Hello, writers. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to draw your attention to this genuine, official government photo of a four-headed grebe.
This means the End Times, I'm pretty sure.
My first thought was “How will they learn to swim” and my second thought was “Best way to protect them from pikes I guess”. Which latter brings us to tonight's topic... tense scenes.
When you're writing a tense or suspenseful scene, you want to keep the tension. Build it. Don't let it fall off. Don't cut it. Here are a few ways writers can inadvertently undercut their own tension:
Telegraphing the end of the scene at the beginning.
In early drafts, you might have a telegraph-statement near the beginning of a scene, like:
“At first we thought the boat was going to sink.”
or
“It took us an hour to put out the fire.”
or
“We only got back to camp after many hours of creeping through enemy territory in the dark. If we'd listened to Walters, we wouldn't have gotten back at all.”
Giveaway lines like the above are fine for a draft, when you're still telling the story to yourself. But you want them gone from the final version. They remove any suspense from the scene in which the boat nearly sinks, the fire nearly doesn't get put out, and the soldiers nearly don't return alive, because we're told at the beginning of the scene that those bad things will not happen.
Interrupting the scene with distractions.
When you're building tension... when something is very wrong... when the chorrada is seriously hitting the fan...
...is not the time to distract your reader. It's not a good place for info dumps, puns, humor (unless the humor builds the tension), backstory, descriptions (except of action, threat, or, perhaps very briefly, some symbol you've been building), history, flashbacks...
...or anything else, really. You want every line to feed the tension.
Making it unclear just what the source of tension is or how the viewpoint character feels.
There are two things that need to be very clear to the reader.
1. What's the issue?
There's usually just one point at question in a tense scene. It might be “Does Bridget really love him?” or “Will Annabelle get to the sniper in the tower before the sniper opens fire?” Whatever it is, the reader should know. Which means you usually need to state it clearly at least once.
2. How does the viewpoint character feel?
Here I'm reminded of a scene that a beginning writer once showed me and asked my opinion of. I said some positive stuff and then mentioned that the tension could stand to be built up a bit. “You mean aside from the fact that she's terrified?” said the writer, rather miffed.
I looked at the scene again, and I still couldn't tell that the viewpoint character was terrified. Or even mildly discomfited. There was no mention of her feelings, or evidence of her feelings-- no thoughts or movements that could suggest fear to the reader. It was subtle, see. The reader was supposed to extrapolate it.
Don't be subtle and don't expect the reader to extrapolate. Make the character's feelings clear. That will add to the tension.
Letting relief arrive too soon.
Once you've started building tension, milk it for all it's worth. Don't let it end too soon. If the protag's not sure Brenda loves him, give him plenty of time and evidence to suspect otherwise before he finds out the truth. Let the boat nearly capsize and the waves crash over the gunwales before the storm finally passes. Don't let the soldiers get back to camp without at least one very close call.
You don't want to do this with every scene in the story. You'd exhaust the reader and yourself. But for the big scenes... you want to make sure the readers are getting their money's worth.
Tonight's Challenge:
It's been a while since we last visited scenic Togwogmagog. If you've never been there before, don't worry. It's pretty simple:
A callow youth and his/her stout companion must recover the lost Jewel of Togwogmagog in order to save the realm.
At this point in the story:
They're in a long, twisting underground passage, at the end of which they can see an ironbound door. The not-always-reliable always-offstage Froop has told them the Jewel lies beyond the door, and he's given them a key he's not entirely sure will open it.
He's also told him the underground passage is patrolled by a terrifying creature.
Then they hear a loud snuffling behind them.
Take it from there. Try to limit yourself to 150 words.
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