Tension – Becky Levine

Tension: What Is It & How Do We Write it?

Posted on 3 Mar 2010 by beckylevine

I don’t write suspense thrillers. I haven’t (in a while) worked on a murder mystery. My characters don’t usually have guns, spaceships, or fast cars. (There were no fast cars in 1913!)

I still need tension. But if tension isn’t a chase scene or a shoot-out, what is it?

My dictionary has a lot of definitions. Here’s the one that’s probably the most accurate, for our purposes: The interplay of conflicting elements in a piece of literature. Honestly, though, I like this one better: The act or process of stretching something tight.

Tight. One of my favorite ways to describe strong writing.

Tight writing is where there are no extra words. Tight writing is where the layers are painted in with a few brush strands that have just lightly touched the page…perfectly. Tight writing is where the story pulls us through the words and pages, without us even noticing.

Because those words & pages have tension.

Those words and pages have us wondering about the outcome of the scene, wondering about what will happen next and how the characters will respond. They have us wondering what the characters will cause to happen. It doesn’t always matter if we’re wondering about blood and major injuries. We may be wondering if someone will laugh, if someone will say what they’re actually thinking, if someone will choose the dress that shows cleavage or the one with the high, lace collar.

We need to be watching, waiting, worrying.

How do we, as writers, make our readers do that?

I think we set a goal for the characters. We make it clear what they want, or–at the very least–what they’ve assumed will happen. And we create obstacles. Big obstacles that arc over the scene, and mini-obstacles that hit the characters like scatter-shot, all through the scene. Some of those obstacles come from other characters, some from the environment, and some from the character actually going for the goal. An obstacle can be challenging, painful, irritating or laugh-out loud funny.

It just has to get in the way.

This kind of set-up, these goals and their obstacles keep the reader busy, an active participant in what’s going on. They keep that reader from drifting away because we’ve just loaded them up with too much setting or too much dialog that’s not going anywhere. They structure the whole scene and keep things moving forward. Quickly.

With tension.

Books, Reading, Tension, Voice

Reading for Writing

Posted on 27 Oct 2009 by beckylevine

This week I isolated one of my worries about my current WIP–the worry that I don’t (yet!) know how to convey the tension the story needs and deserves. I’m not the most comfortable person with tension. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, books were invented for me (yes, for me) to escape life’s stresses.

And then this character came along and told me in no uncertain terms that she was a strong and powerful girl, that she had to face some very bad things to bring that power out, to see it for herself. She also told that I had to write those things.

Yes, okay. Sure. No problem.

I’ve been plotting and writing and developing my characters, and I’m definitely making progress. In the back of my head, though, has been that worry–what about the tone of the story–it’s feel. This is, I think, partially a matter of voice, and partially a matter of things like sentence length, action and pacing, how long and how intently I as a writer and Caro as a hero dip into her reactions and emotions. The one thing I’m clear on is that–I’m not yet clear on all this. 🙂

So I’m going back to the basics. I don’t know who said this first, and I don’t know what number they used, but I’m thinking of the advice about reading X quantity of books in a genre to really know it. Yes, I know there’s a before in there, too–read X books BEFORE you try and write something. Well, I’m going to cheat. I care too much about this story, want to be writing it too much to wait until I’ve read 100 or 1,000 tough, edgy, painful YA novels. So I’ll be reading and writing at the same time.

I’m going to do a little osmosis–just read and read and read and let the words of the experts seep into my brain. I’m also going to do a little analysis–pick a few favorites and read them a few more times, though, then try to actually see what they’re doing, how they’re creating that tension. How they’re writing the words that hit me in the gut.

And, yes, I know I’m running the danger of losing myself so much in their styles that I start copying those styles on my own pages. It’s happened once or twice before–when I was reading a lot of historical novels, at the start of this project, I had to back off for a while. Also–and this one was a lot more fun–when I was on a binge of reading Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series, my 12-year-old male protagonist started talking way too much like Mia. So I’ll be watching myself for heading into derivative-land, and pulling out for a bit if I need.

But I’m going to read, and I’m going to write. And I’m going to trust in this combination that hasn’t ever let me down before.

Character, Conflict, Scenes, Tension

Amping Up Character Tension

Posted on 21 Jun 2009 by beckylevine

This summer I will turn forty-mumble-mumble years old. At this time in my life (says the old, wise one), I have built up a community (or a tribe, as my friend Terri Thayer calls it) of friends with whom I am comfortable and happy, and who help me keep my life interesting and my brain active. When we get together, there’s lots of talking back and forth, sharing of family stories, and laughter. I feel connected and supported.

And if you wrote us into a scene of your book, your readers would be yawning and heading off for a nap. (Well, okay, not right away–we are pretty funny.)

There just isn’t a lot of conflict.

Yes, we’re realistic. Unfortunately, that’s not enough when you’re writing a scene in a story. You need emotion, tension, and some serious problems to deal with. And the characters can’t just be talking about problems; they need to be experiencing some. At that moment.

How do you add conflict to character interaction?

Give your characters conflicting goals. I’m not just talking about their big, story goals, but their goals for the scene. What does each of them want right there and then, and where do the goals clash?
Add a third character to a scene. Remember how, when your child was small, you were wary of setting up a “triangle” playdate? Guess why. The goals/needs of two people have equal weight. A third person can pick a side, making the scale off-balance. They can give supremacy to one person and put the other on the defensive. Nice!
Give one character authority over the other. Bosses, parents, teachers, venture capitalist—they hold the power and can “make” another person do something they don’t want. Anger and resentment, much? Go for it.
Weave in a secret. If you want complicated dialog, with some tension, let one character know something the other doesn’t. Are they using it to bribe the second character? Are they desperate to keep that character from finding out? Does the second character suspect the secret? Push/pull…conflict.
Add a deadline. People with all the time in the world to talk, accomplish something, or make a plan can, well…take all that time. They can be relaxed, chit-chatty, patient. If they’ve got five minutes to make a decision, though, and they don’t even have all the facts they need—they get rushed, impatient, frustrated, and argumentative. Can you hear the dialog?

We all know the “rule”–no scenes with characters sitting around a table at the coffeehouse, talking. Frankly, I’m okay with a scene (or maybe two) like this, if it doesn’t send the story, or me, into a slump of slow-pacing, frivolous dialog, and happy friendship. As much as I want that in my own life these days, I do not want it in the books I’m reading. Or writing.

Neither do you. 🙂

What do you do to make your characters less happy with each other, more at odds? Leave a comment and share the tip!