Standing in the dark, does your imagination run wild? Yes? Good…let it. It will serve you well. Add to that the pack of tense, fearful emotions felt at the time. Remember the experience as you’re living it. Then write it down to use it later in a story.
Tension within a story is the sense that something ominous/foreboding is around the corner. What are some ways you can create tension within your story?
Forms of Tension
Write like yourself and not like other people as they would write it. Only YOU can write the story inside of you.
When throwing the unexpected at your characters, it’s important for those characters to react in a way that’s realistic to the situation. If you don’t, the reader is going to end up rolling their eyes or pause in their reading and scratch their head in wonder, which you don’t want. You want your readers to be into your story and to keep going with it. Worse, they could put the story down and never finish reading it.
If you aren’t sure if your characters’ reactions aren’t what they should be, have someone else, like a test/beta reader, read it first before publishing it to the world. Get their feedback. It’s important.
Examples:
Unrealistic: A couple of your characters, let’s say to John and Kevin, are out hunting Big Foot, a.k.a. Sasquatch. They are walking through the forest at night then hear the snap of twigs. They stop and look around. Sasquatch jumps out in front of them and they start laughing.
Realistic: The same characters scream, when Sasquatch jumps out at them, and they run. (Be more creative with their terror besides screaming and running. But you get the idea.)
Unrealistic: One of your characters teleports for the first time in their life and they react as though they’ve been doing it all their life. (Trust me, that’s not a realistic reaction.)
Realistic: The same character teleports for the first time in their life and feels feint afterwards. (Here again, get creative with this.)
Overall, you want your readers to enjoy and take in the story you took so much time and care to write. You want them to experience it and feel it. So don’t ruin that experience for them by causing them to roll their eyes or put the book down.
It’s said that in fiction there must be a pet-the-dog moment. These are times within the story where the protagonist (main character), pets a dog (or other vulnerable creature). What this does is sympathizes your main character. At the same time, if the the pet-the-dog moment is done just right, it will add suspense to the scene or the story as a whole. I have done this with the books I’ve written/published. But…..
I like to also add some humor, kind of sprinkled here and there. What this does is show your MC has a sense of humor as well. In addition, it should also add to your scene (see example below the next paragraph).
Below is an example of humor from my new novel The Cross’s Key. My main character, Kyle Stevens, is trying to glean information from one of the other characters who is being rather difficult or evasive. He does a good job of getting what he wants, while creating humor for the reader at he same time.
Why did you not ask it that way before?”
“My other three brothers would have understood what I was asking,” Kyle spat out. “Now, answer my question. Unless you don’t know. If that’s the case, admit you’re ignorant and send me on my way.” The increase in irritation caused his abdomen to rumble. The result was a noise he hadn’t intended.
“Really, you chose now to pass wind?”
Realizing Jarron must be trying to get on his nerves, Kyle relaxed and chose not to play that game anymore. “Yes, I chose now to pass wind, and I’ll continue to do so unless you answer my question.” For a minute, no one spoke. Then, “I can do this all day,” responded Kyle with a cheesy grin.
Do you have to do this every time? No. Only when I feel the need for it. At the same time, I want my readers to get a chuckle/giggle while they’re reading. s
Below is a table of various poetic devices and their meanings. Over the past year I’ve done articles on individual ones, but here are I am putting them all together in one post. These are just some of them.
| Poetic Devices | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Assonance | Rhyming of the same vowel sounds | Leaves blew in the breeze |
| Alliteration | The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. | Sweet singing doves |
| Metaphor | This is where an object in, or the subject of, a poem is described as being the same as another otherwise unrelated object. | The sand is a warm blanket |
| Simile | A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind. It’s used to make a description more vivid. | As fast as a cheetah. |
| Personification | Giving an inanimate object human characteristics. | The moon smiled back. |
| Imagery | Used in poetry, novels, or other writing that uses vivid description that appeals to the readers’ senses. This creates an image or idea in their head. | The leaves sounded like clapping hands. |
| Allusion | An expression intended to call something to mind without mentioning it specifically. It’s a hint towards something. | Chocolate is his kryptonite. Superman is alluded to but not mentioned. |
| Hyperbole | Exaggerated statements or not meant to be taken literally | I am so hungry I could eat a whole side of beef. |
| Allegory | A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, like a moral or political moral. | Animal Farm by George Orwell is an example of an allegory. |
| Consonance | The repetition of consonant sounds within a line of text. | The boss had a loss. Molly remained jolly. |
| Repetition | The act of repeating something that has already been said. Used to create effect. | Time after time. Over and over. |
| Enjambment | The continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line of poetry to the next. | Birds fly above a dew covered grassy meadow. |
| Meter | In poetry, meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse | iambic pentameter trochaic foot anapestic foot (More on these in another post) |
What do we need for nourishment? Food. When we eat food, we feel better. Our body feels sustained. It might also depend on what you eat, but that is neither here nor there. Actually, I’m eating as I write this article (Hahaha, no really). But how do we feed our creativity when we’re trying to think of material for writing a story? I’m not talking about writer’s block. I’m talking about putting some oomph into your story, something that stands out to readers. The answer to this question will vary from individual to individual because we are all different. Below are some ideas on things you can do to wake up your creative mind.
In a story in order to determine who is speaking a piece of dialogue, tag lines are used. Notice in the following example the last two lines don’t have a tag line. That’s because one is not always needed once it’s been established who is talking. Generally, a person will do the speaking every other line. So, in this example, it is assumed that Tia is then doing the speaking in line 3 and Sarah is doing the speaking in line 4. If a tag line is added every time someone speaks, the flow of the dialogue sounds odd. BUT, every now and then, throw in a tag line so that readers can keep track of who is speaking. There’s nothing more irritating than having to go back through a long piece of dialogue in order to keep track of who is doing the speaking.
Example: “I don’t like it one bit. It won’t work,” said Tia.
“Sure it will,” replied Sarah. “Trust me.”
“That’s the problem. None of your ideas ever work.”
“They do too.”
Please keep in mind that you don’t always have to use the word ‘said’ when creating a tag line. Here are some options in the list below. There are many many more than what is here. This is just a taste.
Please note that some of the descriptive words in this table are found in more than one box. This is because they hold two different descriptive meanings.
Sometimes it’s nice to have many in one place rather than always resorting to look up single words at a time. When you are in the middle of writing a piece of fiction and you want a unique way to describe something, your mind can go blank. Here is a table to help you.
| Really Certainly Easily Genuinely Honestly Positively Precisely Truly Undoubtedly Unmistakably | Very Absolutely Acutely Decidedly Deeply Eminently Exceedingly Excessively Greatly Highly | Extremely Really Remarkably Seriously Significantly Singularly Supremely Terribly Terrifically Thoroughly | Normally Commonly Generally In general Mainly Most of the time Mostly Ordinarily Usually As a rule |
| Quickly Swiftly Rapidly Hurriedly Speedily Fast Quick Hastily Briskly At high speed | Seriously Passionately Earnestly Sincerely Vigorously Gravely All joking aside Cut the comedy Intently Resolutely | Kindly Genial Gentle Good-hearted Generous Humane Kind Mellow Merciful Pleasant | Finally Definitely Assuredly Once and for all Past regret Settled With conviction Determinately Beyond recall Lastly |
| Only Apart Individual Lone Matchless Once in a lifetime Sole Unaccompanied Unequaled Unique | Perfectly Altogether Completely Fully Quite Utterly Wholly Consummately Well Totally | Accidentally By chance Inadvertently Casually By accident Randomly Unconsciously Unintentionally Unexpectedly Unwittingly | Confused Bewildered Dazed Glassy-eyed Mixed up Not with it Addled Discombobulated Perplexed Puzzled |
How often have you read a book with great mean hidden deep within its story? I truly believe anyone can find meaning in just about anything they read. We don’t always look for it though. Why? Because we are so engrossed with what is going on in the story that we aren’t focused on what we can learn from it. In these instances I think anything learned goes straight to our unconscious mind. Now, I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist or anything, but to me it’s only common sense.
As an author, I want my readers to gain meaning from what I write. As I mentioned above, not everyone will on the surface. This doesn’t mean we don’t create meaning in our stories. After all, the stories we write have to have some kind of meaning to them in order for there to be a story. Actually, we call it Theme. Finding a theme to center your story around can be daunting at times. Seriously, you can be sitting there in front of your computer wondering what theme to use. In the meantime your story is dying to be written.
The solution is simple. Just start writing your story. The theme will develop itself or will unfold in your mind, and you will have an “A-ha!” moment. This is how I write. I know that sounds backwards, but it works for me. Once you have your theme (a meaning your story centers around), put it down on paper. Yes, literally, write it down. Then go into more detail about it. For example, how can you develop your characters around your chosen theme? In which direction can you take your story now that you have your theme? Will your settings connect to it in any way? What about dialogue? How can you use your theme to increase tension?
Continue to ask yourself these questions. Then answer each of them. Again, do this on paper, not your computer. The act of writing helps it to stick in your brain better. At least it does for me. When you feel you’ve developed your theme enough, go back to your story and continue writing. All the while, you will be using what you wrote down about your theme in various parts of your story.
When I was half way finished with my second book, I realized I didn’t have a theme. As a result, it was becoming increasingly difficult to continue with the story. Then it dawned on me what the problem was. Lack of a theme. It didn’t take me long to figure out what it should be because I knew the direction I wanted my story to go. Plus I knew my main character well. All I had to do was go back and look at his character sketch. The answer was right there. It smacked me in the face, so to speak. Without that theme, the story fell flat.
Once I found it though, I had to go back to the beginning of what I had already written and insert story elements that developed that theme. It wasn’t hard to do. It was just time consuming. But I loved every minute.
WRITE TIME AND AGAIN 