Good Tension (Repost)
If there’s one thing reality television does well, it’s tension. This week, actually yesterday, one of my favorite reality shows RuPaul’s Drag Race crowned it’s sixth drag superstar, and while it wasn’t the exact queen I wanted, I would still say I’m happy with the choice. Personally I would have been happy with any of the top three, but I was especially on one queen’s team in particular, (I don’t want to spoil it for you).
One of the things that I’ve noticed Drag Race in particular is good at, is going to commercial just before the bottom two contestants lip sync for their lives. It’s frustrating as all hell and yet you can’t stop watching. Then you have the finale which has for the last two seasons been separated into two weeks to allow for the fans to make their voices heard. It might not be so bad, but if you’re as invested as I am, the tension is maddening. On the night in question, conveniently also the night of the reunion, you have to sit through the entire reunion, then at least five minutes of Ru just saying the following line. “The winner. Of RuPaul’s Drag Race. America’s Next Drag Superstar is….”
It seems like a quick enough line, but they have found a way to drag it on so long that by the time she’s finished that part of the sentence, you’re so excited and a little bit exhausted that you’re on the edge of your seat.
There’s a lesson here for writers, tension can be everything, the question is… how exactly do you create honest to goodness tension with words? You can’t really draw out what someone says. If you read the aforementioned quote by Ru, it probably took you what? Less than five seconds, if even? The trick is finding a way to create tension that makes your readers excited for more, not ready to throw your book at the wall and never read it again. A slow steady build to the grand finale that they’ve waited the better part of several hundred pages for.
The best way to create tension is… not going to be announced in this blog post, because I’ve written far too much as it is. But, I would like to hear from you, what do you think are some good ways to create a lot of good tension in a novel that wouldn’t annoy your reader? Comment below, or sound off on my Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr pages.
