Global Warming, Sex, Music and Writing

May 28, 2008

I was thinking about the weather recently--I'm in Michigan and Sunday it was 86 degrees, Monday it was 44, and last night we had frost (so we covered all our plants), but it's supposed to rise to the mid-60s today. Even for Michigan, which has screwy weather in general, this is odd for the end of May.

And there sure have been a lot of tornadoes, haven't there?

I'm not a meteorologist or a climatologist, but I'm a believer in global warming (and have been since the 1980s). Whenever we get cold weather like yesterday, there's some smartass who says, "Ha! No such thing as global warming."

Uh-huh. Here's something I know about the weather. It's a huge, complicated system. And you know what huge complicated systems do? They relieve tension. Heat, in the vocabulary of global weather systems, is tension. A hurricane, for instance, essentially takes heat absorbed in the water during the warmest months and moves it somewhere else--releasing tension.

Rising tension, release.

Know where I'm going here?

Sex is about rising tension and release.

Music is about rising tension and release.

Writing, my friends, is about rising tension and release.

Anybody reading this ever have something rejected by an agent or editor with the phrase: lacks tension?

There are a lot of different types of tension in fiction (and sex, and music, and weather...), from our choice of words, to the plot, to the interactions of the characters.

Frankly, blowing things up and creating tension by showing a stalker, murderer, bomb, man with a gun, etc., is pretty easy.

And yet, the agent, editor--or worse, readers--might still say, "Lacks tension."

So, in most cases, this means there's something about the characters and their interactions (and quite possibly your writing in general--remember, use good verbs, not adverbs and adjectives) that lacks tension. If the reader doesn't get invested in the character, the story can lack tension.

I read a friend's manuscript a year or so ago and I found myself using the phrase, "It lacks tension." Then I told him why I thought so. Everybody got along too well. Even when the main character had problems with people, they were nice about it. That's a pretty nice world (although don't you know people that like to screw with people and get everybody's dander up just because they're bored and they like a little excitement?), but it makes for bland fiction.

Here's my example: any Harry Bosch novel by Michael Connelly. Harry is driven. Harry doesn't get along with his supervisors, his girlfriends, his partners or most people. It's because he's driven. He's on a mission and he knows it. He's obsessed. Anyone who stands between him and his mission--solving murders--is a problem. I mentioned this to Michael once when I interviewed him and he sort of dryly said, "Have baggage, will travel."

Not all characters need to be like Harry (god forbid). But all characters need problems and they need obstacles that they need to overcome... whether it's a cranky boss, a lazy partner, smart-mouthed children, overbearing mother, or the sweet-little old lady who just wants to talk when you're trying to get to your job interview. Everybody wants something--and it usually conflicts with someone else, and that's part of the key to tension.

Any examples?

Cheers,

Mark Terry