Tension
and suspense are key to engaging a reader in your story. From the
moment a storyteller says, “Once upon a time...” we wait
suspended for the next part of the sentence. We want to know what
happens.
Action
& Pacing:
Move Your Characters, Move Your Plot
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A
story’s pacing depends on action, or lack of it. Action
is what happens. Action verbs move your story. Passive verbs
slow your story. When we say a story is fast-paced, it means
direct actions outnumber
other story elements, particularly narrative description and
exposition.
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The
Art of Suspense:
Managing the Tension Cord
The
late Gary Provost told us that tension is like a cord connecting
the writer with the reader. Too much slack and the reader will
lose interest. Too much tension and you jerk the reader out
of the story. The careful writer learns to keep the reader
involved by varying the tension while keeping the cord reasonably
taut at all times.
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Dramatizing
Conflict:
Invoke Tension on Every Page
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Repetitious
conflict presentation, like a relentless Klaxon, can be monotonous
and almost as deadly to effective storytelling as no conflict
at all. Yet with all the tools available to you, conflict does
not have to be repetitious.
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Chain
of Conflict:
Connect the Links to Keep a Reader Hooked
If
you’re writing a mystery, the primary conflict involves
solving the mystery. If you’re writing a romance, the
primary conflict is the relationship between the hero and heroine.
Many other conflicts may exist in the story, but the primary
conflict forms a unified chain, and like links in a chain,
one piece of the conflict should not end without another already
in place.
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