Will the Ship Sink? Creating Tension

I know a writing book showed me a way to create tension but I can’t remember which one. But I pass the tip on anyway. To wit: every scene in a novel has to end with a question whose answer might imperil or impede the hero’s success (my definition). Doesn’t have to be a big question or an astounding solution. Just has to be one. This unknown writing book author’s capsule phrase was will the ship sink?

An example

You can do a story and not have any tension. Consider this.

Your heroine is climbing a mountain with progressively more challenging ascents.

First slope: No problem. She is enjoying herself.

Second: Also no problem although it is much steeper than the first.

Third: Almost loses her balance but recovers and continues upward.

Fourth: She makes it to the top

Honestly, it’s a story—I’m not saying a good one—but things happen and she achieves her goal. Soooo boring.

Will the ship sink?

Let’s do this again, introducing a little tension. I am keeping the original ending.

First slope: She enjoys it for the first twenty minutes. But is getting winded. The second ascent will be much steeper.

Can she climb the next section?

No: She goes back, humiliation, etc.

Yes: She gathers strength and presses on

Second: Her legs are tired and starting to shake. She tries to use her handpick for purchase but can’t break through the rock.

Will she collapse?

No: She gets a toe-hold in a crevice and catches her breath

Yes: She can’t move

Third: She crawls to the base of the third slope. She forces herself to stand. And feels herself going over backwards.

Will she fall?

No: A boulder stops her fall. She gets back on the trail

Yes: She tumbles down to the bottom of the slope

Fourth: She makes it to the top

It retards the action to pars each scene as I’ve done but I hope it shows that adding a question (however unspoken) heightens the tension for the reader and therefore the impetus to keep reading.

Tips for tension

Every scene

We of course want tension as the climax builds to the end of your novel, but at the end of each scene is also helpful. Not always possible to do, admittedly. But probably more possible than you might think.

At the end of the scene

In the original example, the path gets steeper and she almost loses her balance. These could will-the-ship-sink moments but are resolved within the scene. So they don’t impel the reader forward.

More possibilities

Building in tension can open up the story. What happens if she can’t ascend the first slope? Different story but interesting possibility. Does she go home, defeated? Or does she vow to train and come back?

Negative outcomes create more tension

Generally speaking, the story is more exciting if each scene has a negative outcome for the protagonist. More tension. More pulling of the reader along. It can also take you into unexpected territory, not where you expected to go with the story. And that can be fun for you.

So, will the ship sink?

September 4, 2020June 5, 2020

The Difficult Middle

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a famous Harvard management guru. She wrote:

A basic truth of management—if not of life—is that nearly everything looks like a failure in the middle…persistent, consistent execution is unglamourous, time-consuming and sometimes boring.

In my last post, I’m Stuck, I recommended getting out of being stuck by creating a list of tasks (less description, more tragic heroine, more atmosphere, etc.) to fix the problems with your novel. It is probably a daunting catalogue. Like the swimmer in the picture, it doesn’t look as if you will ever reach land.

That’s where Rosabeth comes in.

Recognizing the difficult middle

It will be worth it when you succeed. Take that as your mantra. Having said that, it is also true that the road to nirvana will have some tough patches. This is one. You are far enough in to know the outline of the story but not far enough along to identify its true shape. You have already invested an enormous amount of time and effort and you’re not sure whether it’s worth it. But instead of doing the artist thing of throwing your hands up and the manuscript out the door, just accept that this is the difficult middle. It’s not a comment on the quality of your writing. It is just the difficult middle that all worthwhile projects have to go through. You have reached yours.

Getting through

What I am going to suggest is pretty mechanical but it can get you home.

Step 1. Elaborate on your list.

For each of the items, flesh it out a bit. How could you do it? What scene would illustrate it? Could I stick a bit in an earlier scene to accomplish this? Any main points that I want to make sure I include?
If at any point in doing this, you get excited about the possibilities and have to urge to write the scene, do it. No need to finish your broccoli before you get dessert.
But do eventually eat your broccoli and finish the list—again stopping to write if/whenever the spirit moves.
If you don’t have the skill/knowledge to accomplish a particular item, identify who to ask for help. Skill/knowledge is not the same as talent. You can have oodles of the latter and still need to learn the tricks of the trade.

Step 2. Prioritize

With your annotated list, re-order it. Not in order of what is most important for the novel or the hardest, but with the ones you are most interested in.
Work through from the most motivating to the least.

Step 3. Dump

Sometime as you are working your way out of the difficult middle, stop to ask yourself, do I really need this scene?
Often, especially near the end of the list but it can happen at any time, you realize that the passage is unnecessary because:
- You’ve made the point elsewhere
- You can tweak an already written piece to include what you want
- The reader already knows this
- You can just stop the last scene and open on the new one. You don’t need the transition scene. Like getting the protagonist from home to downtown.
Dump these. Not only will it give you a thrill but it will get you home that much faster.

Accepting that there is a middle, that it is difficult, and that has nothing to do with your talent or creativity will help you get through to The Promised Land.

August 28, 2020June 5, 2020

I’m Stuck

One thing writers are unfailingly good at—finding reasons not to write. Whether it’s lack of time, fear of hurting someone, being convinced every word is junk, blanking, experiencing writer’s block—you name it, we can come up with it. And here is another variant: you are writing but are stuck. That is, you faithfully put bum in chair but the results are discouraging.

Varieties of being stuck

This one even comes in variants on the theme.

The story isn’t going anywhere. You know where you want to take the plot but your writing feels meandering and worthless. You can’t seem to make it as exciting and involving as it should be.

What I’m doing isn’t working. You want to put across a feeling, an action, a meaning and what you’re doing isn’t cutting it. Maybe you don’t have the skill?

The next scene turns out flat and boring. Your mind is numbing just in reading the scene over. You need this incident to move the plot forward but you’re sure the reader will toss the book at this point. If you can’t stand it, how can your reader?

Thoughts of junking the whole thing are raising their ugly heads.

Remedy to being stuck

First of all, you know, this can be a form of writer’s block, so reread that post and see if any of the suggestions feel right.

Luckily, although there are a variety of ways of being stuck, there is a remedy which can help all forms.

Choose something exciting to write.

Might be a later part of the novel which will be fun to write. Might be an action scene just to see if it works for your characters. Whatever it is, pick something which will entertain you.

Then write it. Fully engage your right brain. Suppress or ignore any demons lurking and go for it. Don’t stop until you have either finished the scene or gotten back your mojo.

This often works for me because it forcibly reminds me why I love to write. It has the added advantage of taking you away from drudging on with a tedious but necessary scene or even one which, in the edit, you decide you don’t need.

Bad news—sometimes you’re stuck for good reason

The remedy suggested usually works but sometimes you are stuck because the novel really isn’t working. But don’t throw in the towel immediately.

I know that you feel that it isn’t working, but feelings can be unreliable companions. Great for writing, not so good for analysis. You need to let your left brain kick in. Write down where the problems are specifically. Might be too much background, too little, too much build-up, not enough, etc. Actually write them down. If you just think them, the feelings may take over the exercise.

With the list, decide how to fix the issues, including getting help for techniques or approaches you don’t know how to do.

Look over list and remedies. If you did that, would the novel start working for you? Now, this is different from this is a lot of work. It undoubtedly will be. I’ll address that in the next post. Right now, stick to would it be good with the fixes?

August 14, 2020June 5, 2020

The Mystery Novel Versus the Character Novel

Whether it be romance, mystery, fantasy, or character-driven fiction, getting feedback on your writing from those who are also in the same genre, can be useful. They understand the conventions of that genre. A friend once wanted me to read his murder mystery novel. I did my level best to get out of it because I knew that even though I would try not to, I would tend to use the rules of thumb I use in my own writing.

This post discusses the differences between writing a murder mystery and a character-driven novel. (At least from my point of view—there are lots of books on writing for your genre.)

The mystery novel

The plot is all and a very standard one at that. The required components of a mystery:

Murder
Suspects
Detective
Identification of murderer

Now, as you know, good mystery writers can weave their way around this formula to make entertaining fiction. But if you remove any of these elements, it’s not a murder mystery (or an unsatisfying one if the murderer isn’t identified).

The characters

The characters are in the service of the story. So you’ll always have a detective of some kind and also usually a sidekick (think Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes, Hastings to Hercule Poirot) to whom she can confide her amazing conclusions. There have to be at least two and maybe more people with motives to kill the victim.

Given this relatively rigid structure, character sometimes gets subordinated to plot so that characters get pushed around to show up at the right place and time so that the next step of the mystery can unfold.

Character-driven fiction

The characters

Character-driven narratives tend to take a character and let it roam where it may. Unless the deviation is explained, characters’ actions and thoughts usually need to be consistent with the personality given.

Typically, at least the main protagonist has to grow or change in some way before the end of the novel. He has to be different in some way at the end compared to who he was at the beginning.

The plot

The plot to some extent gets its shape from the needs of the character. So asking questions like Is the protagonist credible? is much more important for a character-driven novel than a mystery. If the main character isn’t credible, then the plot which unfolds is likely also to be incredible.

Character driven novels might not have endings which tie everything up and still be satisfying but mystery novels must get to the who dun it.

So, this is just an example of how different genres have different conventions which you violate at your peril. You need to understand the particular requirements of your genre to satisfy the readers of that type of fiction.

August 7, 2020June 5, 2020

Should You Turn Your Idea into a Novel?

Usually, new writers gravitate to short stories to try out their wings, so to speak. However, the short story is an art form with quite a different set of expectations from the novel. So, if you are contemplating writing a novel, you might want to reflect on the following points. They are not about the novel form, but considerations before making the commitment.

Is your idea suitable for a novel?

Because novels are longer pieces, you need to be fairly (you can never be completely sure off the top) that your idea has at least some of these characteristics:

Has legs. Clearly you’re interested in your idea, but you’re better off if you’re thinking “I’ve always been fascinated by…” rather than “Seems like an okay idea; might work.”
Can be expanded. Any idea can be expanded, but is it relatively easy—not necessarily easy but possible—to think about where the narrative might go? Doesn’t have to go there in the long run but at this stage, can you envision your protagonist engaging in a series of actions all of which have their own climax and/or resolution or do you envision more of a short, sharp crisis?
A whole world can be created. That is, what you want to write will have the feel of a fully realized world where the reader will be able to imagine how it works even beyond the confines of the novel you are writing. Think of good science fiction. Good science fiction writers can create an alien society which all makes sense within its own context. You need to do the same even if your novel is taking place on Earth in the present day. I realize that this might not be enough so I have more in a post called Creating the Fictional World.

What doesn’t matter so much

Geography. Your novel can be confined to a room in a house or cover the great outdoors.
Breadth of the canvas. Like geography, you may concentrate intensely on the internal life of one character or plan a whole cast of them. Both can work for a novel.
How long it’s going to take to write. Novels generally take longer to write than short stories, if only because there are more words, but don’t make this a determining factor. If the material lends itself to a novel, then give it a try.
Novels sell better. Well, they do.But a novel is a significant undertaking in time and effort. And there is no guarantee you can sell it after you’ve invested all that blood, sweat, and tears. I’d be careful about choosing the novel form with future sales in mind—you might be getting into much more than you bargained for.

It’s a personal decision

As with everything else in writing, rules are made to be broken and there is no right answer. As you can see from the examples, there are few if any ideas which demand the novel rather than short story form (okay, sweeping family sagas maybe being the exception).

Make your choice and get cracking.