What you choose to write about is far more important than any decision you might make about how to write it. You must come up with a good premise.
9 out of 10 writers fail at the premise stage. Nine out of ten fail at the first step. Think about what you want to write about, it must have meaning to you, you must understand what you are writing about.
Today I’m going to talk a little bit about suspense and tension in your stories. Wither you are writing a short story, novel or screenplay. You need to create a sense of suspense. In a mystery or thriller, suspense and tension are vital to the story, but you also need suspense and tension in almost all other types of stories as well.
In a love story you have the sexual tension and the suspense of “will they get to together?” “Will she find out about his affair?” “Will they stay together? And so on.
Comedy is based on tension and suspense as well. Even in a simple joke you have the set up, the complication and the pay off. We know something funny is coming, but it is the anticipation, the suspense, the tension that keeps us listen. Even when we think we’ve heard this one before; we still wait for the punch. The punch line maybe new.
Before we get in to creating tension and suspense, let’s talk a little bit about Plot and Story.
A Plot is a description of a sequence of events. The events should occur in a logical order and satisfy the expectations of the audience. You do not have to give the viewer exactly what they expect. Far from it, surprise the audience, but do it in a way that makes sense to the audience.
A sequence is a series of scenes that are related with a unifying idea. Two gun fighters have a shoot out at high noon is a scenes. A card game where one of our gun fighters is caught cheating by the other. The challenge to a gun fight. The two men preparing in different ways for the duel and then the gun fight are a series of scenes that create a sequence.
A man murders his wife is a plot, but isn’t a story until you describe why and how he killed her. A Story is how you reveal the Plot in the most interesting and dramatic way. To do this you use scenes and sequences.
What does a story or screenplay need? The story needs momentum. Move the story along, don’t stop, and don’t waste time here and there. Momentum is forward movement. This is the effect your story has on the reader or audience.
Almost every scene in a screenplay and most scenes in a novel should create tension and or conflict.
Tension is created when the audience or read hopes or fears that something will happen to the characters.
Will the lovers get together?
Will the bomb in the mail box kill the hero?
Will the team of misfits win the state championship against all odds?
Tension = Conflict + Contrasts. Murtaugh and Riggs in Lethal Weapon are a perfect example of contrast and conflict creating tension and entertains the audience along the way.
Opposites create tension:
Odd cop + young crazy cop (Lethal Weapon again)
Rich good girl + poor bad boy (but not too bad) The Note Book
Slacker guy + Uptight bitchy girl (any Katherine Heigl movie)
Next time we will look at how to create Tension
9 out of 10 writers fail at the premise stage. Nine out of ten fail at the first step. Think about what you want to write about, it must have meaning to you, you must understand what you are writing about.
Today I’m going to talk a little bit about suspense and tension in your stories. Wither you are writing a short story, novel or screenplay. You need to create a sense of suspense. In a mystery or thriller, suspense and tension are vital to the story, but you also need suspense and tension in almost all other types of stories as well.
In a love story you have the sexual tension and the suspense of “will they get to together?” “Will she find out about his affair?” “Will they stay together? And so on.
Comedy is based on tension and suspense as well. Even in a simple joke you have the set up, the complication and the pay off. We know something funny is coming, but it is the anticipation, the suspense, the tension that keeps us listen. Even when we think we’ve heard this one before; we still wait for the punch. The punch line maybe new.
Before we get in to creating tension and suspense, let’s talk a little bit about Plot and Story.
A Plot is a description of a sequence of events. The events should occur in a logical order and satisfy the expectations of the audience. You do not have to give the viewer exactly what they expect. Far from it, surprise the audience, but do it in a way that makes sense to the audience.
A sequence is a series of scenes that are related with a unifying idea. Two gun fighters have a shoot out at high noon is a scenes. A card game where one of our gun fighters is caught cheating by the other. The challenge to a gun fight. The two men preparing in different ways for the duel and then the gun fight are a series of scenes that create a sequence.
A man murders his wife is a plot, but isn’t a story until you describe why and how he killed her. A Story is how you reveal the Plot in the most interesting and dramatic way. To do this you use scenes and sequences.
What does a story or screenplay need? The story needs momentum. Move the story along, don’t stop, and don’t waste time here and there. Momentum is forward movement. This is the effect your story has on the reader or audience.
Almost every scene in a screenplay and most scenes in a novel should create tension and or conflict.
Tension is created when the audience or read hopes or fears that something will happen to the characters.
Will the lovers get together?
Will the bomb in the mail box kill the hero?
Will the team of misfits win the state championship against all odds?
Tension = Conflict + Contrasts. Murtaugh and Riggs in Lethal Weapon are a perfect example of contrast and conflict creating tension and entertains the audience along the way.
Opposites create tension:
Odd cop + young crazy cop (Lethal Weapon again)
Rich good girl + poor bad boy (but not too bad) The Note Book
Slacker guy + Uptight bitchy girl (any Katherine Heigl movie)
Next time we will look at how to create Tension
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