Revising Tensely

Scribesisters are all over micro-tension this week.  It's what Donald Maass, NY literary agent, describes in his book, The Fire In Fiction, as small but telling moments within a scene that show a character's inner conflicting emotions.  It ramps up the tension in the story and keeps the reader turning pages to find out how the conflicting emotions will resolve, tapping into our natural human desire to understand and resolve conflict.  This is a tool we can all use to our advantage, whether we're writing thrillers or literary fiction.  In my opinion, the deft kind of writing Maass is talking about can also create believability and empathy for the characters through letting readers into the turmoil of characters' inner lives.

I'm on the bandwagon, finding places in my manuscript that are a little flat or saggy, and working to become good at using this powerful tool to make them better.

However, as I avidly read the chapter on micro-tension,  I felt the distinct tinge of my own conflicting emotions:  this makes sense and I need to do a lot more of it, I thought; but what about the fun parts of books?  What about the enjoyment of wallowing in characters' personalities and behaviors? (my own leanings.)  Has writing changed so much in the last decade that it has become a sound-bite medium?  Am I out of touch? (getting defensive here!)

When I got to one particular paragraph I sighed with relief, because Maass said something I disagree with pretty strongly, and I knew where I stood.  He is stating this as his belief, not as The Truth.  He says: "I do not believe in aftermath.  The human brain moves faster than any author's fingers can type.  The importance of any plot turn is, for most readers, immediately apparent.  Mulling it over on the page doesn't add anything fresh.  Readers minds are already racing ahead..." (p. 210, The Fire In Fiction)

That crystallized it for me.  I want to experience reading on a contemplative level, not just a page-turning one.  If my mind is racing ahead, I'm missing out on some of the best pleasure reading has to offer.  Since I have faith that there are other readers like me, this led me to conclude that perhaps the amount of tension (including micro-tension) that best serves novels is, in fact, significantly various and partially dependent on genre.

If you're writing a hard-driving thriller, it makes sense that not only every page, but most paragraphs benefit from tension.  If you're writing a mystery, maybe not quite so much.  Especially if, say, it's a series mystery and readers are coming back not only for the storytelling but because they enjoy the relationship between the protagonist and another main character.  This is not to say these books don't all need tension and conflict -- of course they do.  But let's not lose our favorite relationship narratives to the need for constant page-turning tension.

This issue of how much tension is needed is an important topic.  As stated, I'm a believer in the powerful tool of micro-tension, (and its big brother, macro-tension), but I believe tension can be overdone and take away the pleasure of contemplative reading.  I'd love to know how others feel (because I'm still wondering if I'm defensively out of touch!).  How do you feel?