Tension is a question persevering
How to keep your reader turning pages
I originally published this post about a year ago, and I thought it was worth revisiting! In a future post, I’ll also share some new content about developing tension in a scene.
Before I originally published this post, I wrote several others about the ingredients that create forward momentum or “pace” in a novel. There are multiple elements that contribute to this:
Do actions in your story have consequences? (Cause-and-effect trajectory)
Do the scenes in your story serve a purpose for the internal and external stories of your character? Do things change in every scene?
Additional components include tension (which I’ll talk about today) and agency (which I wrote about here.)
What is tension?
At its most basic, narrative tension is the curiosity that results from an unanswered question. It compels your reader to keep turning the page.
Cause-and-effect trajectory is a story fundamental that you probably want to think about while outlining and drafting. But tension, much like pacing, is a subtler instrument, one you can use to enhance your writing once your story fundamentals are in place.
Create Questions
If narrative tension comes from unanswered questions, then it logically follows that to create tension, your story needs to get your reader to ask questions.
Tension can come from big questions that span the whole book (Will Katniss Everdeen survive the Hunger Games?) And also from a series of smaller questions unspooled throughout the novel. (Will Katniss find water? Will Katniss convince sponsors to buy medicine for Peeta?) They are the kind of questions that an old school television/ radio narrator asked at the end of an episode to get the audience to “tune in next week.”
You don’t have that old timey narrator, and frankly, you don’t need him. Your reader will ask those questions themselves if you:
Give your hero clear goals.
Establish what’s at stake.
Show your reader reasons to care about your hero.
Going back to The Hunger Games example, we know Katniss wants to win the Hunger Games (goal) not only because she’ll die if she doesn’t (stakes), but also because she knows there will be no one to take care of Prim if she dies, and Katniss loves Prim more than she loves anything (deeper stakes). We also know before Katniss enters the arena that the odds are stacked against her: She’ll face 23 other tributes, many of them better fed and trained than her, some of whom she doesn’t want to fight (like Rue and Peeta). She’ll need food, water, and weapons. She doesn’t know what kind of environment she’ll be up against. She’ll probably need allies and sponsors to survive, but she isn’t very likeable and doesn’t want help (obstacles).
Wait a second, you might be thinking. I thought we were supposed to care about the hero. What do you mean Katniss isn’t likeable? Frankly, she isn’t. She is taciturn, cold, suspicious, and calculating. Most people in Katniss’ world don’t like her or understand her. Probably, most of us wouldn’t enjoy Katniss’ company very much. Yet, the reader cares about her right away because we see someone who takes care of others, who has a tender heart, who is fiercely competent, and brave.
Because Suzanne Collins quickly establishes a goal, stakes, obstacles, and a hero readers care about, we are compelled to know if Katniss will survive.
Dole Out Answers Judiciously
Getting your reader to ask questions is a great way to create tension. One of the tricky things about tension is that you need to relieve pressure along the way to reward your reader’s efforts and keep them from getting frustrated.
The Maze Runner has excellent tension. Dashner introduces So. Many. Questions.
He provides very few answers.
This kept me turning pages quickly and got me to pick up the sequel.
But, within a few chapters of the sequel, none of my questions had been answered. I had all the same questions I had on page 1 of book 1. Frustrated, I stopped reading and never finished the series.
So yes, you create tension by getting your reader to ask questions, but you should also periodically answer those questions to keep your reader from giving up. Each answer gives the reader a little dopamine hit – a reward for reading.
Don’t be afraid to hand these out! These too will keep your reader turning pages, in search of the next rush.
Of course, you don’t want to satisfy too many questions at once. You need to relieve tension without fulling deflating it. You can do this by:
Answering questions in a way that creates more questions. (Jennifer Lynn Barnes deploys this technique masterfully in The Inheritance Games.)
Answer a question and then quickly raise the stakes or create a new obstacle.
Plant character expectations of future events to create reader anticipation.
Next week, I’ll share some examples of how you do that, as well as some other tips for developing tension.
(See what I did there?)