If the answer is yes, congratulations!!!
If you are not one already, you are all set to be the next breakout novelist.
If not, however, this post is for you….
In the course of the current project I’m working on, one of the best tips came from renowned literary agent, Donald Maass, who says in his “Writing the Breakout Novel”:
“Without doubt the most common flaw I see in manuscripts from beginners and mid-career novelists alike is the failure to invest every page of a novel with tension. Low tension equals low interest. High tension equals high interest. The ratio is mathematic, the result positive…”
In short, you need to keep the reader hooked throughout. This will bring you an agent/ publication/ sales. That does not necessarily mean cliff-hangers on every page (though that works for some people)!
So what works? Other than the obvious advice on “making your character suffer” and “how can things get worse?”, here are a few things Maass has to offer:
No low tension scenes: Axiomatic, this one, but all of us have such scenes in our first drafts. The protagonist should not be caught mulling over things or summarizing them in the shower/with a cup of coffee/ while driving/ (fill your scene of choice here). Unless, of course, there is an interior monologue that introduces some sort of conflict.
So, sequential narratives are out–no factual descriptions of a character’s routine from dawn to dusk, except cases where he or she is being followed by a hired killer staking them out!
Use premises with inherent tension and gut emotional appeal: If your hero turns out to be the anti-hero, or if your heroine is trying to hide her child from his father fearing abuse or kidnap, to use a few cliché examples, the story has inherent possibilities of tension. Take it to an original level, and you have a tension churner.
Include conflict, however under the surface, or small: It could be a daughter who is not letting on to her mother that she feels hurt, or the heroine failing to hail a taxi–each of your pages ought to be the playground of two forces/attitudes/desires/ opinions/ clashing against each other, with drama or without.
Give your character high human worth, then test it: Sometimes it works to put a character’s morals in danger instead of her life. If you build up the character’s moral stance on a subject and then challenge it, you can raise the stakes and retain tension over a range of pages.
So the next time you are revising your novel, check each page for tension quotient. If a page scores 2 on a scale of 1 to 10, it is time to rethink the scene/ episode/ dialogue/ description, and introduce tension into the equation.
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10 Comments so far
Leave a comment
it’s amazing how much there is to writing!!
just when ya think you’ve got it all down, there’s more to think about
this post is fabulous and extremely helpful!
i’m going to take a look at my pages, and see what i can change. i definitely don’t want readers putting the book down!!
great tips =)
thanks so much!!!
[Reply]
By Eden on 06.15.09 10:17 am | Permalink
Great post darlin’. As always.
I am learning to do this. I try, even in rough first draft to have some sort of tension building conflict on each page. And I love tension in books.
[Reply]
By Sarah on 06.15.09 12:27 pm | Permalink
This is so perfect for me to work on editing in today! I am totally gonna do it! LOVE it girl!
[Reply]
By Jamie Harrington on 06.15.09 1:20 pm | Permalink
I really like the term ‘tension quotient‘! Donald Maass‘ advice is great, and I’ve learned something very valuable from reading this post.
I am constantly impressed with your generosity Damyanti through sharing so much writing technique wisdom with all and sundry; thank you to bits.
[Reply]
By Payton L. Inkletter on 06.15.09 1:47 pm | Permalink
Sorry, I completely disagree with this. “Tension on every page” is the hack-writer’s excuse for not having a real plot, with good characterisation and steady progress. I can think of plenty of excellent authors on my bookshelf who do NOT have tension on every page. Instead, they know how to work the reader’s emotions, bringing them from tension, to ease, to tension again and again, building to a satisfying conclusion.
[Reply]
By Merrilee Faber on 06.15.09 7:53 pm | Permalink
Merrilee, I’m afraid you haven’t read the entire post.
It is not about a “hack-writer’s” formula of “cliffhangers on every page.”
It is more of tension being maintained to some degree, through characterization, conflict with a moral stance, inherent plot equations and so on, with or without drama.
Sure you can write pages with no tension at all in them, the reader will just skip those pages.
Too many of those pages, and the reader will skip the entire book.
Go back to those excellent authors on your bookshelf. If you look at them again, in every successful novel there will be a certain degree of conflict and tension throughout, even in paragraphs of setting and description.(At least if those are modern authors–Victorian authors are a different story altogether)
On a tension scale of 1 to 10, the tension rarely hits 10, maybe it does so about twice in the book. There can be an occasional page with a quotient of 2 or 3, but too many pages like that and you would lose your reader.
Even a stream of consciousness book like “To the Lighthouse” by Woolf, has certain internal tension throughout.
[Reply]
By damyanti on 06.15.09 8:09 pm | Permalink
I was about to say that D.
Tension can manifest itself in many ways and in varying degrees. It does not have to be biting the fingernails scary. But the emotion, the conflict, the yay things are working out and then crap, now they’re falling apart, those things must be present.
Even when they work out, if you get your happily ever after, there’s usually something there that puts off heat and strong emotion. Even if it’s just a promise of where the story could go.
[Reply]
By Sarah on 06.15.09 10:24 pm | Permalink
Great post! Hope I can work on this–I’ll definitely keep it in mind while working!
[Reply]
By Liz on 06.17.09 4:37 pm | Permalink
Great post – like always. I’ve actually been thinking a lot about tension lately and how I can interject more of it. This will certainly help.
[Reply]
By Joyce on 06.17.09 8:47 pm | Permalink
Great article, again. These informations are especially useful …
[Reply]
By maple story mesos on 07.08.09 2:54 am | Permalink
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