Ways to increase tension

[misprinted]

Hey Scribes,

What are some strategies you use to increase tension in your novels? I'm worried about not having enough in certain chapters.

 

[ThinkerX]

1 - Deadline. Character has a limited time to accomplish a task or things get bad.

2 - Enemy present. A known foe of the character is present and must be avoided or negotiated with.

3 - Awkward Questions from a friend or family member of the character. 'where were you? Why are your clothes dirty.'

4 - Left field. Saying goes the really scare things are not the ones you know - those you can plan for and maybe deal with. The truly scary things are the ones that come out of left field, be it an accident or an attack.

 

[TheKillerBs]

Whatever solution they tried made the problem worse

 

[FatCat]

Early onset tension can be difficult because the plot is just starting. I'd advise making your outlier characters have strong beliefs in your world, while the MC is a witness. This gives you tension and a reliable narrator to start.

 

[Holoman]

Whatever little thing they are trying to do in that chapter, think of a way to make it harder for them.

So for example if they go into town to chat with someone and get something, you could make that person awkward or surly. Or perhaps he wants something in return for helping them.

Or perhaps have the characters disagree on how to do something. Maybe they have an argument and someone storms off, having had enough.

It's a difficult thing though, conflict and tension has to somehow relate to the world and plot as well, rather than just something random like "oh darn, a storm has come again and now we can't travel to X, what will we do?"

 

[idknull]

I go with the time limit most of the time. The character having to race against the clock to accomplish some kind of task definitely gets ME on the edge of my seat.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

A few pointers:

1. If you think you have just enough tension, you probably don't. When you think you might be overdoing the tension, you likely have just enough.

2. Whenever you figure out how your character will react to tension, ask yourself how their action/reaction can make the situation worse.

3. Have tension come from multiple angles and sources. A linear source of tension is fine, but multiple sources of tension, all acting on a character (in sometimes conflicting or competing ways) is generally more intriguing and engaging.

 

[skip.knox]

Why are you worried?

When you say "certain chapters" that implies in other chapters you feel there is enough tension. Go back through your chapters and identify exactly what is creating the tension. In the chapters that feel flat, try to say in a sentence or two why they are flat.

I don't for a moment suggest the following is the case with your story; I offer it by way of example. In fact, let's use my favorite straw man author, Anon.

It turns out all of Anon's "strong" chapters are fight scenes. The ones that are flat are what I call travel scenes, ones that are primarily about getting characters from point A to point B. Anon wrongly concludes that what is needed in the flat chapter is an ambush. Because, fighting.

OK, so I overdrew the case. What I want to point out is that it's entirely possible to be wrong about tension, not only in where it's missing but also in where the author thinks it exists. Making a clear-eyed assessment of where the story is at right now is the necessary precursor to improving it. Sometimes moments of great tension are ones in which very little is actually happening, because the author has artfully built to the moment. Other times, the tension does indeed come from intense combat. All cards are playable.

 

[Creed]

Hey misprinted!

For a very (very) thorough and helpful brainstorm some Scribes had, check out this thread: General Strategies for Increasing Tension

It's four pages of strategies you can't go wrong with.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Tension can be so subtle, it might be as simple as a character in a scene appearing to make the reader ask themselves "oh crap, is that who I think it is, or not?"

In starting book 2, I have a major reset and setup scene where frankly, there is tension, sure, but for a short time when folks who were once enemies are now clan leaders forced to be friends. They're pretty much on the same page, even if not in total agreement. So, yeah, I can drag out old grievances and have them bicker, but you know what? The reader, and the characters themselves, pretty much know what route they need to take to survive. So, how to add a little edge to the situation? I reintroduce a young servant boy, who may or may not have/be a doppleganger who poisoned one of the clan chieftains at the end of book 1. An innocent or a spy? When he serves them drinks, is someone going to die? But mainly, it's a reminder that things aren't necessarily how they seem.

Hello Wallflower, it's time to make your two left feet boogie... now that's tension, heh heh. Terrifying.

The dance between high tension and low tension, that's what makes it all fun.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

To figure out how to increase tension, you have to understand where tension comes from. In my opinion, tension comes from the bad things that will happen if the heroes don't accomplish their goals. It's all about Bad Things.

First, you have to make your readers care about the characters so that they won't want bad things to happen to them. That's a whole other discussion and a whole other issue, though.

The other crucial ingredient of tension is time. You have to allow time for the tension to build. You have to plant the seeds of those bad things very early in the story, and make the reader anticipate them happening for a long time. You want to hint at what *might* happen in order to put ideas in the reader's head and make them expect those bad things. But, you have to leave a part uncertain. You have to leave an element of mystery as to what will happen. For example, say the antagonist's goal is to turn all magic users evil so he can conquer the world with them, and has a torture chamber underneath his lair in which he tortures people with magic to break them and win him to his side. Also, say your protagonist has magic. From these facts, your reader probably already has the idea that if the protagonist gets caught, he's going to be put in that torture chamber. To build tension, you have to hint at the existence of the torture chamber. You wouldn't state outright what the villain does to his victims and how it works. You would only hint. Maybe the villain's minions or mercenaries, who use magic, have horrific, magic-inflicted scars. Maybe other magic users have mysteriously disappeared.

In the beginning, you have to set the stakes. If there are no consequences if the heroes fail to achieve their goals, there's no tension. But if something awful will happen if they fail, then there's tension. In the torture chamber example, the bad thing would be being put in the torture chamber (of course). That would be your stakes.

Then, you have to heighten the tension throughout the story. Set the stakes even higher so that even worse things will happen if the heroes fail. Also, make it look more and more unlikely that the heroes will succeed. Impose a time limit upon what they are going to do. Make them have to sacrifice more and more to get to their goals. With the torture chamber example, you could reveal more and more about the horror of what could happen to the protagonist if he was captured. You could have his love interest discover even more powerful magic than he has--now she's in danger too, and the stakes are higher. Maybe one of the protagonist's friends was captured, and now he is hunting down the protagonist. This adds even higher stakes. To escape the villain, the protagonist might have to kill his friend. Will he do it? Or will he let himself be captured? There is no better way to raise the stakes than to make the protagonist choose between two equally horrible bad things. The reader will be tearing their hair out, wondering, which will he choose?! But they don't even want him to choose, because whatever he chooses will have bad consequences. Also, making the protagonist (and the reader) care deeply about other people in their life makes the reader not just fear for the protagonist, but fear for the people he loves too. Also, (back to the example), you could have it look progressively more and more impossible that the hero will defeat the villain. Almost all of the magic users throughout the land are under the villain's control. The villain himself is growing more and more powerful. They don't have much time. Then, the hero's love interest gets wounded, and she'll need immediate attention from a skilled magical healer or she will die. However, all the magic users on the continent will soon be under the villain's control, and the hero doesn't have much time to defeat the villain, and continuing on his journey might mean sacrificing her life. So, what does he do? Does he sell out to the villain to save her? Does he try to save her and sacrifice his chance to defeat the villain? Does he go on with his journey, leaving her to die? All are very bad choices.

You should foreshadow things getting unimaginably bad for the hero. However, it's probably best if things get far worse than even the reader dreamed before the story is over with.

I'd like to add some last emphasis on time--making the reader wait. If tense situations are resolved quickly, the tension is relieved before it even has a chance to build. Therefore, you must drag out the moments of agonizing indecision and encroaching doom. You have to make the reader wait to see what happens. I'll illustrate with that horrible situation I stuck our example protagonist in earlier. If the hero decided to go on with his journey, the tension would be greater if he has to be alone for some time, wondering whether she is dead or alive, rather than have him find and defeat the antagonist quickly, or else confirm her dead too soon. It's better to make the reader wait for the final outcome, leave a period of time in which they don't know what will happen. Or, if the protagonist decides to take her to a healer, have him on a long journey where she is constantly worsening, and meanwhile he doesn't even know whether the healer he seeks has already been captured by the villain. Hard decisions with no good answers, I'm telling you.

Also, I would recommend killing the cute, innocent character so your reader knows you have the guts to do it and that NO ONE is safe. Kill/hurt someone out of nowhere, someone who doesn't deserve it. (Whenever I give this advice I think of Fred from Harry Potter.) I say this because of its obvious that your protagonist and his love interest and everyone the reader really likes turn out all right in the end, there's not much tension. When I read the Hunger Games, I had heard about how suspenseful it supposedly was, but I wasn't feeling it. It was obvious to me that Katniss and Peeta would both survive, and no other character was developed enough to make me care whether they lived or died. (I didn't really care about Katniss or Peeta either.) Thus the stakes were very low. I never thought for a second that Katniss might actually be forced to kill Peeta. In fact, she never really had to make a difficult decision. All of this killed the tension completely. That, and I couldn't find a single character I really liked. Needless to say I haven't read either of the sequels.

But tons of people love the Hunger Games and think it's awesome. So I guess that goes to show that different things work for different people.

So basically, foreshadow bad things, make the readers wait on the bad things to happen, and while they're waiting make the bad things worse and worse, and leave the outcome uncertain.

I hope this helps. This advice probably best for a rather dark story, but that's what I write, so yeah.

 

[Ekorus]

I personally don't feel every chapter NEEDS tension. Sometimes it's a good thing to have a chapter where things progress naturally. It adds realism and if you think about it, life isn't always filled with crisis. These non-tension chapters are an excellent opportunity to add depth to your characters, get the reader to relate more realistically to your characters, and invest them in the world through use of portraying the "innocent" factors within it.


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[FifthView]

I personally don't feel every chapter NEEDS tension. Sometimes it's a good thing to have a chapter where things progress naturally. It adds realism and if you think about it, life isn't always filled with crisis. These non-tension chapters are an excellent opportunity to add depth to your characters, get the reader to relate more realistically to your characters, and invest them in the world through use of portraying the "innocent" factors within it.


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I respectfully disagree. But I might define tension differently. At its most basic level, tension only describes a reader's interest, engagement, and involvement. For a metaphor...think of tension cables on a bridge. They hold the bridge up, keep it connected to the towers. Similarly, tension in a novel keeps the reader connected to the story; it prevents (or is intended to prevent) the reader straying away from the story, being bored by it.

In other words, tension at its most basic doesn't describe what is happening within the narrative—it's not characters being tense or involved in tense situations.

Now of course, if a reader identifies with the characters and their situation and cares about those characters, then tense situations for the characters will likely make the reader feel tension also.

But tension for the reader can be created in other ways, even when the characters are not presently involved in high-stakes, dangerous situations.

I think every chapter should create tension for the reader and, ideally—although this is harder to do—every sentence and every paragraph should also create tension for the reader.

 

[FifthView]

Hey Scribes,

What are some strategies you use to increase tension in your novels? I'm worried about not having enough in certain chapters.

Heliotrope and I once went wild enumerating various methods for creating/increasing tension, here: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-questions/15839-general-strategies-increasing-tension.html

 

[skip.knox]

I think we gravitate too quickly to physical conflict. Tension can come from something as simple as trying to communicate something to someone who isn't listening, or who misunderstands, or is simply too busy trying to communicate their own message back. Talking at cross-purposes is done all the time.

Tension can come from a clumsy character trying to carry a tray. From a busy innkeeper trying to get the place ready to open for an important visitor.

In fact, I'd argue that every story needs chapters with these lesser tensions in order to do a proper build toward a battle scene or a wizardly confrontation.

One thing that has not been mentioned so far: whatever the scale of the tension, it should have consequences. It's not the tension or conflict that really matters, it's the consequences that scene has for the larger story. I'm reminded of how skillfully T.H. White gives us Wart being taught by Merlin. We get memorable scenes such as the one where Wart becomes a fish and is pursued by a pike. The point isn't really the danger of the moment; the point is the lesson learned.

 

[Ekorus]

I respectfully disagree. But I might define tension differently. At its most basic level, tension only describes a reader's interest, engagement, and involvement. For a metaphor...think of tension cables on a bridge. They hold the bridge up, keep it connected to the towers. Similarly, tension in a novel keeps the reader connected to the story; it prevents (or is intended to prevent) the reader straying away from the story, being bored by it.

In other words, tension at its most basic doesn't describe what is happening within the narrative—it's not characters being tense or involved in tense situations.

Now of course, if a reader identifies with the characters and their situation and cares about those characters, then tense situations for the characters will likely make the reader feel tension also.

But tension for the reader can be created in other ways, even when the characters are not presently involved in high-stakes, dangerous situations.

I think every chapter should create tension for the reader and, ideally—although this is harder to do—every sentence and every paragraph should also create tension for the reader.

Well, we certainly define tension differently. I personally define tension as its definition, "mental or emotional strain". This can be achieved through a plethora of creative ideas. By definition, tension is exactly what's happening within the narrative. It can be as simple as a character annoying someone or a language barrier to as drastic as a broken heart or battle. Tension's not always BAD, either. There's plenty of tension in conversation between two characters with infatuation towards each other.

My original point was that there doesn't always need to be "strain" in every chapter. One of my personal weaknesses is shopping. I love to read about characters exchanging money and, sure bartering can be tense, but it isn't always that way. Some of my favorite books will spend an occasional chapter developing their characters, either through conversation, learning, or experience. A skilled writer will be able to accomplish this without boring the reader and will even engage the reader more. If you find yourself filling every available space with some sort of "strain" on the characters or the world, you're doing something VERY wrong, no disrespect meant.

 

[FifthView]

I personally define tension as its definition, "mental or emotional strain".

Even ignoring other definitions for tension, this definition does not include "for the characters" or "of the characters" in it.

I.e., the "mental or emotional strain" may be...for/of the reader!

By definition, tension is exactly what's happening within the narrative.

The definition also does not say "within the narrative."

I see tension as being more of the effect the narrative has on the reader. A reader can feel tension. (Readers after all are real people, not mere words on the page meant to signify a person. But I digress.)

I like this consideration more than the other because the other is rather limited. I hope that my narrative makes the readers feel something, so I aim for that, and I think that can be achieved without needing to put the characters themselves in constant states of being tense. A character might not be aware of a lurking danger even when the reader knows what's coming. A character might not know that the story is about to take an unforeseen turn (unforeseen by the character) while a reader does—or senses it. Or, that the story has already taken a new turn.

Plus, as Skip said, "It's not the tension or conflict that really matters, it's the consequences that scene has for the larger story." I really like that way of looking at the importance of tension for a story. A reader can sense or know consequences that a character will not, may wonder at the way the story has been altered and continue reading precisely in order to see how things will play out: i.e., be sitting on pins and needles.

 

[Ekorus]

I didn't define tension as restricted to anything in particular. Just the dictionary definition. You just explained in your last post the very things I've been saying unless I read it completely wrong.

 

[FifthView]

I didn't define tension as restricted to anything in particular. Just the dictionary definition. You just explained in your last post the very things I've been saying unless I read it completely wrong.

I read 'some sort of "strain" on the characters' and 'exactly what's happening within the narrative' as types of restriction.

You're right that we are not far in disagreement, in that we both agree that the characters themselves do not need to be in a constant mental/emotional strain. In fact, I generally hate that kind of character (or that kind of narrative), especially when taken too far.

My concern is that seeing tension merely as a description of what the characters experience is far too limiting and may easily lead to the creation of long, flabby passages without tension for the reader.

 

[writeshiek33]

at the moment i am writing first of an urban fantasy which i have given mc a background of being an out cast in both fae and human citizens add to the fact that she has a weapon put into her by an finished curse that reacts to fae. also add factor she a young decretive promoted faster than normal due to lack of expert in fae in the police force. now that will give lots of tension depends g on scenes and characters involved