We solve all sorts of problems on the first or second try in real life. We keep tension down. But with stories we don’t want to eliminate tension. We want to build it.
Want other people to feel inclined to spread word of your stuff? Then make sure you’re doing it for them.
Let’s say water starts dripping out of the light fixture right above your kitchen table. Maybe the wiring in the light starts to spark. What do you do?
The moment you solve all the problems in the story, the story is over because the readers have nothing more to worry about. Troubles allow the story to progress and grow.
I’m surprised quite often how little or ill thought-out the political and economic infrastructure of secondary worlds can be. How the hell do people get food to eat? How do they earn their money? What are their voting rights and what stops people from rising up against their governments?
Remember, the better the opposition, the more tension the reader will feel because a formidable opponent increases the chances in the reader’s mind that the hero will fail.
Writers and marketing. In this digital age, the two words are becoming synonymous, but to what end? Having been on both sides of the fence, this is a difficult post for me to write. This isn’t the sort of thing I care to admit or highlight to people, because writers are a unique breed.
Display your command of language. It’s worthwhile for a writer to think about poetry, and all its devices like assonance and alliteration, metaphor and allusion, internal rhythm, even meter.
Readers want to hope and fear for a character. To feel this, they must not know what WILL happen, but do need to suspect or know what MIGHT happen and feel tension about the possibilities.
Character and problem by themselves don’t go anywhere. You still have to build reader tension to a sharp point. So how do you do that?
This anthology contains issues eight through ten of the preeminent e-zine for fantastic furry fiction. Edited by Mary E. Lowd, it features stories by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Tim Susman, and Michael H. Payne.
L. Marie Wood creates immersive worlds that defy genre as they intersect horror, romance, mystery, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy elements to weave harrowing tapestries of speculative fiction. Wood is a Professor of English and Creative Writing.
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