100 Things You Should Know About Writing (Part 1)

7) The Real Truth Behind Tension

To recap, I've started off by explaining tension and what creates it. Then I went on to explore and explain all of the component parts you need to get down in order to create tension from a plot standpoint. 

But right from the start, I've been bringing up that doing these things won't matter unless you get something else right first. 

And today, to close out my discussion on tension, I'm going to share the one big secret people tend to forget. 

Here goes: 

Your goal can be lofty. Your conflicts impossible. Your stakes huge. Your inciting incident perfectly timed. EVERYTHING can be just so. But there will be no tension unless you can make the reader care about what happens to the main character.

Think about it. So the character has to save the world. So what? So the character's going to die alone if she doesn't find her happy ever after. So what? So there's going to be a million things keeping the guy from catching the killer. So what? 

So what? 

So what? 

So what? 

This is the fundamental issue with fiction. The reader knows from the moment he/she opens the book that nothing that happens in it is real. 

Unless the writer can make things real to the reader, the book is dead in the water. Nothing will keep a reader interested (except for the morbidly curious like me, who likes to read badly written books as a kind of post mortem lesson in what not to do). 

Which means that, while character-driven writers tend to fail at tension because of missing any of the previous factors I wrote about, plot-driven writers especially (but some character-driven writers as well) fail because of one thing: 

Their characters don't involve the reader in the story. 

In all the weakened stories I've read in my life (and trust me, I've read more than a few), this is the number one reason why tension fails. And when tension fails, readers stop reading. 

But why would this, of all things, be such a problem? 

Have you ever been to a party where there are a lot of people who know each other, and the only person you know is the host? It sucks. Because every group you join for a chat will leave you out, because all the other members know what's going on in each other's lives, and you don't. And because everyone else knows each other, there's no reason for them to really try and talk to you. 

So overall, you're going to have a long, boring night. No matter if the food is good, or the people are gorgeous, or if the venue is stunning. 

Stories work exactly the same way. 

Yet both character- and plot-driven writers make this mistake. However, they make it for different reasons. So I'm going to address each separately. 

But before I go into that, let me just explain both terms so you know what you should be reading. I'm going into this more in the What Type of Writer Are You? section (Section 8), but there are a ton of ways fiction writers can be grouped.  One of these is according to what they focus on in the writing itself. Plot-driven writers think of the plot first, and tend to focus more on the plot's strength as they write (and as they read as well). Character-driven writers are inspired by and interested in writing strong characters. (Reading too.) 

Plot-driven writers can immediately tell if there's something wrong in a book's plot. Character-driven characters will pan books with flat characters. 

Then there are the hybrids, who at least try to balance plot and character evenly. Usually, though, they're still more inclined to one side or the other. At least as far as the inspiration source goes.

Still, some of us (I'm one, which is why I get to have fun writing about both sides) are true hybrids in the sense that what we focus on depends on the project. In some projects, the concept/plot will get me and I'll have to work on bringing characters into it. Others, I have a character walking into my head and having to figure out his/her story. If you're like me, read both sections that follow, because being orientated towards both characters and plot basically means we're probably going to make mistakes for both reasons. 

Character-driven writers: 

So as I said, character-driven writers are natural writers of character. Whether they plan out the characters or not, by the time they feel like writing, the character feels like a real and beloved (well... sometimes) person to them. 

However, there's one mistake character writers make that causes the reader to be uninvolved: 

They forget that the reader only knows what he/she reads. 

Which means that the characters are acting real and being awesome... but the reader's not there because the writer forgot to make sure the reader feels/sees/senses the same things that the character is feeling/seeing/sensing. 

And telling the reader "She was angry." isn't going to cut it, unless you're a damn good writer of narrators. But for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to leave narrators out of this and focus on what happens when there is no narrator. Let me just say, though, that if you have a narrator and your tension's fried, odds are your narrator is the problem. (Assuming that none of the plot issues are.) 

Anyway. The reader needs to know where the scene is playing out and what the characters are doing. And where they are within the scenery. The reader needs to get to know the main character from (preferably) page one. Not in a "Hi. I'm So-and-so and I'm so many years old" way. In a way that makes the reader see the character's world, filtered through the character's world view. In a way that teaches the reader to to we know how the character feels about something almost the moment that it happens. Furthermore, this must be done in a way that lets the reader feel those things with the character. 

And often, this doesn't happen because the writer forgot that the reader doesn't live in his/her head. 

This issue will require a section of its own, so I'll be addressing it again in Section 9.

Plot-driven writers: 

As I said before, plot-driven writers are focused on the plot and storyline aspects of a given story. This means that they run a real risk of writing flat, bland characters. 

So if you're plot driven and something's wrong with your tension, and all of the other components (goal, conflict, stakes) are fine, you need to flesh out your characters and make sure that you're keeping the characters life-like in your story. 

As for how... I'll have to take a lot more sections to explain, because pinning down the subtle nuances of characterization is a study all on its own. 

To conclude: 

The main reason why your tension flags is probably the fact that you didn't get the reader involved in your character's life. Doing so is both simple and incredibly hard to pin down. But the good thing is that once you understand the basics, it'll be easy for you to fix. Luckier for you still: I'm right here to show you. 

Thanks for reading all! As always, please feel free to leave questions or comments. I'll do my best to answer, and if it inspires a section in this book, I'll dedicate the section to you. 

Coming up: 

What Type of Writer Are You? (Dedicated to JoyCronje) 

How to Hook Your Reader

Information Release

Character Motivation

Sympathy

Showing vs Telling

Narrators