Tension

Tension is what happens when we feel the risk that something bad is going to happen. The threat doesn’t have to be violent, or even clear in its details, but it can hang over a story like a dark cloud. In The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, for instance, we know that the house is probably haunted and that there is something wrong with the heroine: the details of how these factors will collide aren’t apparent in the end. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons uses tension as a sort of guessing-game: what method will the haunted house use to attack its next occupants? It’s rare to see a novel that lacks tension and succeeds, which is not to say that every story has to be a rollercoaster of terror, but that there needs to be something at stake and a threat to it for the reader to read on.

Characters at Risk

A lot of science fiction and fantasy films open with a massive battle, in which thousands of indistinguishable people are fighting. This isn’t tension: it’s grandeur. The aim – at least not in the sweeping overhead shots of a billion CGI knights charging into one another – isn’t to create tension as to who will win, because we don’t know anything about the sides yet and have no reason to care about them. It’s to overwhelm the viewer with the sheer scale of what’s going on. Personally, I wouldn’t suggest that writers attempt this, as it’s much more suited to a visual medium. Focusing on the struggles of one person, and his internal thoughts (which a film can’t do as well) will be much more powerful.

Some guys fighting some other guys

There’s no tension where there’s no risk. Take the not-very-good thriller Hannibal, sequel to the vastly superior Silence of the Lambs. Very quickly it becomes clear that Hannibal Lecter is an author’s darling (one of the biggest Mary Sues in literature, if you ask me) and will never be lost for words, let alone put in real danger. The other characters are the ones we wonder about. We see the same thing in the recent film Blade Runner 2049. There is an extended fight sequence between the two blade runners in an abandoned hotel. The trouble with this is that there’s absolutely no question that they will survive: in fact, everything about the characters, and every piece of marketing, suggests that they won’t just live, they’ll make friends. So get on with it! Stop smacking each other around and move the story on!

Fancy a drink?

Creating Tension

So how do we create tension? Firstly, something has to be genuinely at stake. That means, to my mind, that there has to be an objective, a struggle to get it that has the risk of genuine harm to the parties, and a side (or just a person) that we’d choose over the other. In other words, something to fight over, a fight, a person we’d prefer to win and a credible chance that they won’t. The fight doesn’t have to be literal, of course: it could be a fight for self-expression, or a difficult choice between two suitors, although having the problem personalised in a single villain does help to focus the reader. And of course, the more righteous the cause they're fighting for, then the more we'll want them to succeed.

One technique is to show the different parties converging on the prize, step by step. The reader will contrast their progress, raising the sense of urgency. Another trick – The Terminator springs to mind – is to show how they are progressively weakened and damaged by the contest. If every step forward by the heroes is accompanied by loss, who will get there first, and what will be left of them when they do?

But perhaps the best trick, for me, is to make the reader want them to win. We need to want the characters to succeed, and that means making them likable. They need to be fighting - really or metaphorically - for something we want them to have. They need to deserve what they're trying to get, and if there's a strong chance they may not get it, and get hurt in the process, the tension will appear.

Something to Ignore

I don’t want to talk politics here, but suffice it to say that I’ve never had much time for conspiracy theories. In particular, whenever I see the phrase “mainstream media” thrown around, I tend to assume that I’m dealing with a crackpot. However, there is a story that the newspapers do want to tell about publishing: while it's not a conspiracy, it’s always much the same story, and I suggest you get into the habit of ignoring it. It runs like this:

A debut novelist has got a record advance for a novel about (fill in the details here, but it probably won't be SF). The novelist, who will not be over 40, does something adorably quirky for a living (let’s say she makes cupcakes whilst riding around Oxford on a vintage bike). The novelist is very happy and the advance is in six or seven figures. Occasionally, the novelist will be a trendy young man or an older woman, or the author will look glamorous and seductive instead of a bit like Amelie.

Back off, man, or I use the spoon.

If I sound cynical about this (which I do), it’s because I don’t think it helps anything except sales of whatever paper it appears in. First, the chances of you, or me, getting a colossal advance are so small as to be not worth serious consideration. They’re up there with being hit by lightning or winning the lottery, and you don’t have to write a novel to qualify for either of those. Second, I’m deeply unsure as to what these huge advances actually mean. Is the publisher likely to make it back on this novel? If not, will it be tied to the author’s next work? And what will it do for the author’s long-term career? And is it some kind of loss leader to publicise either the author or the publisher?

I don’t know the answer to any of those. All I can say is that I’m suspicious about this story in its various forms, and I don’t think it’s healthy for writers to see this as the eventual destination. Of course, that's not to say that a million pounds wouldn't be nice. After all, if someone did offer me a million quid to write a novel or two, I’d take it, even if I had to be photographed selling cupcakes on a vintage bike.