Hubby made a great observation the other day. We were watching a BBC program, Mr. Selfred, about an American who opened the world’s largest department store in 1908 London.

Selfred was a real person, and a real character, so the show fascinated me.

One of the character threads is of a shop girl, a lovely young woman and a not-sure-what-to-think-about-him waiter.

When he finally wins her over, we’re happy but there’s this sense of pending doom. Something is going to go wrong.

We’ve also been watching the TV show Nashville on iTunes. It’s a night time soap opera set around country music.

Hubby and I make a game of “calling it.” What’s going to go wrong, when and how.

It’s almost NOT fun to watch TV shows where you know, just know, someone is going to do something stupid to mess up a budding romance or promising job.

Husband hates it. He doesn’t want to watch people be so stupid.

I get why the TV show writers do this… to drag the viewers along. To create a “Oh no, what’s going to happen?” curiosity.

In television, the writing goes from episode to episode and the writing is “episodic.”

Meaning from week to week, the tension and threads change to fit that show while carrying story threads forward.

For example, twenty years after they first toured together, country great Rayna James and Luke Wheeler get together. They’ve been married to other people and have children.

But yet, when Luke learns Rayna’s oldest child is not her ex husbands but her long time love interest, songwriter Deacon Claiborne, Luke gets mad! And walks out!

Huh? Why? Because 20 years ago he like Rayna too but all she talked about was Deacon. And he’s still jealous?

Really? Do we buy it?

It’s hard to buy. That kind of tension feels trumped up and faux.

So, what is the point of tension? To create a taunt thread in the story that keeps the reader or viewer tuning in.

How do we keep the tension real in our novels?

Not by immature emotions or reactions. Not by the ex boyfriend showing up out of the blue. Not by the child she gave up for adoption ringing her doorbell.

Real tension supports the underlying thread of the story.

So you have to set your story up well in order for the tension to carry.

Susie is working on the third Christiansen story. The hero and heroine love each other but there’s a lot of water under the bridge. When they find themselves back in the same town of Deep Haven, and running into each other, what keeps them from rekindling their love?

She had the hero’s brother’s child!

Wow! That’s enough to keep two people apart.

See, the underlying tension exist through out the story so you don’t need cheap tricks or shallow emotional motivation to build tension.

Every time Rayna and Casper are on the page together the tension of “she had my brother’s baby” lives on the page.

This fact feeds into their valid fears and insecurities. Which we see throughout the story.

The fact that Casper and his brother Owen have had issues for years.

The fact that Rayna doesn’t feel worthy. Never felt worthy based on her past.

See, now we buy why these two keep dancing around each other. But yet when Rayna and Casper are together, we see the budding romance and we pull for them.

This is why we talk a lot here at My Book Therapy about the dark wound, lie and fear and building a real character and back story before even starting the book.

You’ll still have plenty of discovering to do once you start writing.

In Once Upon A Prince, Susanna couldn’t be with Nathaniel because of his royal status and an old marriage law in his country. So I could build their romance for the reader to enjoy all the while had this underlying tension of “he can’t be with her.”

Same thing with Princes Ever After. Tanner almost loved Regina the moment he saw her but he was chained by his past mistakes and couldn’t love her.

But whenever they were on the page together, I was free to develop their love and their friendship all the while dangling this “past discretion” over the scene as a source of tension.

And really, was Regina going to stay in Hessenberg to be their princess? She kept saying she wasn’t.

Underlying tension. Real tension.

The point of tension is to draw the reader along but true tension is at the very core of the story. Legitimate reasons why your characters can’t be together.

Not misunderstanding. Not out of the blue events like a love child showing up on the doorstep.

Real reasons that last through the story and are healed and resolved in the end.

How do you build this tension? From the beginning.

1. Develop the tension as part of the story. In a recent novella I wrote, the heroine is a beautician who cannot see her own beauty due to a burn scare. The hero is the son of a fallen preacher. However, it was the heroine’s mother who caused the father’s demise. Yet the hero overlooks this to see the true beauty in the heroine and forces her to see it for herself. See? Tension.

2. Avoid cheap shots like phone calls from obscure characters. Misunderstanding. “If you’d just told me you didn’t want to call me, I’d have understood.” Instead, you have the hero NOT tell her he didn’t want to call her because he thought she liked someone else and the reader is subject to five chapter of faux tension that could’ve been solved with a simple question.

3. Drop the bombs.You’ve heard us talk about this before but don’t drag out the story wanting for a certain point to drop your big story bomb or reveal. If you find the heroine needs to tell the hero she was once engaged to his bother by the middle of the book, do it. Even if you meant it to be the black moment, go ahead and “drop the bomb” in the middle and see how it open s up the story. Follow the shrapnel.

4. Create secondary characters who cause issues and tension for the protagonists. In Love Starts With Elle, Elle’s sister Julianne creates mystery and tension for Elle when the father of Julianne’s baby is discovered to be a friend of their father’s!

5. Use the “wants” to create tension. She wants the fashion design job but he wants her to marry him and move to a ranch in Nowhere, Texas. He promised himself he’d finish his degree before settling down but she can’t wait. His job requires him to travel. Her job demands 60 hours a week. The obligation to tend to sick or needy family members and friends. She wants to heal her relationship with her mother. He wants his dad’s approval. These all create valid tension that can be threaded through the book.

Study good tension in the books you love. And Happy Writing.

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Best-selling, award-winning author Rachel Hauck loves a great story. She excels in seeing the deeper layers of a story.

With a love for teaching and mentoring, Rachel comes alongside writers to help them craft their novel. A worship leader, board member of ACFW and popular writing teacher, Rachel is the author of over 17 novels. She lives in Florida with her husband and  dog.

Contact her at: Rachel@mybooktherapy.com. Pre order her next release, Princess Ever After, book two in the Royal Wedding Series.

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