Power Your Writing

Weak writing is both ineffective and uninteresting.  Readers want to be moved and transformed by the written word and they expect writers to deliver.  Writers have a powerful tool in language.  They can utilize its rhythms, nuances, cadences and tones to create dramatic tension, whether it is fiction or nonfiction.  Through word choice, punctuation and sentence structure, they can mold language into a powerful conveyance of ideas and inspiration.  Tension is what gives writing spark and makes readers sit up and pay attention.  There are several techniques for creating powerful tension in your writing:

• Fiction:  

• Conflict:  Tension in fiction is most often thought of as tension between characters or internal tension within a character.  This tension is essential in order to have a story worth telling.  If there is no tension, there is no story.  Having a conflict that needs resolution is powerful because it hooks readers' interest and keeps them interested. Human nature is to want to know how things turn out, so conflict's power lies in its ability to appeal to that innate curiosity.  But there are other powerful techniques to create tension in your fiction.

• Ominous Signs:  You can sprinkle crumbs of tension throughout your story by leaving clues that portend impending trouble.  They may be very subtle signs such as a character's gesture or thought or they may be very obvious signs such as dialogue between characters or direct description of a scene.  However you choose to dole them out, you can tease your readers with signs that things aren't right and something bad is likely to happen.  This hooks readers in and keeps them hooked.  Again, that innate curiosity readers have is a powerful thing to exploit.

• Building Pressure:  Tension can be created by layering in actions that will inevitably collide.  If a character repeatedly acts in a way that gets him into difficulties, the pressure builds for that character to either reform or face disaster.  You can build this pressure for readers by setting up a sequence of events that can only lead to one inevitable conclusion.  By doing this, you can take the reader along with you on this awful journey your character is taking, intimating that the worst imaginable outcome is certainly possible but also leaving hope that maybe the character can break the chain of events and redeem himself.  Whether or not he does is what will keep readers hooked.  They want to know how it turns out, and that wanting to know is powerful.

• Omissions:  One of the most effective ways you can use language is the tension you create by what you don't say.  Telling readers everything isn't challenging for them.  They want to figure things out for themselves.  Readers are sleuths at heart.  They take this journey with you, the writer, to have an adventure, to figure things out for themselves, to discover as they go.  You can satisfy this need by providing things piecemeal to readers. Omitting details strategically is very powerful.  It gives your story tension because readers have to fill in the gaps and piece things together for themselves.  This keeps them hooked and feeling invested in your story.

• Nonfiction:  

• Provocative Questions:  Tension can also be used to make nonfiction more powerful. One effective way is to ask startling or unsettling questions.  They can be rhetorical questions or actual questions.  The idea is to get readers' attention and make them think. The power of provocation is that it asks readers to engage in different perspectives, perhaps even perspectives opposite what they would normally believe.  This creates tension in readers because it requires them to leave their comfort zones and see things through a different lens.  Readers want to be challenged and provocative questions provide a powerful way to satisfy that need.

• Volatile Statements:  Another way to create tension in nonfiction is to make emotionally charged statements.  They can be either negatively or positively charged, but the idea is to get an impassioned response from readers.  These kinds of statements are very powerful because they cause immediate tension in readers and make them want to read more to alleviate that tension.  Readers have strong opinions, and when writers probe at those opinions, it engages readers in a potent internal discourse with the writing.

• Impossible Scenarios:  Creating tension in nonfiction can be craftily done by creating impossible scenarios for readers to consider.  They are impossible in the sense that they put the reader in a difficult situation of choice and ask the reader to decide.  This creates tension because it forces readers to examine their values and character.  If put in this situation, how would they react?  This is powerful stuff and engages readers in a level of self-reflection that stabs at the core of who they are.  Readers want to know themselves, and by creating impossible scenarios, you are helping them do that.

Powerful writing is produced not by paving a smooth path for readers, but by putting up roadblocks, creating obstacle courses, and leading them over rough and tricky terrain. By creating tension in your writing, you challenge readers, hold their attention, and give them a meaningful and transformative experience.  Power your writing with all of the tools at your disposal and your readers will keep coming back for more.