Creating Story Tension: Rooms with an Unexpected View

By Bonnie Randall 

Part of the How They Do It Series (Contributing Author)

Bonnie is off this month, so here's a return to one of my favorites of hers--using unexpected places to create tension in a story.
Consider a house. Envision its rooms. Think about the living room (or perhaps you say ‘family room’) where everything social goes down: TV, gaming, chatter and kid squabbles (sometimes popcorn mashed between sofa seats). The bedroom, where rest and intimacy happen. The bathroom (restroom, if you’re American) where privacy is expected. The stoop, porch, or front step where visitors are met and strangers are kept at a safe distance from the inner sanctum. Then there’s the kitchen, the ‘heart of the home’. Here we prepare meals (with recipes that are often part of our heritage or history), we break bread, and we share dinner conversation with one another.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com