Tension in novels refers to the emotional and psychological strain or suspense that keeps readers engaged and invested in the story. It’s the sense of anticipation, worry, or excitement about what will happen next, and it is a crucial element in creating a compelling narrative. In other words, tension is the high-stakes feeling readers get when characters are in trouble—and as a book editor, it’s probably the number-one thing I see that causes a book to fail.
Tension can be generated through various means:
- Conflict: The central source of tension, arising from opposing forces such as characters with differing goals, internal struggles, or external obstacles. Conflict can be physical, emotional, or psychological.
- Stakes: The importance of the outcome of a conflict. Higher stakes create greater tension because the potential consequences of failure or success are significant for the characters involved.
- Pacing: The speed at which the story unfolds. Well-managed pacing involves alternating between fast and slow scenes, building up tension gradually or delivering sudden bursts of excitement.
- Mystery: The withholding of information from the reader or characters. This can create curiosity and suspense as readers are eager to uncover the truth or solve a puzzle.
- Foreshadowing: Hints or clues about events that will happen later in the story. This technique builds anticipation and anxiety as readers sense something significant is coming.
- Character Development: Strong, well-developed characters who evoke empathy from readers. When readers care about the characters, they become more invested in their struggles and the outcomes of the story.
- Setting and Atmosphere: The environment and mood of the story can contribute to tension. A dark, foreboding setting can enhance a sense of danger or unease.
- Dialogue: Tension can be conveyed through sharp, confrontational, or loaded dialogue. Subtext and what remains unsaid can also contribute to the tension between characters.
- Cliffhangers: Ending chapters or scenes on a suspenseful note, leaving a question unanswered or a situation unresolved, compels readers to keep reading to find out what happens next.
- Inner Conflict: Characters’ internal struggles, doubts, and moral dilemmas can create tension as they grapple with difficult decisions and their consequences.
Effectively incorporating these elements helps maintain readers’ interest and drives the narrative forward, making the novel an engaging and thrilling experience.
When done properly, tension will propel a reader forward through the book, encouraging them to turn the page to find out what will happen next—whether in the story itself or to the character specifically. No matter what genre you’re writing in, there are hundreds of situations in your book’s story concept that could play out; it’s your role as the author to make sure readers are aware of these stakes and to play them up to create tension.
How do you create tension in your book? Here are several methods.
Develop, Develop, Develop
Further developing the main components of your book will automatically help improve the tension in the story:
- the sources of conflict (internal and external)
- the overall plot
- the obstacles the characters must overcome
- the characters themselves
In many books I edit or critique, a range of problems—from underdeveloped conflict to characters—cause readers to have a hard time connecting with the characters and make the tension fall flat.
When characters or sources of conflict are underdeveloped, it means that instead of the readers feeling tension and truly caring about the characters’ well-being, characters are easily forgettable, goals are not clearly defined, and consequently it makes it easier for readers to put down the book and not pick it back up (i.e., not enough tension to keep readers engaged).
Leave Scenes Hanging
After further developing your characters, goals, and conflicts to an acceptable level, go through and leave scenes hanging in order to create tension.
You can do this by breaking the story into sections, first telling a chapter from one character’s point of view, then a chapter from another’s point of view, causing a lot of tension and encouraging readers to move forward to the next page, the next chapter. Switching the point of view that the story is told in is a big part of your book’s narrative style.
Also consider formatting scenes so that they’re left hanging—commonly known as a “cliffhanger”—so readers will have to read on to the next chapter to know what happens next.
When evaluating an author’s manuscript for its level of success, I spend some time looking at the book’s tension. These are the questions I ask when doing a manuscript critique:
- Is tension created at the outset of the book?
- Is the protagonist compelling enough to heighten tension by the reader caring about him/her?
- Are scenes adeptly left hanging in order to create tension?
- Are elements/clues/details needed to propel the story presented in a way as to invoke tension (make the reader keep reading)?
Book editor Kristen Hamilton is the owner and sole employee of Kristen Corrects, Inc., where she provides manuscript editing services for traditionally and self-publishing authors. Several authors whose books she has edited have won awards and have topped Amazon’s best sellers lists.
Reading is Kristen’s passion, so when the workday is over, she can usually be found curled up with a good book alongside her cats. She loves watching cat videos and scary movies, eating pizza, teaching herself French, and traveling, and she is likely planning her next vacation. She lives outside of Boise, Idaho.