How to Create Tension in Your Story
It has often been said that what a writer needs to do is put their main character in a tree and throw rocks at him. Obstacles create conflict. They make it hard for the main character to reach their goal. Sometimes writers like their characters so much they don’t want anything bad to happen to them. But as authors we can’t let an emotional attachment keep our characters from being pushed to the breaking point. Happy people equal a dull story. The tougher it is for your hero to reach his/her goal, the more interesting the story becomes.
Conflict Must Be Clear
To write a good story the conflict must be clear. In the most basic story structure there is the set-up, the conflict, and the resolution. During the set up, the author defines the protagonist’s main goal: catch a killer, recover lost treasure, achieve closure with family, or simply find love. Next obstacles are created for the main character to trip over, fall into, and walk around. All designed to keep the character from reaching their goal.
This sounds simple, but conflict must be more than just obstacles thrown in the path of your character, otherwise you have a series of events which may be interesting, but they do nothing to build drama.
External Conflict Comes From Story.
This is usually where most ideas take off. A Navy SEAL is supposed to sneak his team into an armed compound and take out a key terrorist, but one of the sympathizers is really an agent for the terrorists, and their cover is blown, and they get taken prisoner, and…
Think of a race car driver. He needs to win the big race and the prize money in order to save the family farm. Conflict can arise naturally from the environment, like rain, or bright sunlight, or oil on the track. There can be man-made obstacles, like an accident, or trouble with his car. Conflict can come from other characters. Two friends might want the same goal. What would the friend do to keep your character from winning?
However, conflict at the same level becomes boring. As you build toward your climax, increase the difficulty of each obstacle. Still this is not enough. To keep the conflict in your story from becoming like the stepping stones in a creek your character must move across, the conflict needs tension.
Internal Conflict Creates Tension.
It comes from all the back story and emotions you’ve crafted for your character. Are they a fight or flight kind of person? What lengths will they go to in order to reach their goal? Would they lie, cheat, steal? Would they kill?
Fear is a basic emotion to consider as you create your character. If you know what your character fears you can use it to create tension. Does your character fear abandonment? Is your character claustrophobic? Does your character fear disappointing a loved one; losing a child? How can you use this fear to help them grow? Can you escalate that fear so it keeps them from their goal?
In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara is afraid of going hungry. She vows it will never happen again. That fear drives her to do whatever she has to in order to gain money. She defies social convention, ignores being ostracized by society, and eventually loses the one man she really loved. Fear drove her toward a goal, and in gaining that goal cost her what she really wanted.
Think about ways to use your character’s fears to keep them from their goal.
There Has to Be A Cost.
What happens if your protagonist doesn’t reach their goal? What keeps the reader staying up all night turning pages? Drama comes when someone has to pay. If the reader understands what’s at stake, they will jump in and cheer when your character wins and cry when they fail. There is a bomb on a school bus. The hero must race to save the kids. An author throws obstacles in his path designed to keep him from saving the kids in time. What if in the past the hero failed to save his son, and his son died? That failure has maybe cost him his marriage and created some deep emotional wounds. Now, what if he learns his own daughter is on the bus? Suddenly the stakes are raised. Urgency is created and the level of internal fear is escalated. Life and love are two of the most powerful stakes, but they must be important enough to the character to produce tension.
A heroine who is deeply afraid of relationships with men because her fiancé left her at the altar isn’t a strong enough reason to justify her level of fear. This scenario doesn’t create tension. However, if we learn she was sexually molested by her father, tension is created every time the hero tries to get close to her. Will she flee the situation or fight through her fear?
Now as your main character faces each obstacle you’ve thrown in his/her path the reader is caught up in the internal struggle of your character as they face each obstacle. Give your character options that test their convictions. Push them to make tough choices. Use conflicting emotions to escalate the tension.
Pauses Create Uncertainty.
Uncertainty comes in that moment right after you’ve thrown another obstacle in front of your character. The reader wonders, what will your character will do?
That uncertainty builds suspense. The red wire or the blue wire? Which of his buddies will the young soldier save? How will the unemployed single mom take care of her children? With each obstacle you put in your character’s path, the reader wonders what your character will decide and what will the consequences of that decision be. Will it take them closer to their goal or keep them from reaching it? How will that affect their next decision?
Leave room for possibilities to form in the reader’s mind. Don’t make the choices easy. Use pauses. The length of the pause increases the drama. Someone walking through a dark house in the middle of the night, steps on a creaking floor board on their way into the kitchen. No tension. But what if they stop? Listen? Wait?
Look for places to increase the tension by adding pauses. Create uncertainty as your character decides what to do in the face of each obstacle and raise the stakes for each choice your character makes.
“Action is the pulse of any good story, but character is the heart.” — Linda Yesak
Sources:
Maass, Donald. Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. Cincinnati, OH. Writers Digest Books. 2004
Bell, James Scott. Plot and Structure. Cincinnati, OH. Writers Digest Books. 2004
