All right. You’ve read my post before on tension but I’m not sure I can stress it enough.

Tension is key!!

TENSION! TENSION! TENSION!

I’ve been doing some reading lately, amid deadline fever, and found the tension in some of the novels to be on the low side.

The stories were good. Well written. Great characters. But at some point, I found myself skipping pages because I just couldn’t wonder around inside their heads my more.

Here’s the break down of tension. It talks.

The more your characters dialog, the more likely they are to say things that make one another mad, or reveal a secret, perhaps say something embarrassing or something controversial and an argument ensues.

Dialog is the gas pedal for tension.

Have your characters say what they are thinking instead of internalizing it. Instead of delivering the story through prose.

Imagine a movie. What if the actors only delivered certain lines and the rest of the emotion was given to you in a thought bubble.

No, say it! Let the arguing begin.

Or what about those scenes where one character says, “I love you,” and the other character just makes a face and doesn’t speak.

We scream at the TV in those moments. “Say something! Tell him!”

Same goes for novels. Your characters speaking causes the emotion to rise which creates tension.

“Tell the story between the quotes.”

Let the characters talk, debate, argue.

Here’s a clip from a scene in the book I’m writing next.

“I saw your face.” SueAnn followed Taylor into her room.

“Of course you saw my face, it’s right here, the focal point of my head.” SueAnn could be such a busybody. But then again, weren’t all big sisters busybodies?

“You didn’t know Jeff died?”

“No and if you did, why didn’t you tell me?” Taylor kicked open her bedroom closet door and scanned the top shelf. The old box with pictures was the only thing she left here when she moved to DC.

“I thought Mom told you. She’s the bearer of all things bad.” SueAnn dropped to the bed, laying back. “Taylor, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Looking for a picture. Her hands trembled as she filtered through the mishmash.

SueAnn reached in for one of the pictures. “Looking for Jeff. Do you still love him?”

“No. He’s dead remember?”

“You know what I think?”

“Do you ever have a thought you keep to yourself, SueAnn? I don’t love Jeff.” But the tears on her cheeks said otherwise. “I just wished I’d known.” She pulled out the picture of them by the lake, senior year, as a tear slipped from the bottom of her chin.

***

Tension! The sister’s talking created tension. If I didn’t have have SueAnn in the scene with Taylor and told the reader Jeff died internally with Taylor, it would have been telling and boring.

Here’s the other nugget to great tensions. DROP THE BOMBS!

I’m going to keep writing about this until I’ve changed the writing world.

Or until I’ve changed myself. I’m still working on this concept too!

Don’t delay news or a plot point as a way to draw out the story.

Go ahead, let the world know your hero is in love with a woman who just announced her engagement.

Let the world know your hero is a prince who can’t marry the woman he loves.

And use dialog to deliver the one-two punch.

The more story you tell inside the characters’s heads, the more you soften the tension. Even in first person, you need those secondary characters to talk to your protagonist. To deliver the story.

So if you can’t remember anything about scene tension, remember this:

“Tell the story between the quotes.”

“Drop the bombs.”

Go write something brilliant!