Yesterday, we talked out the PLOT or EXTERNAL Obstacles (Why Nots) that keep our characters apart. The point of a great romance is for love to overcome the obstacles and triumph! So, without obstacles….well, there’s no story. I’ll say it again. YOU MUST HAVE EXTERNAL OBSTACLES! (Yes, that was shouting). Now that we have that settled…let’s turn to the Internal Reasons why we (and our characters) run from love. This is the easy part. We can all come up with a long list of the reasons why we are unloveable. Our sins, our flaws, or fears, our idiosyncrasies….you name it. It’s a wonder we don’t all live in an igloo. The problem with finding internal obstacles is often authors either; 1. Pick too many or… 2. Focus […]
Read the RestArchive | How do I write Tension? RSS feed for this section
Tension Toolbox
I meant to post yesterday, Friday, but the day got away from me. Sorry, team. This is our final post on tension for now. No promises about the future. What mechanical ways can we show tension in our writing? Word choice. Short sentences. Entering the scene late, exiting early. Let’s try a scene: The wind blowing over the prairie was hot and dry as Mikaila urge her horse forward, scraping her fingers through her long blonde hair. Her cornflower blue eyes caught sight of a billowing cloud of dust rising from the horizon line, a mushroom from the earth, she thought. Wonder who it might be? She let her mind drift toward Cole who waited for her back at the ranch. They’d fought, about nothing. But she speed away on […]
Read the RestWhere’s my knife? I want to cut the tension.
Yesterday we talked about the importance of tension in our stories. Here are a couple of definitions: a balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements, or the act or action of stretching or the condition or degree of being stretched to stiffness. Tension holds the story taunt. It is the element that makes a story compelling. Once we introduce the story question and problem, it is the tension that keep the reader turning pages. Most of the time, writing books use suspense or thrillers to show wanna be authors how to create tension. I say, “Not fair.” Come on, “Silence of the Lambs,” are you kidding me? Of course there’s tension. But I write romance, or romantic suspense, or women’s fiction. Think about your own life. […]
Read the RestThe Tension Was So Thick, I Could Puff It Away
Ever read a book where the tension just did not deliver? Conflict was set up, devastation delivered then all resolved on the next page, or worse, the next paragraph? Yeah, me too. Tension is that part of the story telling that keeps the reader on edge. Conflict ebbs and flows, devastation is resolved, or handled, perhaps escalated, but tension is the one element we must maintain. In our physical world, we use tension to keep a cable or rope taunt. No trapeze artist wants to walk on a lose high wire, right? It’s the tauntness of our stories that hold it together. But most of us don’t like tension. We don’t want to walk into a room and get the cold shoulder or get ignored. The stiff remarks between family […]
Read the Rest
