The Pages of the Ages

Times have changed, and with it, the people.  Nowadays, we live in an age of instant-gratification, where we expect the things we want in the smallest amount of time possible.  Fast food, the internet, the new best super lose your weight in two days diets, etc.  As Queen said, we want it all and we want it now.

With this change in attention span, writers had to adapt to stay alive.  Where in the olden days we were allowed to start with backstory, it is now recommended that we start with a hook and action.

To illustrate, I’m going to quote the first paragraph or so of four books.  Dracula, by Bram Stoker, first published in 1897.  Dune, by Frank Herbert, first published in 1965.  Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, first published in 1985.  And finally, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, first published in 2008. (Publication dates via Wikipedia)

Dracula

            3 May. Bistritz.—Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. 

The story is told through a series of journal entries.  The opening paragraph gives us a summary of where Harker had gone, and a little trivia (i.e. the train that was late).  In fact, there is little to no hook.  The only question that could arise from that paragraph is where Harker is going.

Dune

          In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, the old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

          It was a warm night at Castle Caladan, and the ancient pile of stone that had served the Artreides family as home for twenty-six generations bore that cooled-sweat feeling it acquired before a change in the weather.

(There is a quoted paragraph from a scripture of the Dune world before this paragraph, but it is not really a part of the story, so I left it out.)  We are given a place and an action (going to Arrakis) like in Dracula, but in the very first paragraph, there is already a question.  Why is an old crone coming to visit Paul’s mother?  And who is she that she can visit someone in the castle?

Ender’s Game

          “I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one.  Or at least as close as we’re going to get.”

          “That’s what you said about the brother.”

          “The brother tested out impossible.  For other reasons.  Nothing to do with his ability.”

          “Same with the sister.  And there are doubts about him.  He’s too malleable.  Too willing to submerge himself in someone else’s will.”

We start off with detached dialogue.  We don’t know who’s speaking (note that this is something writers are usually warned not to do).  There is no place described, but numerous questions raised.  What will the “he” do, for which he is the one?  How did the speaker listen through his ears and see through his eyes?  Why was the brother rejected?  Why was the sister rejected?

The Hunger Games

          When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.  My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress.  She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother.  Of course, she did.  This was the day of the reaping.

We begin with Katniss waking up (another alleged no-no) and looking for her sister Prim.  We get a feeling of poverty (“rough canvas” and the fact that they have to share a bed).  Then at a quick pace, we get a huge question.  What is the reaping?  More so, we get a feeling of tension because the reaping would give Prim nightmares.

As you see, in progression from 1897 to 2008, the questions start to rise earlier and involve bigger things.  In the first few paragraphs, Dracula has no real questions, Dune raises one mildly interesting one, Ender’s Game raises a few mildly interesting ones (though Card quickly throws in a big one a few lines later), and then The Hunger Games give us a tension-filled question.

Since there are many instant-gratification sources in this age, (i.e. television, internet) we need to convince readers to keep reading.  In 1897, reading was probably the easy entertainment (except maybe for super-literary pieces), so they didn’t need so much constant tension.  Today, the written word has to contend with moving pictures, and tension (i.e. questions) is the only way to achieve that.

The point of this overly long post is that you have to keep your audience in mind when writing (and taking writing advice).  If Bram Stoker gave you advice about putting in backstory to ground the readers or something, you have to remember that you’re not living in 1897.  So unless you write for time-travellers from the late eighteen hundreds, you have to pile on tension and keep it going ‘til the end.

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The Bomb under the Table

Fear of the unknown is probably one of the most common fears present in humans (maybe all humans?).  For example, humans fear death because they don’t know what will happen after (unless you have strong faith), or the dark, because they can’t see if there is something or someone there.

Despite this, humans are also drawn towards the unknown.  They do their best to find everything they don’t know.  Whether it is to activate adrenaline associated with fear or to curb the fear with knowledge, I don’t know.  Regardless, it’s important.

From this fear comes suspense.  Suspense is the anxiety that comes from belief of the imminent revelation of an unknown outcome.  For some reason (maybe our brains’ need for closure), we want to know what happens.  What the outcome will be.  If we take away the unknown, is the suspense defunct?  Somewhat, but not really.  As to why, my guess would be that our brains interpret the outcome as an unsure outcome every time around.  Maybe we subconsciously believe that a different outcome is somehow possible.

Anyway, there are two main types of suspense that appear in fiction (that I can remember at time of print):

The suspense that can be described by the following scenario.  “Alfred Hitchcock was asked to define suspense. He told the interviewer to imagine two people sitting at a table at a café. Under the table is a bag. In the bag is a bomb. The characters don’t know that the bomb is there but the viewers do. That, he said, is suspense.” (via Crime Fiction Collective)

The other type is one where the reader knows as much as the character.  In the bomb scenario, the character might have gotten a threat and nervously looks around while talking to a man who he shouldn’t have been talking to.

If I can paraphrase David Baboulene here, it’s all about subtext.  To create suspense, someone has to know more than someone else.  Either the reader and the villain knows there’s a bomb and the hero doesn’t, or the villain knows there’s a bomb and the reader and hero don’t.

However, the most important part of suspense (or tension) is that the reader must care about the outcome.  Humans want to know the unknown, but there are so many unknowns that they prioritise them.  If they don’t care about your characters, they won’t care about the outcome, and the book, to paraphrase James Scott Bell, will be left behind unread in the train.

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A Storytelling Lesson I Learned from Back to the Future

Knowledge given to the readers but kept from some of the characters can be just as powerful as knowledge given to some characters but kept from the readers.

I learned this via David Baboulene’s book, since I’d never actually seen Back to the Future before.

After the sequence where Marty gets sent into the past, the viewers already have the knowledge that Marty comes from the future, though none of the other characters (except Doc Brown later on) know this.  In fact, it is imperative that they don’t.

Say, for instance, the movie had started with Marty already in the past and the viewers just as unaware of his time traveller status as the other characters.  Ignore, if you will, the problems with the plot that could occur (no scenes where Marty talks about his time travelling and no clear goals).

Therefore, the story would end with a twist, revealing that Marty was a time traveller all along.  However, there would be a great deal lost, namely the tension that would come with the knowledge that any moment, someone could become aware of Marty’s time travelling.  As I’ve said before, tension is a pretty important part.

If the story had been swapped around like that, there could have been changes in protagonist or whatever the case might be, and the holes could be fixed and it could have been a great movie.  I’m not saying that having a twist ending is bad.

What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t hesitate to give your readers insider info simply because you want a stronger end.  In fact, you might be giving away tension because of it.

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Tension and How to Get Some

(Side Note: The post is late because Blogger broke yesterday)

I have previously touched upon the subject of tension, but today I’m going to try and discuss it more directly.

Tension is the thing that keeps people reading. It’s anticipation for a future event that remains unsure. Thus, dangling an uncertain future (or a past that remains undisclosed) in front of readers and delaying the revelation of it is how you achieve tension and subsequently reading readers.

Maass, in his book, The Fire in Fiction, refers to the term microfiction, explained as tension all the time. What this means is that theoretically, you can have tension in every one of the sentences you write. I will admit that this sounds ludicrous, but I’m pretty sure Maass only meant that every sentence has the potential to contain tension, and not that every sentence should have it.

Let me quote an example from his book. (I might have quoted this before, I’m not sure. But it’s a good example.) “He crossed the room” as opposed to “He drifted across the room. Was he dreaming? Was he dead?”. Just a small hint of tension can create a big difference.

Adding tension is a simple process of making something uncertain. If a pacifist hero has to decide whether to execute a man or not, don’t make the man an innocent farmer. Make him a evil warlord who killed a million people. That way, your character will have to be in conflict with himself. Should he break his vow to preserve life to save lives? The internal conflict will eat him up and consequently let your readers eat the novel up.

Is your hero dashing after a kidnapped heroine? Let his father fall ill and unable to tend to the farm, which would lead to the farm’s demise and probably his father’s death. No matter what decision he makes, the other will always haunt him where he goes, as he will wonder if he made the right choice. Conflict is the key to tension. Not so much external conflict, but more often internal.

This is a very loose explanation, I know. If you want to master this, the best advice I can give is to read Maass’s books. He knows his stuff.

Do you agree with Maass? Do you have other ways to create tension?


Edit : Do yourself a favour and read here and here.  The links were provided by Mooderino in the comments, and they're worth a read.  As mentioned, micro-tension is a pretty hard subject, so many views are useful.  Maybe I'll take a crack at specifically micro-tension explaining. (I shrunk in embarrassment of how sparse my post was against those two.)

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