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Pulling readers into your story and escalating their interest requires creating, building and maintaining the right level of tension. However, sometimes as an author you might have the tendency to sabotage the tension you’ve created by giving into your character’s desires.

For example, to create tension in your story you might put your character in a precarious life and death situation that they really want to get out of fast. Instead, of building on that tension you might decide you don’t want your character to have to endure their emotional suffering too long, so you give them a fairly quick escape. When you do, you often relieve the story tension (and reader’s interest) prematurely. Building the optimal amount of tension often requires dragging your character through unbearable long-lasting tortures (physical, emotional or intellectual). Just when things seem like they couldn’t be any worse for your character, what you really need to do is find a way to make them even worse.

Of course, readers can reach a point of tension overload, which can also cause them to stop reading. So you have to be careful not to overdo their suffering and you occasionally have to relief some of the tension so readers can breathe their own sigh of relief. It in essence becomes a balancing act of creating and building tension levels to a high, sustainable point, but not too high and for not too long.

But ultimately, the point is that no matter how much you love the characters you’ve created, don’t give in too early to their pleas for help. Make them suffer a bit longer, and your readers will love you for it.

What are your thoughts on building story tension?

Image by Carl Glover

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Just about every story has some element of back story that provides critical detail that the reader needs in order to make sense of what is going on. Unfortunately, back story not only tends to be boring, but it can literally pull the reader out of the story and cause them to lose interest if not handled correctly. Imagine a fast paced chase scene packed with action and intensity that gets interrupted by a narrator popping onto to the scene, giving a monologue that explains why the results of the chase scene are so crucial to the story. All the action is suddenly brought to a halt. The intensity is deflated. And you just lost your reader.

Some beginning authors make the common mistake of trying to put all their back story at the beginning of the book, thinking that the story can’t begin unless the reader already knows everything that has happened before. That’s a big mistake, unless you want to lose the reader’s interest in the first few pages. Nor does it work to just drop a big chunk of back story in later chapters either.

One overused way of handling back story, is to leave it in big chunks by including it in a flashback or dream sequence. While this can work, it often has the effect of still pulling the reader out the present action of the story. I’m not saying, you shouldn’t approach back story in this manner, it’s just not always the best method and has become a bit cliché.

Back story has to be handled with care. It’s usually best if sprinkled and woven into the story in a way that it hardly goes noticed by the reader. One way to do this is to break it down into small pieces that can be injected a piece at a time throughout the course of the story; maybe a quick comment in a dialogue, a tiny memory that a character recalls, a headline on a newspaper (not the entire newspaper article), and as needed, short bits over time from the narrator can be effective if done in an unobtrusive manner.

The point is, be careful about how you handle back story. Pay attention to what it does to the flow and interest level of your story. Find ways to use it to enhance your story, rather than drag it down.

What have been some effective ways that you’ve learned to handle back story?

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Last week I was wondering if I could combine two plots into one. One idea was for an Event and one for Characters. While I still think they could have meshed, the character story took off on it’s own into a short story.

Now the question is what to do with the Event idea, how to enrich it into a full blown novel idea. Here are some ways to enrich an idea that I’m going to try.

Setting. For me, The setting make a huge difference to a story. This is both a when and a place. When does the story/specific scene occur? What historical time period, what time of year, what time of day?

Medieval England is far different from 3030 Mars. Winter is far different from spring. A lake is different from downtown New York City. Think hard about what the setting means in terms of characters: who would be there? What are cultural norms in such a place? What could happen here and what could never happen here?

Also, what conflict is inherent in the setting? An ice-covered lake becomes dangerous during an early thaw – and you’d be a fool not to take advantage of it. A board room implies conflict in a power play.

Family. Another way to enrich all plot/story is to look to family situations. This could be anything from a blended family to a strong matriarchal family to adopted kids. Included in this could be any of a wide range of betrayals, misunderstandings, etc. I try to put this together with my original idea. Given A, what is the worst thing that could be happening in the family relationships? Depending on the audience, can you include this in the story, or some variation of it?

Backstory. I like the idea of building in connections between characters in the back story. Characters met at a previous job, went to the same school, had the same kind of dog – anything.

This will also build in possible conflicts: the dog likes A better than B, resulting in jealousy. Or A passed a test by copying off B’s paper.

By looking at the setting, the family and the back story — something every story already has — and making the most of these, my plot will grow. Of course, I’ll have to throw in some twists and unexpected things, but it’s a start. Here’s hoping the plot develops this week.

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Watch your delivery of backstory ~ the story of what (in the past) made the characters who they are today (in story time). 

Writers want to cram everything right up front. 

"I know all their history, why would I want to withhold it from the reader?" 
"I wrote it that way." 
"It's the good part." 

Writers spend lots of time imagining and writing every little detail about a character's past, be it for a child or an adult. So, of course, writers would want to tell everything right away. Perhaps, in the process, even show off a bit how clever they are. Until, one understands how curiosity works. 

Not telling everything makes the reader curious. Curiosity draws the reader deeper into the story world. The reader wants to fill in the "who," "what," "how" (the "where" and "when" have already been clearly established right up front to ground the reader). They keep reading. This is good.

Tell the reader only what they need to know to inform that particular scene. This is especially true in the Beginning (1/4 mark). During the first quarter of the project, the character can have a memory. But, for a full-blown flashback, where you take the reader back in time in scene, wait until the Middle. 

(PLOT TIP: If you're absolutely sure you absolutely have to include the flashback, try using one when you're bogged down in the middle of the middle.)

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Writers, especially beginning writers, often find themselves wanting to blurt out everything up front. This often shows up as a flashback early on in the story to show the back story or event that first sent the protagonist off kilter. 

Don't.....

Keep in mind throughout to pace the info you share with the reader. In each scene, only put in as much as is needed to inform that particular scene (this can include foreshadowing clues of what is to come, but don't overload the scenes.) Invite the reader in slowly, but with a bang. Keep curiosity high = creates a page-turner book!

Don't tease the reader, but don't give them everything. Allude to problems, tension, conflict, who the character truly is, but hold back from revealing the details. Curiosity is one of the most powerful ways to pull the reader deeper into the story. 

Hold off with flashback and even memories, if you can get away with doing so, until the Middle (1/2). 

Also, be careful how many characters you introduce at a time. Introduce slowly and keep names to a minimum -- make sure we meet the protagonist first and get a clear idea who she is and that this is her story before moving on to the secondary characters. 

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Tip of the Week: Characters are Real People Too

Now I haven't developed that disorder where I can't tell reality from fiction. I don't mean that I take my characters out to the movies or sit down to share a refreshing cup of tea. My characters aren't the tea drinking sort.

What I mean is that all of your characters are real within the confines of your fictional world. They have pasts, presents, and (if they aren't killed off) futures that you as their creator ought to know about. These backstories probably won't make it into your actual novel, but they will help you know how your characters react. They give you a reference point for grounding each of your characters, no matter how insignifgant or minor the character is for this particular story.

And knowing this backstory might someday provide you with a whole different story to tell.

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