/motivation may be. The more Mru's you have, the more hooks/questions to have built into the very fibre of the narrative...

This is getting interesting for me now....

I posted before I read FV's post! Oh my gosh FV, you went where I was going to go next! I was going to ask how it fits into something like describing setting, and you nailed it for me! I think you are right, the reader will read through descriptions of setting because in many cases we expect it to be important, and the "reaction" that comes after the description is valuable.

"So how do we set up a setting paragraph in a way that is compelling" was going to be my next question, but you described it so perfectly with the lark... it has to matter in some way. Like a wolf jumping from the bushes, or a villager singing a familair song... stuff we would pay attention to as human beings?

 

[Heliotrope]

And yes, out of order it does sound awful!

 

[FifthView]

@Svrtnsse:

I'm somewhat in the same boat with my current project.

I don't know if you were looking for brainstorming ideas, so I'll not mention the several things that popped into my head, heh.

One thing I've noticed about my original setup ideas for my story, and something I've vaguely understood about my habitual writing process: I tend to be very coy at the beginning. For whatever reason, I hold some things back, have plans for many interesting things that will key a reader into the depths of the theme and plot but always seem to picture those more powerful reveals as happening "down the line." Once I realized I was doing the same thing for this project, I began to reconsider and ask myself how I could hit those key elements early.

I've sometimes noticed this on items in the Showcase, also. Too much held back, a vagueness or coyness in the first chapter. (Usually, only one chapter or part of it is posted there.) In one case, I actually pointed out this issue, albeit in a roundabout way. The writing was good, but darn was it coy; nothing there to really grab onto, but only indications that something interesting was happening.

During this thread, I've begun to wonder whether the way we approach writing the hook & promise is different than the way we use many of these lures.

Being coy when using lures makes sense. You don't want to deliver the answer so much as provoke a curiosity.

But now I'm thinking that the hook and promise are almost opposite to this, at least in the way we approach writing them. I'd mentioned in a previous comment that "laying it all out on the table" is something we do with the hook and promise; that way, the reader can decide whether what's coming is something he wants to experience. Till death do us part is a more solid promise than I'm sure I'll be around, heh. To stretch the metaphor further, the hook needs to be solid and not some unsubstantial thing.

Anyway, this is my current thinking. Obviously, the climax and end to the story shouldn't happen at the beginning, heh, so not all cards are on the table, face up.

Practical application time for me here.

I want to hook my reader into the first story, and I want to use the first story to set up a promise for what the rest of the series is going to be about.

The hook is relatively easy: Will Roy lose the match as he's been requested to, or will he win it? (kinda like in Pulp Fiction).
I'm confident I can set up the hook and establish that as the premise of the story within the first few paragraphs.

The promise is trickier: This story is about a man who drops everything to travel across the world to be with the woman he loves.

How to set that up?
I need to establish that Roy's still hung up on Toini (the woman) in a big way, even though he's thought her dead for nearly a decade (yes, he's got issues).

I think that through the story about the match I'll be able to show parts of Roy's personality that will support the promise. He's stubborn and bitter, but still clings to some kind of moral code where he tries to do what he thinks right.
What I want the reader to understand is that in addition to being hung up on Toini, he's also fed up with his life as a fighter and he wants to retire and live out the rest of his life in peace and quiet. On top of that, he's got a dark secret relating to Toini.

I'm hoping I'll be able to show the above through Roy's interactions with the people around him: his coach and manager, as well as his opponent in the upcoming fight. I've got ideas for things I want to try, but they're still pretty vague - hunches and feelings rather than detailed solutions.

Through it all, setting up the promise will also have to encourage the reader to keep going on the story at hand (the fight).

I don't yet know what to do, but I know I haven't thought about story in this way in the past, and it's really interesting and helpful.

 

[Heliotrope]

^^^ This is interesting to me. Right now I'm reading "Dog Stories" by James Herriot. I inherited the Herriot books from my aged grandfather, who loved them, probably having to do with growing up in rural England at the time the stories were written.

By all accounts the stories should be boring. English Veterinarian in the 30's-50's retelling the stories of the animals he helped over the years. And yet I'm riveted. I just finished reading Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" and at no point of that novel was I as riveted as I am to these short stories.

Why?

Last night I started one, and then it was time to put my boy to bed. I couldn't wait to get back to it. Just from the first paragraph I was "hooked" and needed to know what was going to happen.

On further investigation, I think there are many things about the stories that have me hooked. One is the promise that it will be funny. Most of his stories start funny and stay funny. Next is the promise that I get a glimpse of old England, something I'm finding I really love. But lastly, FifthView is right, Herriot doesn't beat around the bush. He presents a mystery, but he is in no way "coy" or "aloof"...

Abandoned

You often see dogs running along a road but there was something about this one which made me slow down and take a second look.

It was a small brown animal and it was approaching on the other side; and it wasn't just ambling by the grass verge but galloping all out on its short legs, head extended forward as though in desperate pursuit of something unseen beyond the long empty curve of tarmac ahead. As the dog passed I had a brief glimpse of two staring eyes and a lolling tongue, then he was gone.

Instant hook. A sort of mystery, but not a vague mystery. It's real and tangible and I have to know what Herriot is going to do with this poor little animal so desperately running away something? To something? Who knows.

I find the same thing in the Showcase, that many writers think that being coy or aloof suddenly makes them deep and mysterious, but it has the opposite effect. It is like an invisible hook, barely shimmering in the waves, and you sort of dart around it, sniffing for the worm, but it is impossible to find so you swim away.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I was thinking of funny the other day, Funny has its own built in microtension, much like a joke. No matter how boring the beginning, you expect funny so pay attention. And of course it has a major downside, if it's not funny... boom. No reader trust. And not funny is pretty much death. It's like watching the first few minutes of Super Bad (I think the movie was titled well) for me. It took me thirty seconds to distrust the comedy here, and the clicker changed the channel. Ghostbusters reboot? Oh my, if you can't make a trailer funny...

But anyhow, coy. Coy is great if the reader doesn't know you're being coy. It's a bit like withholding information... if you withhold information the POV doesn't know, it can build tension, if you withhold info the POV knows (or should know) you start walking the fine line of trust.

In the short "The Last Man to Die" which I posted the beginning of in the Showcase, I make a promise to the reader with the title. Guess what? The character is the last man to die! Plus it raises questions right off the bat.

When it gets right down to it, for an unknown author, proving that you fulfill promises might be one of the most important things you can establish with your writing. That and proving you can write, heh heh.

 

[Steerpike]

Do you all ever wonder whether over-emphasis on things like MRUs, microtension, and the like, is more likely to produce stilted, artificial stories? Often, when I see beginning authors adhering too much to a "method" the end product looks a lot like generic fiction novel n. Maybe professional writers use the same approach and it simply isn't noticeable.

But my suspicion (borne in part from reading books by writers about their writing process) is that the authors who do the best are writing from a much more organic process than what we're talking about here. I think that may sometimes be reflected in the storyteller/writer demarcation, where writers who are criticized for not being so great from a technical standpoint are nevertheless quite good at telling a story and engaging readers, and so they find a good-sized audience. I don't picture those writers planning out microtensions for the page, or worrying over MRUs, or anything like that. I think they just write--maybe off an outline or more or less detail depending on the person, maybe without an outline, but they're engaged at some level in an organic process of telling a story.

I also think it is important that a writer have a distinctive voice and style. Those are two important factors in determining whether I'm going to go back and buy new books from an author I've read. If everyone adopts the same general ideas regarding microtensions, MRUs, how you have to write your sentences, how your novel has to be structured, etc., then why should I buy your book over any of the other 200 on the shelf at the store or 200,000 on Amazon?

 

[FifthView]

On further investigation, I think there are many things about the stories that have me hooked. One is the promise that it will be funny. Most of his stories start funny and stay funny. Next is the promise that I get a glimpse of old England, something I'm finding I really love. But lastly, FifthView is right, Herriot doesn't beat around the bush. He presents a mystery, but he is in no way "coy" or "aloof"...

Yeah, there are lots of things that promise. The voice and style promise a continuation of the voice and style. This can work in the negative sense also. If the first page is poorly written, that's a promise that the rest will be bad too, hah.

When writing, I think I have a tendency to want subtlety in my early chapters, and perhaps this is a fear of being too on-the-nose or hammering a reader over the head. I'd said in another comment in this thread that the hook and promise are like a Rubicon: once X, Y, Z is put in place—elements of the hook/promise—there's no turning back. So...I may have a fear of commitment too.

But this recent turn in this conversation has reminded me of that scene from the movie Gattaca. If you aren't familiar with the movie, it's about a society in which most successful people have been genetically "improved," genetically tweaked in the test tube. The main character, Vincent, is a "love child," meaning that his parents conceived him the old fashioned way, with no genetic tweaking. His younger brother however was genetically "improved." Long story short, Vincent is able to succeed where no one thought him capable, and near the end of the movie the two brothers are swimming across this large body of water—something they did as children, but before, Vincent was always the weaker brother. This time's different, and his brother Anton is mystified:

Anton: Vincent! How are you doing this Vincent? How have you done any of this? We have to go back.

Vincent: It's too late for that. We're closer to the other side.

Anton: What other side? You wanna drown us both?

Vincent: You wanna know how I did it? This is how I did it Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back.

...Heh, it's about commitment, not holding any reserves.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

No, I don't wonder. None of this will create generic.

Do you all ever wonder whether over-emphasis on things like MRUs, microtension, and the like, is more likely to produce stilted, artificial stories? Often, when I see beginning authors adhering too much to a "method" the end product looks a lot like generic fiction novel n. Maybe professional writers use the same approach and it simply isn't noticeable.

But my suspicion (borne in part from reading books by writers about their writing process) is that the authors who do the best are writing from a much more organic process than what we're talking about here. I think that may sometimes be reflected in the storyteller/writer demarcation, where writers who are criticized for not being so great from a technical standpoint are nevertheless quite good at telling a story and engaging readers, and so they find a good-sized audience. I don't picture those writers planning out microtensions for the page, or worrying over MRUs, or anything like that. I think they just write--maybe off an outline or more or less detail depending on the person, maybe without an outline, but they're engaged at some level in an organic process of telling a story.

I also think it is important that a writer have a distinctive voice and style. Those are two important factors in determining whether I'm going to go back and buy new books from an author I've read. If everyone adopts the same general ideas regarding microtensions, MRUs, how you have to write your sentences, how your novel has to be structured, etc., then why should I buy your book over any of the other 200 on the shelf at the store or 200,000 on Amazon?

 

[Heliotrope]

Do you all ever wonder whether over-emphasis on things like MRUs, microtension, and the like, is more likely to produce stilted, artificial stories? Often, when I see beginning authors adhering too much to a "method" the end product looks a lot like generic fiction novel n. Maybe professional writers use the same approach and it simply isn't noticeable.

But my suspicion (borne in part from reading books by writers about their writing process) is that the authors who do the best are writing from a much more organic process than what we're talking about here. I think that may sometimes be reflected in the storyteller/writer demarcation, where writers who are criticized for not being so great from a technical standpoint are nevertheless quite good at telling a story and engaging readers, and so they find a good-sized audience. I don't picture those writers planning out microtensions for the page, or worrying over MRUs, or anything like that. I think they just write--maybe off an outline or more or less detail depending on the person, maybe without an outline, but they're engaged at some level in an organic process of telling a story.

I also think it is important that a writer have a distinctive voice and style. Those are two important factors in determining whether I'm going to go back and buy new books from an author I've read. If everyone adopts the same general ideas regarding microtensions, MRUs, how you have to write your sentences, how your novel has to be structured, etc., then why should I buy your book over any of the other 200 on the shelf at the store or 200,000 on Amazon?

It's possible. Anything is possible, and I think this is what Aurora was getting at in her posts which annoyed me. Sorry for my defensive posts. But I have two analogies.

One is music. My son is learning the violin. He is learning to read music as well as play by ear. He has to start by learning the technical skills of playing the violin. How to hold it. How to hold the bow. How to use the bow. How to stay on the road and out of the ditch, etc. How to play the notes so it sounds like music.

We recently went to the recital and there were forty kids, all who had been taught with the same method by the same instructor. Some kids played the instrument like little robots. Exact whole, quarter and half notes using the exact bow strokes and exact fingering. Perfect little stacattos. It sounded like a computer was playing the instruments. Other kids had used the techniques they had been taught, and could use it to create music. They could adapt it so it still flowed naturally, in an appealing, human, non-robotic sort of way. But they all started out by learning the same basics.

Analogy two. I love to cook, and I can cook many things, but when I want to learn how to do something out of my skill level I go to a professional. It is from the professional that I learn that keeping some of the "pasta water" when I drain the pasta, and add it to the sauce will create a nice thick sticky sauce that adheres nicely to the noodles. Or that you actually want to add the herbs last when cooking, because the last thing you add is the first thing you will taste. That is all stuff I may have eventually discovered on my own, but it may take years (if ever).

I'm at the point in my writing development that I need to learn, discuss, and evaluate techniques in order to improve. I can't just keep sitting down and writing the same way over and over and over in hopes I get better. Yes, perhaps some of my stuff may come out "worse" while I practice new skills and techniques, but after I've practiced them enough times and made them my own then things will start to come naturally again.

So no. I don't think that any of this stuff will make writing "generic". I think it will greatly improve my ability to tell a story at a professional level.

We hear it over and over again all the time "Great story idea, but ideas are a dime a dozen. I'll wait until I see the execution."

Execution is all the stuff we are talking about here. How to take that idea and write it so it 'wows' an audience.