Fading Tension

[Heliotrope]

Yes, Yes, I understand the irony after my extensive tension post lol.

But that was merely a list of ways that I had explored, read, and learned to boost tension… Now I need help with applying it all

*blush*

So, I recently sent a chapter of Blackbeard to a reader I respect, and he was quite upfront with the problem of fading tension through the chapter. He saw the hook, he nibbled, but it wasn't enough to keep him going…

So….

Someone please give me a framework for scenes! How do you frame your scenes for optimal tension?

I think I had a few problems with my scene, including a goal that was not big enough, stakes that were not high enough, and a hook that was not engaging enough…

But how do you guys do it?

 

[skip.knox]

You assume we know. Hah!

I only know after I've given it to others and they tell me it worked. Even then, I often don't know why it worked for them. I can't say that it worked for me because I'm so tied up in the actual telling I lose all sense of emotional response. I can look at a statue by Rodin and be instantly moved. But I doubt he was feeling the same emotion for all the many months and years while he was constructing it.

But I suppose you did not come here to listen to us whine. I can offer this much, anyway. Make sure your scene has questions. Here's a good article that appeared recently
Fiction University: Are You Asking the Right Story Questions?

In addition to story questions, the scene should contain within it the tension to lead us to the next scene. Common techniques are to have someone new appear (a bear jumps out! or man with gun! er, sword!), end with a question, or even to break in mid-action (the car, er dangit, carriage swerved). Those are heavy-handed examples, but you get the idea.

Finally, you sent a chapter to _a_ reader. Send to three. If they all say tension faded, then you have an issue. Right now, you only have a reaction.

 

[MineOwnKing]

Yesterday I began reading A Gathering of Shadows, by Victoria Schwab.

I think it is one of the best examples of an opening hook and interesting tension I have ever read in modern literature.

I predict that Victoria will someday be remembered as one of the greatest writers of our time.

 

[Heliotrope]

Skip, thanks for that article! That was perfect.

MineOwnKing, after your post I immediately looked up the book and started reading it and you are absolutely right... Amazing.

Yeah. I was getting too caught up in "middle grades" that I think I watered it down way too much. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Lol.

 

[Chessie]

I seem to cause chaos whenever I comment on these sorts of threads lately but since I like you, Helio, I'm just gonna come out and say it: you need to follow your gut. Instinct is a big part of writing and the more you do it, the more ideas will come. You also read a lot, so you probably already know how to build tension in your stories and are lacking confidence.

It's only chapter one. You are still learning. Trust your creative process and let it take center stage. Showing your work to others this early on is going to stagger you. Keep writing, keep trusting yourself so you can see Chapter 2 come to fruition. Then the other chapters.

How do you build tension in the story? Honestly, there's so, so much that goes into this where does one begin? A lot of the advice we get makes sense when we hear it but putting it on paper is another deal all together. One thing that helps me is to focus on the characters and what they want. Sometimes they'll all oppose each other. Sometimes they won't. But keeping the focus on them and the developing story helps me not freak out and think I'm doing it all wrong because if I do, then the words stop flowing.

Your POV character goes into a scene having a goal. She wants something. Can I use my WIP as an example? Since I'm writing this in the dark and it might help to give you some understanding about how to do it from this particular perspective. She's a huldra trying to get in on a position as the court minstrel's assistant. What she wants is to find a man to take back to her forest as a lover (for many reasons, not just the obvious). She's hiding a secret: she's a monstrosity. If they know who/what she is, the Jarl will kill her. So she's nervous going into her audition but she plays it off.

During the first scene, I let her goal guide me. In fact, that's just the way I do it in every scene regardless of POV character. Anyway, her audience isn't impressed right away and the tension comes mostly from the Jarl's wife who's not very nice and tries to hurry MC along. So not only is MC nervous, but she's getting rushed, failing to impress, and she feels her chances of getting into the court are slim to none. Tension here has to do with all of their motivations as characters. She wants something but it's kind of double-edged: if it's discovered who she is, she'll die. If she doesn't get into the court and take a lover, her magical energy will fade.

My point is that instead of thinking about WHAT the tension SHOULD be, look at it from an internal perspective. What does your MC want? Let that take you all the way. Let her guide you. And let the other characters in the scene either oppose her, support her, or make things worse for her.

Tension doesn't have to be super filled with action and bloodshed and kidnappings and bullets (or fireballs in our case). Your story has plenty of room for that. Your MC is embarrassed by her Pops. He's crazy about her and wants to see her succeed. She thinks she might not succeed with him watching her speech. You have opposition there to capitalize on. Maybe she messes up her opportunity and blames her dad, thus creating tension in their relationship throughout the story.

Sorry for the long post but hopefully something I've said here will help. Good luck.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Okay, so since I'm working on a first chapter too, I can really relate. But the thing is, it probably won't be very good as a first draft. Maybe are you setting your expectations a little too high? I guess what I mean is that you can totally shift tension by the inclusion of one line of dialogue. If your reader said, "Wow, I totally thought it would go like this..." and it was a good idea, it's worth considering it, but if you had some tension and pacing issues in your first chapter first draft...uh...that's totally normal and I'd stick a pin in it and look at it later, once you get really rolling. But maybe that's just me.

I'm trying to put forth a pretty polished chapter because I'm editing the rest of the story, so I know I'm aiming high and re-reading a ton to tweak little things, and once a round of critters comments, I'll no doubt shift quite a few things again. But honestly, I'd use a first draft round of critters to point out your big issues, and keep moving on, with their notes to guide you later in editing.

I just know from experience how bogged down one can get if comments sort of undermine what we were doing. I just don't want to see you lose your momentum you just built up! Take note of suggestions you agree with, but keep writing and making progress, rather than changing too much right off the bat. Who knows, maybe there IS a tension or pacing issue, but is it a big fix? Is it necessary to fix it now? Beginnings are really hard, which is why they sometimes take a few rewrites where the middle is often less heavy in editing (perhaps? I don't know, because I've done tons of rewriting throughout everything!).

Just don't lose your momentum!

 

[skip.knox]

The article I mentioned is all about the mechanics. I love Hardy because she's the best I've found at providing no-nonsense, practical advice. But there's another way of looking at this, less practical but still important.

Tension also comes from having things happen to your characters that matter to those characters. Easy to say, not so easy to do, especially in an early draft. I have a main character (who wasn't even a main character, at first) about whom I knew only this: he was a spoiled aristocrat who despised the aristocracy, and was the son of a famous general who despised the Army. And he was too clever for his own good. That was about it. Notice those are mainly negative traits.

In order for things to happen that mattered to him, I had to come to care about him. In order to do that, I had to write him. I had to put him into situations, many of them contrived and ham-handed. But, over time, I caught little glimpses of depth. Every one of those was like a new voice in a concerto. I had to give him not only situations to react to, but characters to react to as well. I gradually built up an image of him (I didn't even know what he looked like, at first).

I don't recommend the approach. It involves writing many thousands of words one eventually throws away. I relate this only so you know that beginning writers rarely come at story-telling directly. We come at it sideways, upside down, backwards (forwards, square and round). In short, it's really okay if your opening chapter fades (let's assume the opinion is universal). You'll write more, learn more about your characters, and *then* you'll improve Chapter One (which is surely the most re-written chapter in all the Kingdom of Writers).

 

[Penpilot]

I think I had a few problems with my scene, including a goal that was not big enough, stakes that were not high enough, and a hook that was not engaging enough…

But how do you guys do it?

Don't make the mistake of associating big goals and high stakes with great tension. We've all read books and seen movies where the goals are so huge they seem insurmountable and the stakes are the fate of existence itself, and it all just falls flat.

To me in broad terms, tension is about interesting questions involving a character the reader cares about. The stakes only matter in as much as they matter to your main character. And the goals to achieve those stakes can be small.

The way I think you keep tension is to keep introducing questions. But at the same time, you have to answer questions too.

So it's like introduce an interesting question. Pay off the first question, but have the answer bring up one or more questions. Rinse, repeat, and hope you can find a good answer that will pull everything together at the end.

More specifically, I use the Scene-Sequel method to design my scenes. There's a great book on it called Scene and structure by Jack Bickham.

Here's a link to a simple fairytale example of Scene-Sequel in action. Notice the tension created by maintaining an unanswered question.

THE OLD WOMAN AND HER PIG

 

[Heliotrope]

Thanks everyone after a quick discussion with my reader we agreed that I was trying to focus on too much all in one go, so the tension was diluted. Instead of focusing on a goal and obsticles I was introducing too many things into the picture, which was taking away from the core tension.

He also noted that it could easily be tweaked just by a few more strong words/sentences... In that I wasn't doing the tension that I had enough justice.

All of you have been so helpful Sharing your experiences and articles. Thank you so much!

 

[Svrtnsse]

Thanks everyone after a quick discussion with my reader we agreed that I was trying to focus on too much all in one go, so the tension was diluted.

This isn't something you're alone with either. In my current WiP I've had to force myself to try and stick with only the essentials as much as possible, and even then all of these odd references and irrelevant comments and tangential plots and historical events just keep sneaking into the story.

 

[Jim Aikin]

It can be useful to read novels by others to see how they do it. I once diagrammed a couple of Perry Mason novels scene by scene. Now, Erle Stanley Gardner was a terrible writer, but he was terrible in a highly professional way, and during his career he sold literally 300 million books. I found that in every scene, something happened to crank up the tension, even if the "something" was irrelevant to the plot and was never referred to again.

I'm not recommending that anybody cast irrelevant suspense items into their story. I'm just saying that Gardner plainly thought about making sure there was suspense, and took pains to add it to every single scene. (He was probably right in assuming that his readers wouldn't notice the irrelevancies.)