Biting My Nails on the Edge of My Seat - Adding Tension to Your Scenes
Narrative Transportation
We all know it’s Storytelling 101: without tension, you don’t have a story. I usually hear it phrased without conflict, you don’t have a story, but I really like thinking of it in terms of tension. Sometimes, drafting a novel, I think of conflict as a book-wide issue. I think of central conflict. And that often gets registered in my mind as a kind of set it and forget it thing: you decide what the macro-goal is (get the girl, solve the mystery), you put one big obstacle in the main character’s way (a backstory wound, a worthy antagonist) and you sort of let it ride.
But tension? In my own mind, it always registers as more of a fleeting, scene-by-scene thing. Tension comes and goes. Different types, for different reasons. If you start a scene thinking How can I infuse this thing plenty of tension? it can also help to make sure you’re constantly infusing your book with new micro-goals.
Three Types of Tension
Relationship Tension - Two characters can have:
Conflicting Goals
Unresolved resentments or baggage
Unrequited or frustrated attractions or romantic feelings
Power imbalances
Status struggles
Remember, we’re talking scenic-level tension. This doesn’t have to be about robbing a bank. This can be about two characters at a party, one who wants to leave and one who doesn’t. The way they handle their competing desires (even the way they express those wants) can absolutely add a simmering layer of tension that wouldn’t be there otherwise.
Goal-Based Tensions - What obstacles stand in the way of your character?
Physical obstacles - A locked vault, a key that won’t work, a piece of tech that fails (I always think of Doc Brown on the Clock Tower for this one…poor guy had a ton of physical obstacles there in about two minutes of film).
Time pressures - The clock is counting. Could be a countdown clock on a bomb. A kidnapping victim might know their captor will be back anytime. Or…the mother-in-law might be coming up the front walk.
Environmental - Ice could send a car off the road, keeping your main character from their destination. Or maybe your main character is crying for help at a concert where no one can hear them. Or maybe it’s after midnight, and the main character can’t see.
Missing information - It’s important to remember that the obstacle doesn’t have to be a physical thing at all. It could be knowledge. A missing clue. Maybe they’re acting on faulty information from another character. (If you really want to ratchet things up, you can make sure your reader knows what lie your protag is acting on or what they don’t know and how it’s hurting them.)
**A word on antagonists**
Antagonists can be either relationship or goal-based tensions. It comes down to what’s happening in this moment and what’s at the root of the conflict. Is it about what they want or who they are? (Often, a struggle with an antagonist falls into both types at the same time.)
Internal Tensions - Your character is at war with themselves.
They’re drawn to something they know they shouldn’t want (hello, romance novels)
They want to say or confess something but don’t dare
They believe two contradicting things
They have actual competing desires
Again, we’re working on a scenic level. So at this particular moment, in your YA, your main character has a chance to confess his feelings to his crush…the words are right there, he draws closer…and then the morning warning bell rings, sending everyone out of the hallway and into their classrooms. His crush is gone.
The key to all this is layering.
Don’t stop at one type of tension. Got a clear micro-goal tension? Great. Add a relationship tension with whoever they have to interact with to achieve it. Or give that main character of yours an internal tension, give them such conflicting desires that the reader will wind up honestly wondering how or even if they will be successful. The great part? Any tension you include in your scene adds on to the tension already present in your macro-goal or big story problem.
The beauty of tension is that it creates a kind of itch in a reader…one that doesn’t resolve until the tension is resolved. So be sure to introduce a new question or uncertainty or tension at the exact moment you’re resolving another.
That unsettled feeling created by fresh tension will carry your reader into scene after scene, chapter after chapter.