Keeping Tension in your Story

        The urge to turn the page and see what's next. Tension. It drives the story. There are other elements to this. Pacing, for one. Pacing is how fast the story happens, or how slow. You want to control the pacing so that you can give readers a chance to rest between heart-thumping moments. But that's a discussion for another day.

        One way to think about tension is this. Jennifer Stevenson (writer of Sex, Trash, Magic) said it this way (which I repeat here in mangled form). Every story has to have several arcs. Think of the main arc as a long fishing line you cast far out—to the end of the book. You will reel that in over the course of the book. But the one arc isn't going to keep people's attention for long. You need shorter lines in the water that pay off as you go.

        So let me use Path of Fate as an example, since I'm all too familiar with it. The long arc is that war is going to come if they can't rescue Ceriba and stop the wizards' guild from wreaking havoc. Okay, that's all well and good, but are you willing to slog through nearly four hundred pages just to find that out? I need to entice you and hold out a short-distance carrot. I need shorter arcs that will hold your attention and make you want to find out answers, see how things turn out in the short term.

        Enter the personal trials and tribulations. First, we have the hunger of the refugees outside of Kallas. That also lets us know how horrible the war is and why we want peace and what Kodu Riik might face if they don't get peace. That ratchetts the stakes up a bit, and creates tension in that the reader becomes worried for the country a bit. She wants to find out what happens to the refugees and what has led to the plight and whether they'll be able to avoid more war. But there's no real personal connection here and so it will be easy for her attention to wander if we don't grab it in other ways.

        Now Reisil overhears Juhrnus, Felias, Sodur and Upsakes. We get to see not only her personal concerns with Juhrnus, but it emphasizes the larger woes. Then she goes home and meets Saljane. Now the tension mounts for her. We see that she could have to give up her home and life, and yet if her secret refusal gets out, she'll lose everything anyhow. We want to know what's going to happen. And not only what, but how it happens.

        We worry about that a bit as we shift attention to meet further characters and see their interactions. More snotty Juhrnus, more of Saljane haunting Reisil, and more of her own concerns to preserve her life. Then we have the unwanted embassy from Patverseme and a lot of anger surrounding their arrival. Not to mention concerns that someone will do something stupid and cause great harm to Kallas as retribution. There's a lot of various tension strands here. The reader (hopefully) wants to see how things turn out. Will Reisil get the better of Juhrnus? Will she kick Kebonsat in the shins? Will things work out with Kaval? Will Saljane get her way? Will Reisil be made an outcast? Will someone in Kallas do something stupid that leads to war and retribution from the Iisand?

        Okay, these are all short term payoffs, but several anchor into the long end-of-book arc. The reader finds out fairly quickly that Reisil will bond with Saljane. But then it isn't an easy road, and the next tension line is cast, wondering if they will ever get along, and if not, can they work together anyhow? Additionally, the major tension line of Ceriba's kidnapping is cast, leading to whether Reisil will be able to perform her duties as ahalad-kaaslane, whether Juhrnus and the rest will accept her, and who is behind it all and can it be stopped? Toss in the attack on Reisil by the wizard, and we have a number of new tension lines going forward.

        I'm not sure I'm making this at all clear, but essentially, you keep the reader reading by offering mysteries and questions, and concerns that s/he wants answer to. You use cliff-hanger chapter endings to get him to start another chapter and find out more. All of this of course has to be integral to the story. And for me, the interactions between characters, especially those we care about, carry a lot forward. Once you begin to care about the characters, it's hard to put the book down until you know they'll be safe or not, or if they'll get their comeuppance, or what have you.

        Try not to reveal everything you know all at once. Drag it out a bit so that readers can discover things for themselves. Try not to tell too much (something I find hard to do). By that I mean, readers like to extrapolate and figure out the clues. Let them. That's part of the tension—trying to work it out for yourself.

        Character interaction makes for powerful tensions of another kind. Ratchetting up the emotional stakes and intrigue. In The Cipher, my main character Lucy was a woman who would choose tact over truth in any given conversation, leading to very boring conversations overall because she didn't want to ruffle feathers. That was the old her. Then suddenly THINGS happen to her, and she's no longer interested in being so polite. She becomes far more honest, and less tactful. Which creates very interesting interactions with other people, and more tensions in the room. It's far more interesting to watch fights than everyone get along (which of course is what soap operas count on).

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