Writing tips

How to create tension in writing

How to create tension in writing: 8 methods

Suspense and tension are essential for a page-turner. What are some techniques writers use for increasing tension in the rising action of a story or novel? Read these tips to build tension that keeps your reader intrigued and invested in your story arcs:

First, what is narrative tension?
The word 'tension' itself comes from the latin meaning 'to stretch' (OED). When things stretch too far, they snap or break. It's the same in a tense relationship, conflict, or story scenario. Tension is a state of uncertainty, and the anxiety it attracts. It's like watching a tightrope walker wobble slowly on a thin line between mountain peaks.

The multiple definitions of 'tension' remind us of the many forms of tension you can create in a story. Definitions (via the Oxford English Dictionary) include:

The state of being stretched tight
Mental or emotional strain
A strained political or social state or relationship
A relationship between ideas or qualities with conflicting demands or implications
A scene involving a tightrope walker gives us the tension of the first definition, as well as the second. The rope is stretched tight. The walker has the psychological strain of focusing on the task. We have the emotional strain of hoping she doesn't fall.

In a relationship where two characters have conflicting demands or desires, we see mental or emotional strain when opposition devolves into conflict.

Keeping these definitions in mind, let's examine techniques to build tension in your writing:

1. Keep adding complications to characters' arcs
Raising the stakes and complicating the situation for your protagonist is one of the most basic ways to create and maintain tension in a novel.

In a thriller or crime novel, particularly, the situation typically grows increasingly dire for the protagonist. Escalating tension is one of the four most important factors of writing effective suspense, so your hero's (or anti-hero's) efforts to fix problems should sometimes fail.

For example, Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic crime novel Crime and Punishment (1866) explores the tragedy that unfolds when a penniless, troubled student murders a greedy pawnbroker. The murder scene occurs early in the novel. Yet the protagonist, Raskolnikov, is not aware that the victim's sister, Lizaveta, has entered the victim's apartment while he is rummaging for valuables to sell:

Suddenly he jumped up, seized the axe and ran out of the bedroom.

In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a big bundle in her arms. She was gazing in stupefaction at her murdered sister, white as a sheet and seeming not to have the strength to cry out. (p. 71)

The cliched metaphor 'white as a sheet' aside, this complication effectively adds tension. Raskolnikov has justified murdering the pawnbroker to himself, yet there is no way even he can justify killing her generous, 'innocent' (by his standards) sister.

Dostoevsky introduces two kinds of tension: tension between Raskolnikov's beliefs (his rationalization of his deeds falls apart as Lizaveta cannot fit it) and the tension of the emotional and mental strain resulting from his committing double murder.

Dostoevsky piles on even further tension as we learn that handymen were renovating a nearby apartment and thus there were possible witnesses to Raskolnikov's departure. These events add tension due to dramatic unknowns and the potential impact they might still have. We wonder how things will turn out and Dostoevsky uses this uncertainty to create tension and dread.

Here are some other points to keep in mind when you are using complications to build tension:

2. Balance high dramatic tension with calmer scenes
When you create obstacles for characters that build tension, they should be of different sizes. Varying the amount of tension added by complications will create variety and small climaxes and releases that make the main conflicts in your novel that much more powerful. Your reader will have questions they need more urgently answered than others. As writer Lee Child says in The New York Times, 'As novelists, we should ask or imply a question at the beginning of the story, and then we should delay the answer.'