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WIG&TSSIP: The Stress Situation

August 1, 2011 By Mark Leave a Comment

The Ditchwalk Book Club is reading and discussing Rust Hills’ seminal work, Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. Announcement here. Overview here. Tag here.

When I first began thinking seriously about how stories are told I came up with a metaphor that helped me see plot and character as a functional model. My idea what that a character is like a pressure cooker. With no heat under it a pressure cooker is static, stable, unmoved. But add heat and the pressure begins to build. Subject the cooker to enough energy and at some point the release valve is going to be triggered or the cooker will explode.

Granted that’s a bit dramatic, but it worked for me because it had all the necessary parts. A vessel (character), energy affecting the vessel (plot), and a predictable, inevitable outcome (change/revelation) determined by mixing the two.

Because I was writing literary fiction at the time I knew any movement of character resulting from the build up of pressure might be subtle or slight, and preferably ought to be. In practice I fumbled the ball plenty, variously understating to the point of uncertainty and overstating to the point of melodrama, but in general I felt the model held up.

When I first read Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular I was pleased how my own model fit with Hills’ belief that tension is the best method of creating suspense. The pressure-cooker metaphor says nothing about surprising revelations or twists or formulaic models, but simply posits an inevitable progression. Take a character as they are when the story begins and subject them to stress. At some point any character, no matter how resolute or stoic, is going to show the effects of that stress.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: character, motivation, motive, Rust Hills, tension, WIG&TSSIP

The Next Three Days

June 2, 2011 By Mark Leave a Comment

If you want to see a good example of how tension and anticipation can be used to effectively create suspense, I recommend a movie called The Next Three Days. It was written and directed by Paul Haggis, who also wrote Million Dollar Baby and Crash.

Because every person’s emotional response to a work is different, I’ll leave it to you to analyze how the movie generates the suspense and emotion you feel. If you want to talk about your response to the story, and how Haggis’ craft choices created that effects you felt, I’d be glad to do so in the comments.

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: ~ Tangents, Fiction Tagged With: anticipation, suspense, tension

WIG&TSSIP: Tension and Anticipation

May 25, 2011 By Mark Leave a Comment

The Ditchwalk Book Club is reading and discussing Rust Hills’ seminal work, Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. Announcement here. Overview here. Tag here.

As agents of suspense, mystery and conflict have something in common: they prompt anticipation. But anticipation is not inherently good. Problems arise when what’s anticipated works against other aspects of an intended experience.

Imagine it’s your birthday. You’re so excited and focused on your presents that you are oblivious to the people in attendance, the food, the cake, the ice cream, the decorations and the effort others have made on your behalf. When you open your presents your are rewarded for your anticipation, but at what cost?

Now imagine you were raised to be less of a self-centered jerk. At your birthday party you greet and spend time with each guest. You taste and savor the food, you appreciate the effort made by all, and you recognize the compliment of the party itself. By the time you open your gifts you are overflowing with feelings of love, friendship and family.

In each example the event is the same. But because of preparation (in the way your parents raised you) the experience is completely different. In the first example you have a shallow, vain, dismissive, two-dimensional experience that can only be measured by the value (economic and otherwise) of the items you accumulate. In the second example you have a deep, rich, full, inclusive experience that also infuses each gift with meaning beyond its value or utility.

The lesson, again, is that successful storytelling is always about preparation. Preparation that narrowly focuses reader anticipation should generally be avoided, while preparation that broadens and harmonizes reader anticipation should be pursued.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: anticipation, conflict, mystery, Rust Hills, suspense, tension, uncertainty, WIG&TSSIP