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This is the Fastest Way to Kill Your Story’s Tension
Writerly Maxims: Part two of a series that will improve your writing.
The Power of Tension
Without a solid helping of tension even the most action packed scene will fall flat, and the most heart wrenching reflection will solicit a yawn.
Think about the last book that you set down and never picked up again. What was the reason it fell off the ever important “to-read” list? Was it because you didn’t understand a character’s motivation? Was it because events were just seeming to happen with no discernable reason? Was it because you were just bored?
What about a book that seemed to stall somewhere in the middle, but it picked back up and you ended up finishing it?
As readers we’ve all experienced the full range of these reader experiences, but as a reader we rarely examine the reasons for these events. I invite you to consider these stalls in the readers experience here and now.
When we receive this kind of feedback it is often indicative of a tension problem. These problems occur most often at the start or transitions of a story, basically the parts of the story where lots of setup is occurs.
While things like setup and transitions are the work of the work for storytelling no sequence should…
