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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Let's talk about tension.
- Thread starter Heliotrope
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Even then, a writer is influencing you to consider multiple avenues of viewing something in the way they present them.
Nimue
Auror
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.
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.
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.
Art, in general, is about manipulating/influencing/controlling perceptions to alter our emotional state and/or change our way of thinking.
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.
- Thread starter
- #87
Ummmmmm, that was awesome.
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.
- Thread starter
- #89
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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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.
Michael K. Eidson
Archmage
But I want it to be transparent.
Of course. No one wants to feel like they're being controlled - that's the tricky part.
Michael K. Eidson
Archmage
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.
Heh. Don't read Atlas Shrugged. You'll get a 40 or so page speech from John Galt
I mean: "Who?"
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- Thread starter
- #96
Ayn Rand is famous for being too transparent. lol.
Michael K. Eidson
Archmage
Heh. Don't read Atlas Shrugged. You'll get a 40 or so page speech from John Galt
Yup, I couldn't read it.
- Thread starter
- #98
The Fountainhead was her best. IMO. But still pretty transparent.
- Thread starter
- #99
pmmg
Myth Weaver
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.
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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