How to Create Tension in Your Story

hi everyone I'm shayen here with rezy So today we're going to be talking about how to create tension in your story tension is one of those fundamental elements of a story that we talk about a lot I like to think of tension as having three key elements complication potential and anticipation essentially tension is created in a story when there is potential energy that the reader anticipates will be acted Upon A Myst is a great example of this there is the potential of the mystery being solved or revealed and the anticipation of that reveal or for example say one character betrays another this is an example of a complication we've complicated the dynamic this is now going to create potential in the storyline there's the potential of the Betrayal being uncovered the question of how everyone will react when this is revealed and anticipation as the truth gets closer and closer closer to being revealed and the reader is waiting for that moment of reveal we have dramatic potential we have anticipation and an element of mystery as well wondering how and when this reveal will happen tension is important because it makes the conflict and events of your story feel significant it's what gets the reader to keep turning the pages if you don't have any conflict you probably don't have any tension which leads to step number one which is to give the characters goals let's start at Square One happens because of conflict and conflict happens because characters have goals meaning there's something that they want conflict is one of the core building blocks of drama which is why it's such an important element of fiction without any kind of conflict you don't have a story conflict happens when a character wants something but there are forces preventing them from getting that thing which creates this push and pull that moves your plot and moves your character so let's create a situation with conflict happening from some different angles so we have our protagonist let's call her jly and jie has reached the final round of a nationwide singing competition if she wins she'll be signed by a record label she'll be catapulted into stardom this is something that Julie's mother has been training her for her entire life this is a bit of a Trope but let's kind of roll with it let's say that Julie's mother had always dreamed of being a singer but she was unable to pursue that goal and so she's really living that dream through Julie and it's the entire Foundation of their of their relationship Julie maybe even feels like she needs to become successful as a singer she needs to win this competition in order to earn her mother's affection maybe they have a very strained relationship and this is kind of the one thing holding it together we could show evidence of this by saying that maybe Julie has an older sister and her mother was trying to get her sister to go down a similar path but her sister wasn't interested and it ended up completely destroying their relationship and now her mother and sister don't talk this would really increase the stakes and the tension for Julie because she's seen in real life what happens if she can't live up to her mother's expectations but let's say that just like her sister deep down Julie doesn't want to be a singer she doesn't want to be famous the idea of Fame actually terrifies her and she's been really struggling with that fear internally but she doesn't have any way to voice it let's say that instead she actually has aspirations to become an astronomer that's her passion at the beginning as she's about to enter the final stage of this huge singing competition she finds out she's been accepted to her dream astronomy program this creates two separate goals for her but she can't have both she can't become an astronomer and win this singing competition she has conflicting desires here she wants to follow her own dreams and do what's going to make her happy but she also doesn't want to lose her relationship with her mom there's emotional Stakes happening on either side so this creates a lot of tension because the further Julie pursues one goal the further she's going to get from the other goal she's going to have to make a choice but we don't know what she's going to choose and we don't know what the Fallout is going to be we can also complicate the situation further which continues to increase the tension by throwing more conflict into the story from different angles say there's another competitor who's trying to sabotage Julie maybe she doesn't know which competitor this is so there's a mystery here and also extra layers of tension because every time she steps on stage to perform she has this huge fear that she'll be humiliated by this other competitor trying to sabotage her and then maybe there's another competitor maybe her biggest competition who Julie feels herself start to develop unexpected romantic feelings for so now we have a forbidden relationship that Julie doesn't really know how to pursue or if she can pursue that's really going to pull her heart in all kinds of different directions so the tension here is created because we feel that all the threads of this conflict are going to amount to something if we feel like nothing is going to come of these elements then there won't really be much tension but if these different threads continue to escalate in intensity her feelings for this other competitor grow in importance the sabur attempts to sabotage her continue to escalate in intensity the pressure from her mother continues to escalate as she gets deeper into the competition alongside perhaps the deadline with which she has to either accept or decline her position at school the reader is propelled by questions of wondering how this is going to resolve what choice is she going to make what will be the outcome of these various relationships she has with other competitors this leads to the next tip which is don't resolve complicate often times as a writer we have this tendency to want to deescalate situations for our character this is actually very counter to creating interesting conflict we really want to avoid resolving conflict throughout a story now within a novel you're probably going to have tons of different points of conflict and little arcs of conflict throughout the book but resist the urge to resolve them instead think about how you can complicate them so for example say two characters get into an argument now you may need them to reach a point of resolution solution so that you can continue to develop the relationship across the story but instead of Simply resolving it in a neat way think about how you can complicate it maybe in order to resolve this the protagonist has to lie well this is actually now complicating the relationship even though it's been temporarily resolved there's a complication now the protagonist is involved in a lie that they have to keep up and there's tension created as that lie gets closer to maybe being revealed now so many situations between these two characters have become more complicated and will be more tense because it's a lie holding their relationship together and the threat of that lie being revealed so don't resolve conflict instead shift and evolve the conflict in interesting ways across the story if you're getting ready to start writing a novel and you want an extra level of guidance both in the process and the craft you can check out our new comprehensive course hosted by Tom Bramley this three-month course features daily lessons on Craft guest interviews with published authors weekly webinars and live editing sessions as well as connections with your cohort of fellow writers you can find more information Linked In the description tip number three is be careful with how you handle the timeline timeline Clarity can be a big threat to the tension in general it's easier to maintain high amounts of tension in a shorter timeline versus a longer timeline the longer the timeline the more ground the story needs to cover and as a result you can end up with looser connections between plot points it's easier to maintain a very tight causal chain in a really short timeline versus a long one where the events can start to be kind of disconnected from each other it's harder to maintain clear causal connections if two events are a year apart versus a day apart this dispels the causality of the plot we start to lose a lot of tension it puts less pressure on the characters now your novel may need a long timeline this isn't to say that you can't write a book with a long timeline it just means that we're possible you should condense the timeline if you can look for places where that timeline can be condensed do you have a point where two events are 3 months apart but could just be weak apart doing that condensing work across the book can really help keep up the tension throughout the story if you you are dealing with a long timeline make sure to really carefully keep track of the causality between events how are the events related you don't want events to start happening independently and lose their connection to the plot but it's easy for that to happen in a longer timeline so really be aware of how the events are connected because that will keep increasing the tension if you're also worried about this a great way to increase the tension in relation to your timeline is to add a ticking clock this is a classic example of how to raise the tension a ticking clock is basically a deadline putting a ticking clock or a deadline on on the character really puts a lot of pressure on them because the closer we get to that deadline the more the tension will increase the next tip is to be careful with how you share information information management is a really important part of maintaining the tension and writing a novel In general the reason this is so tricky is because sometimes withholding information increases the tension but sometimes sharing information increases the tension and so you have to use your discretion to figure out where and when you should be sharing information a lot of writers feel that withholding information inherently increases the tension because there's an element of mystery right the reader is going to want to read on to get this piece of information but if this is a really fundamental thing that we need to know it will just cause Clarity issues and confusion and you'll start to lose the reader think about whether the story is more or less interesting with this information revealed sometimes sharing information can actually increase the tension because it gives us information that contributes to the conflict gives us a better understanding of the conflict or raises the stakes in the example I was using earlier about an argument that's resolved with a lie if the fact that there was a lie involved is being withheld from us we feel like these characters have just reached a point of resolution and we think the conflict is resolved the fact that this information about the LIE is being withheld from the reader is actually decreasing the tension we need that information in order to understand the tension in this situation but sometimes withholding information can increase the tension if it causes a mystery that the reader really wants to be resolved if withholding information is creating a mystery then it may be worth with holding but if it's causing confusion or it's obscuring the conflict then it may be better to share the information and the final tip is to raise the emotional Stakes raising the stakes is a really great way to increase the tension typically the higher the stakes the more tension there will be Stakes are what the character has to lose if they fail I like to think of it as the bargain what are they bargaining with the thing that's at risk where if they fail to achieve their goal they'll lose this thing too one really important element of stakes is emotional Stakes this is isn't what the character will lose tangibly but what they will lose emotionally this is the worst possible emotional situation that they could end up in it's the hurt that they will experience or the emotional pain that they will go through if they fail and even though it may be less tangible and less concrete than the concrete stakes a lot of the time it's way more impactful as readers we tend to invest a lot more in the emotional Stakes than the concrete stakes in order to create emotional Stakes the character needs to want something they need to be emotionally invested in something they need to care about something the best way to do this is often to think about their relationships with other characters most often the emotional Stakes will be tied back to their relationship a relationship that they may lose or that will be fundamentally damaged so think about how you can increase the emotional Stakes alongside the tangible ones to really up the tension in your story so those are five ways to increase the tension in your story tension is such an important part of creating a compelling story if the tension is really high that's really how you keep a reader hooked and keep them reading we think about this a lot in genres like Thriller that might have really high tension but tension is present in any kind of story it's just that potential and the reader is invested in the potential and seeing it realized so thank you so much for watching Remember to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss any new videos from us we've got new writing editing and Publishing tips every Tuesday and Friday until next time [Music] bye

Channel: Reedsy

Views: 6,123

Keywords: how to write a book, authortube, writing tips, writing advice, writing tip, self publishing, self publishing tips, how to self publish a book, writing

Id: A5KGrky1IVQ

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 08 2023