Want a page turner? Play with your tension!
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Ever wonder about why you want to keep watching your favorite movie?
All movies were scripts or books before they were on the big screen, or popped up through your Netflix connection. Think about the writing that went into each one; ensnaring your attention so well that you stay entranced is some kind of a writing hat-trick.
One of my favorite books and movies, The Lord of the Rings , helped me to see the light, while suffering with a bout of "what next" during early drafts of Stealing Time . Interest in turning the page flagged, which for an author sounds an immediate alarm. So, how to avoid this reaction and move the story along for myself and my readers? I decided to pick apart The Lord of the Rings sentence by sentence to see how Tolkien does it through his very long, beloved books. First thing...he puts you in suspense and keeps you wondering if those little Hobbits are going to make it through all of the pitfalls.
The secret to keeping your audience is to pile on the protagonist, i.e. keep up the tension by alternating feats with fails. No magic wand applied to the page enchanted an audience better than balancing the ups and downs of suspense. Tolkien creates a series of tests his protagonist must go through, plusses mixed with a lot of minuses. His works are creations of mountains and valleys instead of flats, and instead of a single typical heroic character having ultimate control he has peace loving, short, practical, accident-prone Hobbits as antiheroes central to the core of the story, thereby add holding power to the tale. The likelihood that a Hobbit will come to harm is part of the charm.Why play it safe when tension ups the play?
Let's look at early scenes of The Lord of the Rings . Take Frodo. He comes by the ring through inheritance, a nice thing, inheriting a gold bauble and a house, but eventually he finds the ring evil so he must flee the Shire. That's one set of rises and a couple of falls. He is helped by Gandalf to escape, rise, but his friends will journey with him,-rise-he has companions. They are pursued by dark evils, fall, but they lose their pursuers by short-cutting through a forest; rise. However, the forest holds great evil; fall. They make it safely to Bree, rise, meet Aragorn who they mistrust at first, fall, but gain him as a guardian and defender, rise, just before they must flee again;fall.
Right from the get-go, Tolkien teases his audience with scenes that rise and fall, keeping us wanting to turn the page, or stay watching the movie to find out what happens next. He keeps this pace going throughout his books, and thus keeps a rapt audience. That is how you play up suspense; through tightening in tension, and the release of it, or in other words, the ups and downs facing your protagonist.
When I applied the Tolkien technique to my writing it changed my story. My pampered protagonist, instead of being protected by an unbeatable champion, has to learn to save himself and his loved ones. Instead of having a steady family, he loses his father, fall, has a friend as protector, rise, thieves for a living, fall, must watch out after his kid sister rise/fall, loses his friend/protector, fall, fights against a great evil to save her, rise, has to risk injury to keep them from harm, fall, enables escape, rise, only to have possibly doomed them both with a wrong decision, fall. See what I'm getting at, here?
My worst fears as a writer is that my reader will not want to turn the page. Like a director when he translates stories on a page into movies; I want the suspense to help my audience to stay engaged. Learning to pile on the protagonist made Stealing Time a better story in the long-run, and it was totally worth redoing each scene to maintain the tension. My highest compliments thus far, the responses I love the best are, "Hey! I want to know what happens!" and, "Where's the sequel?" It's currently in the works. Rise.
In no way do I have the talents of Tolkien, fall, but I'm getting better at writing by studying, in books and on screen, life in the Shire. Rise.
C.K. Garner
05/11/2012
All movies were scripts or books before they were on the big screen, or popped up through your Netflix connection. Think about the writing that went into each one; ensnaring your attention so well that you stay entranced is some kind of a writing hat-trick.
One of my favorite books and movies, The Lord of the Rings , helped me to see the light, while suffering with a bout of "what next" during early drafts of Stealing Time . Interest in turning the page flagged, which for an author sounds an immediate alarm. So, how to avoid this reaction and move the story along for myself and my readers? I decided to pick apart The Lord of the Rings sentence by sentence to see how Tolkien does it through his very long, beloved books. First thing...he puts you in suspense and keeps you wondering if those little Hobbits are going to make it through all of the pitfalls.
The secret to keeping your audience is to pile on the protagonist, i.e. keep up the tension by alternating feats with fails. No magic wand applied to the page enchanted an audience better than balancing the ups and downs of suspense. Tolkien creates a series of tests his protagonist must go through, plusses mixed with a lot of minuses. His works are creations of mountains and valleys instead of flats, and instead of a single typical heroic character having ultimate control he has peace loving, short, practical, accident-prone Hobbits as antiheroes central to the core of the story, thereby add holding power to the tale. The likelihood that a Hobbit will come to harm is part of the charm.Why play it safe when tension ups the play?
Let's look at early scenes of The Lord of the Rings . Take Frodo. He comes by the ring through inheritance, a nice thing, inheriting a gold bauble and a house, but eventually he finds the ring evil so he must flee the Shire. That's one set of rises and a couple of falls. He is helped by Gandalf to escape, rise, but his friends will journey with him,-rise-he has companions. They are pursued by dark evils, fall, but they lose their pursuers by short-cutting through a forest; rise. However, the forest holds great evil; fall. They make it safely to Bree, rise, meet Aragorn who they mistrust at first, fall, but gain him as a guardian and defender, rise, just before they must flee again;fall.
Right from the get-go, Tolkien teases his audience with scenes that rise and fall, keeping us wanting to turn the page, or stay watching the movie to find out what happens next. He keeps this pace going throughout his books, and thus keeps a rapt audience. That is how you play up suspense; through tightening in tension, and the release of it, or in other words, the ups and downs facing your protagonist.
When I applied the Tolkien technique to my writing it changed my story. My pampered protagonist, instead of being protected by an unbeatable champion, has to learn to save himself and his loved ones. Instead of having a steady family, he loses his father, fall, has a friend as protector, rise, thieves for a living, fall, must watch out after his kid sister rise/fall, loses his friend/protector, fall, fights against a great evil to save her, rise, has to risk injury to keep them from harm, fall, enables escape, rise, only to have possibly doomed them both with a wrong decision, fall. See what I'm getting at, here?
My worst fears as a writer is that my reader will not want to turn the page. Like a director when he translates stories on a page into movies; I want the suspense to help my audience to stay engaged. Learning to pile on the protagonist made Stealing Time a better story in the long-run, and it was totally worth redoing each scene to maintain the tension. My highest compliments thus far, the responses I love the best are, "Hey! I want to know what happens!" and, "Where's the sequel?" It's currently in the works. Rise.
In no way do I have the talents of Tolkien, fall, but I'm getting better at writing by studying, in books and on screen, life in the Shire. Rise.
C.K. Garner
05/11/2012
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