100 Things You Should Know About Writing (Part 1)

1) Creating Tension

Every writer knows that tension is needed to capture a reader's interest. It's a no-brainer, really. Especially in genre fiction, there isn't a point to a reader reading a story when there's no tension to keep the story interesting. 

So how does one get tension going in the story? 

Oh, now we're in interesting territory. Is it by putting the main character (or someone else) into a death-defying situation every chapter? Or by maintaining conflict by having characters bicker all the time? Or perhaps by having a horrible villain who's out to destroy everything the main character holds dear? 

The answer to each of these questions is yes and no. In specific situations, all of those ways could work. But they are not, and were never supposed to be, rough-hewn clubs with which to hit the tension button every single time. 

No, the tension created should be tailored to every specific story. Random use of bickering characters, death-defying stunts, and horrible villains can feel incredibly cliched when used just because the writer feels "they are there so that there's tension." 

So I'm going to let you into the secret to tension, as learned through lots and lots of trial and error: 

No matter what the concept of your book, tension grows naturally from three roots: 

Goal. 

Conflict. 

Stakes.

Learn them. Remember them. Love them.

Almost every plot-related thing I can teach you sprouts out of these three roots as well. 

I'm going to go deeper into conflict in the next section, but basically, the three roots work together as follows: 

Every protagonist needs a goal. Whether it's to save the world or to make the guy next door fall in love with her, a goal is necessary. In truth, the goal is the real point for a reader to read the story. At the heart of everything, the reader wants to know if the protagonist achieves the goal or not. That's not to say that a goal has to be achieved. But that's another thing to know about writing. Point is, your character has to have a goal, or you don't have a story. 

Next comes conflict. Now what, you may ask, does conflict have to do with goals? Everything darling. Every. Single. Thing. Without a goal, there is no conflict. Because when you're a writer, conflict does not mean people bickering and a ton of action scenes. What it does mean is: a factor or variety of factors that prevent the protagonist from achieving their goal. So you have a goal in mind for your protagonist? Good. Now make it as difficult as possible for him/her to achieve that goal. 

Conflict can literally be anything, as long as it's complicating the protagonist's attempt at achieving his/her big story goal. So yes, we can still have arch-enemies. As long as they're doing more than to talk the hero to death. But think wider. Is the guy afraid of heights? Make it necessary for him to leap off a building. Is your lady's goal to find the right guy? You can let the right guy be someone whose guts she can't stand. (See? Bickering.) Or you could let her conflict come from inside herself. Let her be commitment-phobic. Conflict can be a ton of fun to play with, so don't limit yourself to the same things as everyone else. 

Finally, we have stakes. Stakes are basically the cost of failure. What happens if the protagonist doesn't succeed in achieving his/her goal? What happens if the challenges were just too great? Once again, it's fun to get creative here. Old favorites will be: "The world as we know it will end." or "Someone dies." or "The protagonist (or protagonist's dog) dies." But there are other things that can be at stake as well. Such as the character not getting the happy ending he/she deserves. Or... the horror of being kept alive in the villain's prison, losing a shot at a promotion that the character has his/her heart set on. Anything that costs something because the character failed counts as stakes.

But what does this have to do with tension? 

I'm hoping most of you caught on by now, but just in case, let me put the puzzle together for you. Tension is caused the reader worrying about whether or not the goal will be achieved.

The worry can come from three places: One is character choice (I'll get to it later). The other is the conflict being so difficult that achieving the goal seems almost impossible. The third: The stakes being so high that the reader does not want the protagonist to fail.

So are you feeling like you don't have enough tension? Make achieving the goal more difficult. Or else make sure the cost of failure too high to tolerate. (And yes, I'll go deeper into this as well in Section 3.)

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this helpful. Feel free to ask about tension (or anything else about story crafting) in the comments. While you're still around, please don't forget to vote for this section if you found it useful. 

Coming up: 

More on Conflict

More on Stakes

Character Choice