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Extreme Book Makeover: 7 Key Ingredients to Creating Powerful Scene Tension

By on May 12, 2014 in 6. Search by Series:, b. Building a Scene, Editing Basics, Extreme Book Makeover, How do I write Tension?, Susan May Warren, writing tension

I watched the season finale of Once Upon a Time last night (*warning! Spoilers!*) and it was one of the best episodes in the series. Why? The tension! The plot was simple – the heroine, who’d finally found her happy ending with her family, accidentally fell back into time, and thwarted the epic, historical meeting of her parents. She pulled a “Back to the Future” and erased her future.

What does she want? To return home and live happily with her family. Her goal – make sure her parents met, somehow. Why? Because after a horrible childhood, she’s finally found a home. What’s at stake? Her life – and her son’s life.

And…standing in her way is the Evil Queen (as well as the lack of magic needed to open the time portal.)

Great set up for the episode – and even better, it makes for exactly the right ingredients to talk about how to create powerful tension in a story – and especially how to keep your Act 2 tension from saggy by creating tension in every scene.

Let’s start a definition of tension. Obstacles and Activity are not Tension. Tension is derived from a sympathetic character, who wants something, for a good reason, and who has something to lose, who then creates a specific, identifiable goal, only to run up against compelling, powerful obstacles, which then creates the realistic fear of failure.

In other words, the MBT Scene Tension Equation.

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Show, Don’t Tell

By on November 4, 2013 in Author Mistakes, How to WordPaint, Susan May Warren

I hope you’re busy writing your amazing works of NaNoWriMo fiction!

I thought, as we dive in, it might help to understand what editors mean by “Show, Don’t Tell.” Listen, I know it can be confusing. Especially since there is not only mis-information and bad teaching out there, but also because there IS a time Tell!

Showing, not Telling is not about describing everything that happens. And Telling has nothing to do with narrative and backstory. Narrative and backstory (and even action) get a bad rap because often, during narrative, backstory and action, authors drop into “telling” without realizing it. Describing ACTION by saying “John shot Bill.” is not telling. It’s action. But adding: “John felt sorry when he shot Bill,” would be telling.

See, I know. Confusing.

Here’s the bottom line: Showing is about helping the reader experience the emotions of the character. Showing brings us into the mind and heart of the character to understand their emotional journey.

Here’s how: If you say, ‘She felt grief,’ or even, and this is more common, ‘Grief overtook her’ you are not just telling us what emotion she’s feeling, but you’re pinpointing one emotion your reader must feel with the character. Instead, show us how despair makes her feel through how she acts, what she thinks, what she says and how she sees her world. Let us into your character’s head.

Telling is when you tell someone how to feel. It relates to the emotion to the story, not the narrative, backstory and action.

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Susie May on Deep POV!

By on October 28, 2013 in b. Building a Scene, How do I write the Character Change Journey?, What POV do I write in?

Are you getting ready to write NaNoWriMo and wondering just what POV or voice to write it in? Try Deep POV! I love how Deep POV gets a reader into the skin of the characters and helps them feel the story.

Here’s how it works:

Have you ever watched the television show Fear Factor? It’s a show where people are challenged to do “scary” things like eat a live spider or bungee jump, for charity. It’s supposed to elicit people’s deepest fears and make them overcome them. I watch it and think, “Never. Not even for charity.” However, do I feel my throat closing, that panic clenching my gut, my legs telling me to run? No. I just think – wow, they are idiots.

Consider, however, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. We watch with our hands over our eyes, our heart in our throats, experiencing true fear.

This is the difference between Standard 3rd person POV and Deep 3rd person POV. One watches from a distance, the other engages us in the fear.

Why write Deep POV?

A great book is made up of the emotional highs and lows of the POV characters. We want to feel what the character feels, ride their journey with them and possibly learn with them. A great story makes us ache with the character, and eventually, engage with their choices, their struggles with values and their epiphany. Think about this – what is going to glue your reader to the page more – grappling with the black moment/life-changing decisions with the character, or to view it from a distance? Deep POV is illuminating, empowering, it helps us understand the point of the story.

Think of the difference between Deep POV and Standard Third Person as the difference between watching the action from the outside, as if walking beside the character (Fear Factor) and being inside the body and mind of the character. (Psycho)

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The Writer’s Emotional Bank Account — How To Make A Deposit

By on December 13, 2012 in 1. Discover your story, Action and ReAction Scenes, Author Mistakes, How do I get started?, Rachel Hauck

Q: I just finished NaNoWriMo and now that I’ve completed my first draft, I can’t seem to settle down and focus to start the rewrite. Do you have any tips or ideas? A: Awesome question. First, congratulations on finishing your novel, or most of it for some folks. That is a huge accomplishment. NaNoWriMo is a great tool for authors because it forces us to set a goal. We are writing toward something. It also joins us with other writers and creates a bit of buzz and excitement, even a bit of competition, that keeps us going. Most goals are like that: end driven. We want to get to the end and achieve what we started out to do. But then what? So, you have 50,000 or more words on […]

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