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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. […]

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 […]