Tension: What is it and How Do I Build It?

 

Tension: it’s what gets your reader worried, excited; it is what draws your reader into your work and, importantly, drives your story. Look at that picture above of the man on the tightrope — that's certainly a tension-filled situation. But what makes tension, tension? And, more importantly, how do you include it in your writing?

It’s a little harder to describe what tension is than its effects. So I’ve pieced together a few guides and my own experience into an article to offer a guide to the basics of tension and how to incorporate in your next work to keep your readers on the edge of their seats.

So...what is tension?

Heather Sellers, author of The Practice of Creative Writing, describes tension as something as simple as: 

DESIRE + DANGER = TENSION

In other words, she recommends that writers pose threats, or “dangers,” to a character’s “desire” to create a tense moment in a creative work. She emphasizes that in these tense scenes, each sentence should either work towards reminding the reader of a character’s strong desires or of the danger currently posed towards them.

DESIRES: 

    Alright, so character desires. That seems simple enough: it’s what the character wants, or their goal.

 In my own experience, I’ve built off of Seller’s idea and found that one should also keep in mind that “desire” goes beyond the reader: tension can be built using the reader’s own wishes as well. Some of this naturally aligns with the character’s desires; for example, both the reader and the main character might wish to stop a tyrannical king or the death of another character. But in situations other situations, like when a scene focuses on an antagonist or the main character is doing something against the reader’s wishes, keeping the reader’s desires in mind can help to bolster your tension-centered writing. 

DANGER: 

Sure, danger can be manifested in physical violence. But boiling it down, danger, as Seller more or less puts it, makes up a combination of both “an obstacle that keeps a character from their goal” and a high stakes situation, which both need to pose realistic consequences for your character.

By pitting the aforementioned desires against these obstacles, you make create tension and encourage the reader to want resolution. 

But hold on...

    Alright, so now we’ve boiled down tension into the formula. But we can’t just start going ahead and using it however we like: when using tension, I’d say apply it as you would seasoning: be liberal with it, but don’t mask the flavor of your overall story.

    Although the genre of your work often changes the frequency of tension, it is a good rule of thumb to understand the perils of using it too much: if you write too much tension in your novel, readers will become numb to the moments that really need to stand out as, well, tense. 

Good tension, in moderation, will leave you readers like this!
(image via UnSplash)

    For an easy way to see this, think of your favorite comedy bit or horror movie. These two genres, done well, are the epitomes of guide to good tension. 

    In a comedy bit, the audience is never laughing for the entire hour. Instead, the audience often spends much of the time listening to the comedians’ story that sets up to their inevitable punchline or joke. Similarly, movie-goers never spend the entire duration of the movie screaming or jumping; they spend the time, watching in anticipatory horror as the protagonist slowly, slowly opens that door with the killer just waiting behind —

    You get the idea. And this is what makes good tension! Your novel or creative work needs to have moments of calm or at least lessened tension between your peaks. These moments of calm help to not only sensitize your audience for tension but can be used to also bolster your reader’s relationship with your character and their desires — thus making the next moment of tension even better. 

Have any quick tricks to building it?

    In addition to the use of Seller’s handy formula and the above advice for it, there are several quick tricks you can use to build tension in your creative work.

1. Cliffhangers: 
   
   Of course, cliffhangers are one of the easiest ways to get your reader to keep reading. Put this at end of big reveals (but use sparingly) and you’ll have a simple way to keep your readers engaged.
   
   
2.  Add a Time Restraint:

   

   (image via UnSplash)

   
   
   
   What’s more stressful than a ticking clock, a door about to close, or a disease that's slowly overtaking your protagonist. Combine this with foreshadowing and occasional reminders of the time restraint, and you’ll have your reader itching to keep reading.
   
   
3. Create Tension Between Characters:
   
   Throwing in arguments or misunderstandings can create tension not just in terms of your plot but before your characters! Thinking about the different philosophies or lifestyles between your characters can help create points of contention and can be key in upping the ante.
   
   
4. Using Shorter Sentences:
   
   Now, this depends on your writing style, your genre, and how often you use this. Of course, you don’t want to have a page filled with five-word sentences. But having shorter sentences, especially in those key tense moments, increases the pacing of your novel and emphasizes what is on the pages, like those desires or dangers we talked about earlier.
   
   
5. Foreshadowing:
   
   Both in terms of a larger plot and for the small details, foreshadowing can help you build tension. In fact, Stephen King admits that he uses this quite often to help up the creepiness ante (as he puts in a Writers Digest article); the hyper fixation on small details, say an unused utensil or the odd creak of the door, can spark worry in your readers about possible dangers that might occur.
   
   
6. Choose your Information:
   
   By choosing what information to give your characters, your readers, or both, you naturally create tension: the reader might want to scream at a character that knows less than them, be intrigued and pushed by a character that knows something new (but just won’t tell the reader what that is), or be frantically drawn along by both the character and their lack of knowledge in a situation.

Related Tension (or Suspense) Articles on Famous Authors

Stephen King: Check out the aforementioned Writers Digest’s article on his tips and tricks.

Agatha Christie: While generally discussing her style, FreeLanceWriting describes clues us in Christie’s often suspenseful, tension-filled style. 

And that has been Novelora’s guide to building tension. Do you have any other tricks that you use to build tension? Any authors that you think are especially good at it? Let us know below.