Writing Concept: Micro-tension in Exposition

Donald Maass has written a top-notch craft book called The Fire In Fiction. If you haven't laid your hands on this, I highly recommend it. This series of posts is taken directly from Chapter Eight. You will want your own copy if possible, so you can highlight and mark it up. I think this is one book on craft I will refer to often.

Exposition (interior monologue) is often skimmed over by readers. To illustrate his point, Maass suggests you pull out a purple highlighter (purple?) and grab a novel off your shelf. Read a few pages with your purple highlighter in hand. Draw a wavy line through any area you find yourself skimming. His bet is that much of what you skim will be exposition.

Why?

Maass writes: The most common reason is that such exposition merely restates what is obvious from what we have read: emotions that we felt earlier, thoughts that have already occurred to us. My private term for this is churning exposition. It's easy to skim because there's nothing new in it.

My notes from the his workshop include these words under micro-tension in exposition: SHARP HARD CONFLICT WAR

Tension in exposition is created when the author constructs feelings that are in conflict, or ideas that are at war with one another. Examples in Fire, include feelings of happiness and relief vying for worry in the exposition of one young girl. Ideas of judgment warring with forgiveness in the interior monologue of a dying man.

From Fire: How do you handle exposition? Are there passages of interior monologue in your manuscript that are just taking up space? If there are, you can cut them, or possibly you can dig deeper into your character at this moment in the story and find inside of him contradictions, dilemmas, opposing impulses, and clashing ideas that keep us in suspense.

. . . true tension in exposition comes not from circular worry or repetitive turmoil; it springs from emotions in conflict and ideas at war.

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack

It's all better with friends.

Writing Concept: Micro-tension in Action

You know that old axiom, "I know what I like when I see it." Well, when Donald Maass is actually reading examples and fixing them off the cuff, I can see it. I can hear it. The shift from mundane to intriguing.

But then I look at the page in front of me. One that I've written. It either looks just fine (and don't I know that is gonna bite me in the butt later on), or I can't figure out how to fix it. Is it really either of those things, or is it that I'm afraid it's going to require a lot more of me than I'm willing to give at this moment?

Whoa. That's bears repeating.

Is it really that I can't figure out how to fix something I've written, or is it that I'm going to have to invest more time, more thought, more struggle?

From The Fire in Fiction: . . . tension in action comes not from the action itself but from inside the point-of-view character experiencing it.

Here is a short section of a scene I recently revised. Hopefully, you'll be able to see a difference. Both of my critique partners had been in favor of cutting this paragraph. I decided to see if infusing it with a little bit of micro-tension changed their minds.

Bond (my co-protag) had gone for a walk with the family dog, a little bichon named McKenzie. The bad guys sent a message to the family by booting the small dog like a football. She's taking him to the vet.

First Draft:

Bond cradled him as best she could and took off at a fast trot down the remainder of the trail. She entered the code to open the garage and ducked under the door as it opened. Grabbed one of the blankets in her Jeep she always kept for emergencies and wrapped McKenzie. She hated letting him out of her grasp, but knew that laying him on the passenger seat would be better than him feeling her movements every time she moved her feet to drive. The garage door was barely up before she’d clamored into the Jeep and put her key in the ignition. Flying down the driveway, she punched a speed-dial number in her cell.

Revised draft:

Bond cradled him as best she could and sped off at a fast pace down the rocky, now dangerous, trail. Damn. What’s the code for the garage door? She forced her mind to focus. Two attempts and she ducked under the door as it opened. Grabbed one of the blankets in her Jeep she always kept for emergencies and swaddled McKenzie. The garage door was barely up before she’d clamored into the Jeep and twisted her key in the ignition. Firing down the driveway, she punched a speed-dial number in her cell.

What would make this better? More tension could be infused if Bond has some conflicting emotions. Any ideas?

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack.

It's all better with friends.

Moving Forward

I love learning.

My hope and intent is to be a life-long learner.

But one of the things I've discovered I need to learn is . . . how to apply what it is I've learned.

Every pianist wants to become a better pianist. When a pianist learns something new about fingering, or expression, or interpretation, they want to apply it to their work. But it's impossible for them to go back in time and play something differently than they played it a week ago. The "play" is finished. They must take what they've learned and apply it moving forward.

I learned the hard way that when you make an error when you're painting a watercolor, the error isn't going to disappear. You can't go back and fix it. You have to move ahead with what you've learned and work with what you've got. (My first-ever watercolor (above) is a wonderful beach scene with waves and colorful sky and that beachy-grass . . . and a pine tree on the left-hand side. A bird that was oh-so-bad turned into a pine cone turned into a tree branch. But it's framed and in our bedroom.)

How about what I learn regarding writing? It can be paralyzing. Rather than moving forward with what I've learned, I stop the presses, literally, go back full of angst, and attempt to redo everything. In a way, it's terrible that the option to rewrite even exists.

In the last week I've learned more about scenes than I knew the week before. My heart loves the new knowledge, even though there's this enormous chain that is tugging it under water with the perfectionist's need to go back and fix everything—even if it doesn't need fixing. As much as a heart requires blood (knowledge and excitement) pumping through it, it also requires air—the freedom to move forward. (Okay, so I don't know biology . . . but you know what I mean.)

I've decided to be the pianist for at least a day or two. To move forward with new learning. To not let it paralyze me. To let the new knowledge settle and attach itself to the way I work, becoming a fully formed, natural place from which to operate.

We'll see how far I get.

CR: Deception by Randy Alcorn.

It's all better with friends.