Tag Archives: tension

Technique

Jump into the action

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This entry is part 4 of 20 in the series Backstory

Once you’ve settled on the who and the what, the when might still need a little fine tuning. In Revision And Self-Editing, James Scott Bell gives a great rule of thumb: “act first, explain later” (132). Start with action—a character doing something—and explain only what’s absolutely necessary, and even then, wait as long as possible.

There are other advantages to this approach, too. The primary advantage is that it piques the reader’s curiosity. This hearkens back to our series on tension and suspense, where one technique to increase tension within a scene is to start the scene with a bang.

One great way to create tension is not to explain these actions—at first. The reader is taken aback by this interesting or inexplicable action—and they’re eager to not only find out what happens next, but to learn why this is happening now.

As James Scott Bell says in Revision And Self-Editing, you can “marble in” this sequel information through the beginning of the scene.

This works on a story-level as well as the scene-level when used in the opening.

When done well, opening with action also helps to anchor us in the POV character’s head far better than, say, starting with their thoughts off in space could. Rather than thinking about the backstory, the character should be acting based on the backstory. Then slipping in that information will be natural.

In Don’t Murder Your Mystery, Chris Roerden distinguishes between “backstory,” the events that take place before a story starts, and “background,” which supplies information that was or still is true. To use yesterday’s example, Hamlet’s father being dead and his mother marrying his uncle are part of the background. By Chris’s definition, then, we want to get the background in so the story makes sense, but not so much we slow the story down—a classic problem of backstory.

Tomorrow we have a guest post from the magnificent Margie Lawson with more about managing backstory!

What do you think? What kind of action do you start with?

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Technique

Why suspense?

This entry is part 9 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

Why are suspense, tension and surprise all so important? We’ve established that suspense and tension draw the readers along through your story, and compel them to keep reading. But it’s more than just making readers read, and rewarding them (with surprise sometimes)—it’s making them want to read your book (and your next one).

tss series medJames Scott Bell highlights one reason why these elements are so important: “Modulating tension is one of the keys to writing fiction” (Revision And Self-Editing, 82). We started off our series with a quote from agent Noah Lukeman: “Suspense, more than any other element, affects the immediate, short term experience of the work” (The Plot Thickens, 119).

But Lukeman further explains why being conscious of tension and suspense are so important:

The presence of suspense is . . . a feat and shows promise, since it indicates that the writer is writing more for the reader than for himself. (120)

I think it’s easy—and for many of us, important—to draft for ourselves. I’m told Stephen King says you should write the first draft “with the door closed”—with little to no input or interference from others, so that you can get out the story you’re trying to tell. Remember the delight, the way you relish the scenes that you’ve been waiting for your whole book long?

But when we’re ready to open that door, to share your writing with an eye to improving it, it’s not about what you loved writing and what you still love reading anymore. It’s about what someone else—an agent, an editor, a customer in a bookstore—will love reading, what will suck them in and drag them on a relentless, compelling journey with your characters. Focusing on the experience of your readers shows that you’re not just in it to entertain yourself and a few friends—you’re here to tell a story, to get people reading—to entertain.

What do you think? Why are suspense, tension and surprise so important?

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Technique

Any final words (on suspense)?

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Well, we’re winding down the series on suspense, tension and surprise. We’ve looked into assessing our stories, ratcheting up the tension and increasing the suspense. We’ve used lots and lots of resources (the most I have for any series), and I’ve talked a lot about things I’ve found in looking at my own work.

But, man, that still seems a little one-sided. I’d hate to leave you in suspense over your greatest suspense, tension or surprise issues—and I’d hate for all of us to miss out on the things you‘ve found to make your work better in these areas.

So, do you have any other questions or fixes on suspense, tension or surprise? (Comments and questions here may get “promoted” into posts of their own, so ask or share away—and be sure to put your link in the URL box!)

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Technique

Suspense fix: Raise the stakes

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This entry is part 3 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

Although I came across this advice over and over again, I hadn’t planned to include it. I thought it was already covered in the 37 ways to build tension and suspense, and I didn’t want to just list those again. But just mentioning “raise the stakes” probably isn’t quite enough for how important this technique is.

Quite simply, if the stakes aren’t high enough in your book, other fixes may not be able to compensate. If Grandmama’s prized teacup poodle is the only one who’s going to suffer if the bad guys win, other attempts at suspense and tension may seem forced. (Is Butch really going to pull a gun over Gigi?)

Donald Maass (Writing the Breakout Novel, 59-80) and Noah Lukeman (The Plot Thickens, 121-123) both specifically point to raising the stakes. In the suspense structure we looked at earlier, establishing the stakes was a crucial goal of Act I, as was raising them in Act II.

So, how do we do that? Maass gives a few ways: establish a high value on human life (especially if this hero[ine] is going to have to kill), and create public and private stakes—ways in which the public at large and the characters on a personal level will suffer if they lose. In Revision And Self-Editing, James Scott Bell also gives specific ways to raise those stakes:

  • Plot stakes: brainstorm new ways things might go wrong for your Lead—and push yourself. Go crazy; there are no bad ideas. Come up with at least 6 ideas.
  • Character stakes [Maass’s personal stakes]: put the character into a dilemma. Stick him between a rock and a hard place and make him choose. List all the reasons why he must take option B and why he shouldn’t take option A—even though he needs to (and will) take option A. And/or make it personal—threaten or hurt the Lead, or better yet, someone they care about.
  • Societal stakes [Maass’s public stakes]: How might society be hurt if things go wrong? How can you show that, on a small scale or through extrapolation? (231-233).


Finally, Noah Lukeman points out that even seemingly small events can have big personal stakes—he uses the example of getting the trash to the garbage truck in time. Not a major stressor for most of us, but if you’ve forgotten for the last three weeks, and your landlady’s going to evict you if you don’t get that garbage out of your place, suddenly it matters.

So give Gigi a rest.

What do you think? How else can you raise the stakes?

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Technique

Suspense fix: Stack promises

This entry is part 23 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

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Way back when, I recommended assessing your story’s suspense taking a look at the promises you were making and fulfilling. The example assessment I used (completely made up, of course) showed a list of promises made in various scenes, tracking their progress in subsequent scenes (whether they were fulfilled, delayed or denied). Just so you don’t have to click through again, here you go:

Scene Promise Fulfilled
7 She’ll meet him at dawn (D)—6 A fulfilled
8 – C fulfilled
9 He’ll kill her (E)—10 B delayed
10 – D fulfilled; E denied

We have a number of simultaneous, conflicting promises building here—a great set up for suspense. But it’s the last scene here that got me thinking. In that scene, apparently, we’re fulfilling her promise of meeting him at dawn, and obviously not fulfilling his promise to kill her. Really, this shouldn’t say that there are no promises made here—we should use the fulfillment of a promise to introduce a new, bigger promise.

Those two promises kept us in suspense, and we’ve now released that anticipation if he just decides, “Oh, I won’t kill her after all. She seems kinda nice.” The suspense level (and probably tension, too) bottoms out.

Instead of just letting it go, we can use this opportunity to add a new promise—since both of those characters have fulfilled or lost their promises, they need a new one to keep us in suspense. It doesn’t always have to come in the same scene, but it had better come pretty quick.

I’m planning to use this myself in my next round of revisions. I spend a while foreshadowing (aka promising and creating anticipation) a meeting between two characters. If they met and were glad/mad/sad to see one another, that lowers the suspense level for their storyline. That release can damage the suspense in my story—or I can channel the previous suspense into a new, related promise. Now character Z has to get character Q to do something, or his whole plan—and maybe their lives—could be in jeopardy.

What do you think? How do you stack promises to create suspense? How have you seen this in other books?

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Technique

Suspense fix: Cliffhangers

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This entry is part 22 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

As I defined the terms at the beginning of this series, tension works within a scene to keep us reading, while suspense is the “suprascenic” feature that keeps us reading after a scene closes. So sometimes, the way to keep people reading is as simple as examining how you end each scene, and especially each chapter.

I’ve made this part of the scene chart—a column where I indicate whether the scene ends on a hook, a segue or a note of closure. The “segue” means that it’s a lead-in to the next scene; the “closure” means that I wrap things up neatly for that character and situation—nothing more to see here, folks. Move along.

worried bride biting nailTo build suspense, avoid the closure ending—especially at chapter breaks, where a reader is most likely to set down your story. As author Katie Ganshert said the other day, End each chapter in a state of unbalance.”

Katie also listed a number of ways to do this:

We could stop in the middle of the action. Find an enticing hook. Foreshadow things to come. . . .

Consider cutting the last paragraph. The last line. The last page. Whatever you need to do to end each chapter on a note of unbalance. A sense that things aren’t well. Make your reader’s stomach squirm and propel them to the next page so they can slay the uncomfortable beast taking root in their bellies.

Related to this is cliffhangers within a scene or chapter. In Fiction First Aid, Ray Obstfeld calls this creating a “suspense pocket” (47). You set up a promise—like someone receiving a letter from someone unknown. Rather than fulfilling the promise immediately and have the character open it right away, try throwing in an event or two that delays that fulfillment. (This can also be characterization or setup, and can make readers pay attention to what would otherwise be a boring scene.)

One caveat: change up the kind of unbalance (and length, for the suspense pocket). Katie’s advice is absolutely excellent—but if we take it to mean that all of our chapter endings come in the middle of a scene, right before a major disaster, it’s going to feel repetitive and forced. Don’t always end in the middle of a scene, or end on a line of foreshadowing worthy of Howard-Shore-John-Williams-dramatic-music-swell (Little did we know, we’d never be the same at the end of every chapter).

Really—I read a book (four, actually, in a series) that did this on every chapter it seemed, and it was so obnoxious. Not just because I couldn’t stop reading in the middle of the chapter, but because it felt like the cheap trick it was. (Every chapter ended on a “hook” all right—one that was resolved in the first paragraph of the next chapter, because it was actually still part of the same scene.) Still liked the books, of course, but I’m still annoyed about that.

What do you think? How else can you end a scene on a note of unbalance?

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Technique

Suspense fix: Arm the antagonist

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This entry is part 21 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

Sometimes, suspense is low in a story because . . . well, the hero(ine)’s never really in danger. Obviously, not all stories require the hero to risk his life or the heroine to save the whole! world!, but, as Hitchcock said, “The stronger the evil, the stronger the film” (Traffaut 316). Or, you know, book.

This can be especially apparent in the middle of the book. James Scott Bell says “If your readers aren’t worried about your Lead because the opponent or opposing circumstances are soft, the middle will seem like a long slog indeed” (229).

Naturally, we have to start with a strong antagonist, well-matched to our Lead. That doesn’t mean, of course, that the readers have to know who he is—most mysteries revolve around that revelation (whereas most suspense novels revolve around already knowing who he is—greater information, greater suspense. Thanks again, Hitchcock.). We just have to know he’s bad, he’s dangerous, and he’s after our Lead.

We’ve already talked about The Complication of Act II from Fiction First Aid by Raymond Obstfeld, because strong plotting methods include specific events to help us show our antagonists’ strength.

In Larry Brooks’s Story Structure, for example, Act II contains two “pinch points” that are designed to raise the stakes by showing us just how bad the villain is. Even the Mid-Point is designed to help with this, showing the hero more to the story, changing the way he views the world.

James Scott Bell’s Revision And Self-Editing gives more advice on better arming the antagonist, drawing on the “three aspects of death“:

  • Does the opposition have the power to kill your Lead, like a mafia don, for instance?
  • Does the opposition have the power to crush your Lead’s professional pursuits, like a crooked judge in a criminal trial?
  • Does the opposition have the power to crush your Lead’s spirit? Think of the awful mother played by Gladys Cooper in the 1942 film Now, Voyager. She has that power over her daughter, played by Bette Davis. (229)

I especially like Bell’s advice because it applies to more than just life-and-death suspense. Make sure as you arm your opposition that they don’t become “a caricature,” Bell warns—show their shades of gray. And if you end up making your opposition stronger than your Lead, strengthen your Lead to match the villain next.

What do you think? How else can we arm the antagonist?

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Technique

Suspense fixes

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This entry is part 20 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

Fixing the suspense of a story can be a lot tougher than upping the tension in a single scene. Looking at suspense requires us to look at the big picture—and increasing the tension in several scenes can increase the suspense, too.

If you’ve gone back and fixed (or planned how to fix) the tension in several scenes, it might be time to reevaluate your suspense. Rerate your new scenes on tension and redo the EKG. If you’re really lucky, you may not have to do anything.

grip knucklesBut then again, you might. Just as tension springs from conflict, suspense is created by anticipation. So the same things that fix scene tension might not fix story suspense.

Suspense is also harder to give general fixes for because it can be a lot more story-specific than tension problems (but I will offer a few 😀 ). Only you can tell what’s right for your story (and even then, we usually need help). I can’t just give the blanket “when in doubt, kill someone important,” axiom because that might work for many stories, but if that’s not going to be a focus of your story, it’s more likely to distract and derail than help.

Take a good, hard look at the places you don’t have anything major moving the story along. (Those unhightlighted sections of the scene chart.) You’ll probably have to rethink some of those scenes. (I’m rethinking an entire quarter of my book.) Be open to new ideas—especially when you’re doing other things. Be open to letting go of the things you worked so hard on.

That doesn’t always mean you’ll have to lose your favorite parts—but you may have to find very different ways to get them in there.

What do you think? What are your favorite ways to keep your readers in suspense?

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