Writing Tidbits #4

Tension

Several elements must be present in a story to effectively create tension:

First, something needs to be restricted: the character's knowledge (e.g. who is the killer, where my stalker, what made that sound in the brush, etc.), the amount of time to complete a task (e.g. this task has always taken me ten minutes, but now I only have 4 minutes!), freedom of movement (e.g. the killer is on this island, but there is no way off!), etc.

Second, a character needs to be realistically worried. If the characters aren't concerned or the concerns don't seem valid, then the reader will see no need to worry for them. If a character isn't concerned and the danger does hit, then, at the very least, the reader will think the character a fool for knowing there was danger and not taking any precautions.

The reader will probably be angry at the author if she implies that the reader doesn't need to worry and then kills a character they care about off.

Third, the reader needs to care about what happens to the character. If the reader doesn't like the character, then they might actually feel pleasure rather than fear when the character is in danger.

Tension also needs to build over several sentences, if not longer. If the twig snaps in one sentence and the deer dashes past in the next, then the reader barely has time to register he should be concerned by the time he realizes there was no real danger. The further ahead of time you can foreshadow danger and steadily build the worry, the greater the payoff when the danger does happen. Don't spend a lot of time foreshadowing a danger that isn't real, though.


For example, a woman gets in a car with a male friend, apologizes for the wet umbrella, and comments on the bad storm. There is dialogue between the two, some of it establishing that the man thinks the woman rather timid. Then the car skids a bit on a turn. The woman suggests putting the trip off, but the driver is confident of his car and his driving ability and wants to get this trip done. An argument happens about something else, and perhaps woman is so frightened of the storm that she swears never to let the driver take her anywhere again. Then they come to an old wooden bridge. The brown, fast-flowing water is swirling around the bridge supports only a foot below the surface of the bridge...

The reader will feel cheated if these two drive over the bridge without a problem and arrive without further trouble at their destination. If the car stalls on the bridge, the bridge shakes, but they just manage to get off the bridge safely, the pay-off will be there since the danger was realized. It also works if the bridge collapses while they're on it or right before they edge out onto it.

Also note that the scene wouldn't be nearly as tense if the storm had been mentioned only once, the characters had a pleasant discussion with no concern for the weather, and then suddenly the two were faced with the dangerous bridge.

Writing Tidbits #3

Telling, Showing, Implying

If the information is vital for understanding the story, then outright state it. ("She feared dogs.")

If the information is important but not vital, then show it in a scene. (Have a scene where the heroine screams and runs away when she sees a dog.)

If the information adds to the story but isn't important, then imply it. (When the stablegirl and prince are out walking, she notices they will pass close to the kennel, so she diverts their route towards the gardens.)

Writing Tidbits #2

Tension v.s. Surprise

Don't go for surprise over suspense/tension. If you are withholding information to create a surprise later, but it decreases the suspense up to that point in the story, then stop withholding information. Suspense always trumps surprise because suspense is what makes the reader continue reading to the end.

Likewise, twists in the story should never be surprising even if they are unexpected.

Writing Tidbits #1

"Writing Tidbits" are, in part, to remind me of important writing lessons I've learned. You may find I've sometimes overlooked applying them in my stories, but that's partly because those things don't come naturally to me. I'm writing these Tidbits on this blog in the hopes they may help other writers.

Increasing Tension

If a scene has potential danger, increase the tension for the characters by making them react as if the danger is present (even if you, as the author, know that they don't need to be afraid of the outcome). Don't overlook any opportunity to keep some level of tension in the story. Even if the character is oblivious to the danger, the reader needs to know that the danger is present.

Creating Interesting Characters

On DeepGenre, David Louis Edelman wrote an article on Building Character(s). In the comments section, Sherwood Smith said something I found very useful about creating interesting characters:

...A couple more possible additions to your list:

1) Character emotional range. If the character is always gloomy, always sarcastic, always with the wise-ass quip, or always nasty, even if he or she has all the motivation in the universe, that character is going to read one-dimensional because we all know we’re a bundle of (usually contradictory) emotional reactions. The hard-assed villain at a light or even tender moment, the hero being off-balance, the side-kick having the cool head, you get the idea, giving characters range helps because:

2) The perception of lack of dimension (I think) comes through readers’ expectations being fulfilled. If the reader can guess ahead of time how a character will react, even if there is every logical reason for the character to do or say that thing, then there’s no growth or guesswork. When the character takes the reader by surprise, I think it ups the ante, the possible interest.

Some Things Change, Others Never Do

The New York Review of Books (Volume 55, Number 10, June 12, 2008) contains a very interesting article. "The Library in the New Age" by Robert Darnton talks about books and newspapers, how things have and haven't changed, and why printed books will be with use for a long time. I'd encourage people to read the whole article, but the following is an except to whet your curiosity:

Having learned to write news, I now distrust newspapers as a source of information, and I am often surprised by historians who take them as primary sources for knowing what really happened. I think newspapers should be read for information about how contemporaries construed events, rather than for reliable knowledge of events themselves. A study of news during the American Revolution by a graduate student of mine, Will Slauter, provides an example. Will followed accounts of Washington's defeat at the Battle of Brandywine as it was refracted in the American and European press. In the eighteenth century, news normally took the form of isolated paragraphs rather than "stories" as we know them now, and newspapers lifted most of their paragraphs from each other, adding new material picked up from gossips in coffeehouses or ship captains returning from voyages. A loyalist New York newspaper printed the first news of Brandywine with a letter from Washington informing Congress that he had been forced to retreat before the British forces under General William Howe. A copy of the paper traveled by ship, passing from New York to Halifax, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, where the paragraph and the letter were reprinted in a local newspaper.

The Edinburgh reprints were then reprinted in several London papers, each time undergoing subtle changes. The changes were important, because speculators were betting huge sums on the course of the American war, while bears were battling bulls on the Stock Exchange, and the government was about to present a budget to Parliament, where the pro-American opposition was threatening to overthrow the ministry of Lord North. At a distance of three thousand miles and four to six weeks of travel by ship, events in America were crucial for the resolution of this financial and political crisis.

What had actually happened? Londoners had learned to mistrust their newspapers, which frequently distorted the news as they lifted paragraphs from each other. That the original paragraph came from a loyalist American paper made it suspect to the reading public. Its roundabout route made it look even more doubtful, for why would Washington announce his own defeat, while Howe had not yet claimed victory in a dispatch sent directly from Philadelphia, near the scene of the action? Moreover, some reports noted that Lafayette had been wounded in the battle, an impossibility to British readers, who believed (wrongly from earlier, inaccurate reports) that Lafa-yette was far away from Brandywine, fighting against General John Burgoyne near Canada.

Finally, close readings of Washington's letter revealed stylistic touches that could not have come from the pen of a general. One—the use of "arraying" instead of "arranging" troops— later turned out to be a typographical error. Many Londoners therefore concluded that the report was a fraud, designed to promote the interests of the bull speculators and the Tory politicians—all the more so as the press coverage became increasingly inflated through the process of plagiarism. Some London papers claimed that the minor defeat had been a major catastrophe for the Americans, one that had ended with the annihilation of the rebel army and the death of Washington himself. (In fact, he was reported dead four times during the coverage of the war, and the London press declared Benedict Arnold dead twenty-six times.)

Le Courrier de l'Europe, a French newspaper produced in London, printed a translated digest of the English reports with a note warning that they probably were false. This version of the event passed through a dozen French papers produced in the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Switzerland, and France itself. By the time it arrived in Versailles, the news of Washington's defeat had been completely discounted. The comte de Vergennes, France's foreign minister, therefore continued to favor military intervention on the side of the Americans. And in London, when Howe's report of his victory finally arrived after a long delay (he had unaccountably neglected to write for two weeks), it was eclipsed by the more spectacular news of Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga. So the defeat at Brandywine turned into a case of miswritten and misread news—a media non-event whose meaning was determined by the process of its transmission...

Description and Title for My First Novel

I've been trying to write a "back cover summary" description for my first novel to use when friends ask, "what's it about?"

Here's my attempt:

Rica grew up at a strict military school in an isolated village. She's been trained to obey orders without hesitation and knows little of the world beyond the school except what she's been taught. Her teacher doesn't believe she has what it takes to become an officer, so she's about to start her life as a mercenary when a heavenly being appears. He indicates that she's the new queen of the kingdom of Norida by decree of the kingdom's god.

Norida's high ministers have ruled for twelve years, since the death of the last king. Rica tries to learn her new duties and what powers she holds as Queen, but her High Ministers are more interested in manipulating her into doing as they wish than in educating or obeying her. But she's too stubborn to let that stop her.

When two assassins attack her, Rica realizes that her ministers and perhaps her own guards want her dead. Now she has to discover who her enemies are and bring them to justice while hunted by the very people who should be protecting her.

I've been calling this novel Queen's Justice for some time now, but I'm changing the title to Justice Rising. It hardly matters, though, since any publisher who buys this novel will probably change the title to something else.