Mind of Babes

I and many of my fellow writers are afflicted with a terrible disorder:  writer-side-stuck-onia. That is, the inability to shut off the writer half of their brain in any situation--be it serious like a funeral or mundane like a hard day at work. 

Raise your hand if you've ever caught yourself dissecting a book's plot, a movie's plausibility, someone's conversation as inappropriately-worded dialogue. Go on, raise your hands.

Yep. I'm sorry, but most of you are already terminal.

In that train of thought, about a week ago, I was babysitting a toddler boy around three years old. We had played a few games already with bubbles, Play-Doh and the like. I ran out of games, of course. Mostly because I was bored, not the boy. 

One of his playsets is a castle, with multiple doors, gates, and trapdoors. Since this child loves peek-a-boo, I put my hands at the back of the castle, scratched at the doors, and then poked my fingers out of the opening with fake growling sounds. The boy squealed of course as any child abruptly "booed" and then grinned. He liked being scared, as most of us do.

No, this is not a foray into Family Files. I'm going somewhere with this. Promise.

Since I have writer-side-stuck-onia, I of course thought of this situation with my writer's side murmuring.

My fingers were not scary, per say. In the situation, the boy was perfectly safe and in no danger. Why did it startle him? The actual "monster" was nothing at all, but the tension built before the monster appeared with my scratching (foreshadow) and the anticipation (suspense) of my fingers' reappearance.

Hmm. Looks like a writer formula for success.  If you warn the reader of impending doom/danger for the character, and then mingle it with the villain/monster/obstacle's arrival, you create tension.  Using it in scenes that need tension should then allow each scene to draw the reader forward. Breaking it down:

Foreshadow + Suspense = Tension.

And any good formula can be tested. Let's see:

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship

Foreshadow: Gandalf warns of Black Rider arrival +
Suspense:  Black Rider appears on the path =
Tension:   Race to the dock with Black Riders chasing. (My  heart was pounding)

Firefly: Bushwacked

Foreshadow: Wander through derelict ship, everything left behind +
Suspense:  Find a host of dead bodies =
Tension:  Someone/something jumps out at one of the characters. (I nearly screamed)

This formula seems to work for me. Check out your favorite books or movies, and the scenes that left you feeling bound up in knots of dread and fear. Dissect them. I'll bet you can find the same formula. 

Prove me wrong.

Newton's Law And Tension-Building

Have you had your daily dose of physics today?

No, really. I know there are some math-phobes and science-phobes out there. Take a deep breath. You can make it.

Newton's Third Law of Motion can be applied to the art of creating tension in your stories. His Third Law states that:

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

When it comes to putting together a novel, short story, or other forms of prose, this law should be consistently applied throughout the unfolding plot. Tension is such an important factor to remember as you write. Without tension, the story of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz would just be the tale of a Kansas girl wandering aimlessly down a yellow brick road. Lord of the Rings would be a charming travel monologue.

However, too much tension can be just as detrimental. Lace every moment and every paragraph with tension, and both your characters--and your readers--will be nervous wrecks by the time you're done. Too much tension can also feel overly dramatic.

It is just as bad to start out with a large amount of tension, and then hit a sagging middle, and finally sputtering out completely by the end. It will leave a very nasty taste in a reader's mouth.

The best way to make sure your tension level is correct for the moment and scene, and to ensure that it is slowly building correctly toward a climatic end, apply Newton's Third Law.

Every action has a reaction, to summarize the law. If you introduce a particular fear in a character, ensure that the reaction to being faced with at some point is just as severe as her/his aversion to it. (And they should be faced with it, I might add. Though that's a topic for another post...)

If you have created an action that must be taken, ensure that the reaction to it matches up. Does your character detest, and even hate, the antagonist? Then the "pay-off" at the end, when one character defeats the other, should show a reaction to that hatred.

But, beware of being too dramatic. If you don't build in tension and "actions" that are wound throughout the story, your end "reaction" will fizzle.

Picture our space shuttle.

Little rockets + big shuttle = No liftoff
Big rockets + "small" shuttle = Explosive

Ensure that every action your characters take has a reaction within your narrative, that matches the original action in its intensity.

Some Examples:

Intensity by Dean Koontz [thriller/mainstream]
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg [science fiction]
Sword-Dancer series by Jennifer Roberson [fantasy]
The Taking by Dean Koontz [speculative fiction.]

(yes, I tributed him twice. The latter one is more subtle with the tension building. And the thriller is less subtle, for obvious reasons)