In a culture that has promoted being “nice,” remember to keep your protagonists squirming as you hold their feet to the fire.
Writing Tip for Today: Here are some tips to keep tension building as you force protagonists to squirm:
Make Goals Count
If your protagonist isn’t passionate about the story goal, readers will likely become bored. Think of your character’s back story (Remember, you won’t be adding back story to your story all at once). Use it to figure out your protagonist’s deepest longings. Incorporate strong feelings that make it clear your character MUST attain the story goal.
Or else . . .what, exactly? The stakes of the goal need to pass the So What? Test. If the goal isn’t met, so what? What will be the fallout? Be sure the result is as monumental as is possible. You’re showing readers some version of “ride free or die” in the stakes. If the answer to so what is that your character will be unhappy, be sure that unhappiness is something fairly extreme.
Scenic Tension
When you write scenes, you want your protagonist to try, lose, regroup and try some more. Build tension and conflict by not allowing your protagonist to simply give up and walk away.
Keep readers guessing with surprises. Let your protagonist react or act in ways that seem counterintuitive. Doing so adds microtension to scenes by having your character do or react to something in a way readers don’t expect.
Resist the urge to explain—readers can intuit much better by focusing on feelings, not information. Reveal critical information in a way that triggers alarm or concern for both the characters as well as the audience. Using foreshadowing or withholding is one way to keep suspense taut.
Keep readers guessing with surprises.
Tension Through Dialogue
When your protagonist interacts with adversaries, it’s tempting to pile on dialogue from the protagonist, followed by contradictions by the antagonist in the scene. Tension and conflict build better if you write a scene with realistic dialogue.
For instance, when people argue, they interrupt, add body language and think their attitudes even if they don’t actually speak those opinions. Construct dialogue by allowing characters to interrupt, interject and fight dirty. Allow characters to cut each other off.
Avoid any formal constructions during tense exchanges. Arguments don’t usually include salutations or names unless it’s a mom repeating her naughty kid’s full name. Use em dashes to indicate the broken and hectic nature of disagreements. You’ll be helping to make your protagonists squirm.
