We’re all told that a story needs “narrative tension”, a “central conflict”, and that’s true. The problem, though, is that in this context, “tension” and “conflict” don’t mean what they usually do – so when people apply that advice, it can end up ruining the story.
The most striking example I’ve ever found of this was a “castle” – I shan’t name it, to protect the innocently hapless. We’d chosen it for a mini-adventure visit mostly because it promised Talking Portraits. After the wonderful storytelling on HMS Victory, in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, we were all up for audio story tours!
The “portraits” were large vertical flat screens, with characters posed as paintings which then come alive and chat to you – basically videos that start moving when you enter the room. The characters were the castle’s owner, his wife, and their daughter, discussing the history of the castle. It started off fine, if a little dull… And then the characters started to argue. Mostly the couple berating their poor daughter, but sometimes they quarrelled with each other, too.
It fast became clear that someone had told the script writer that the story needed some tension, some conflict – and they’d gone for the garden-variety, not the narrative sort. Straight-up interpersonal tension and conflict.
The result? Cringing visitors were chased from room to room by this bickering family, flattening themselves on the furthermost walls to avoid setting the portraits off, warning each other on the sill of each room. Nobody wanted to witness the endless family quarrel, however many titbits of Useful History it included! Rather than giving the story energy, the tension and conflict ruined it, and we all scuttled away, dismayed.
I often see the same thing in early drafts, when people want to create narrative tension but end up with characters bickering. That makes us want to read it less, not more. It also often makes the main character less sympathetic – after all, they’re constantly sniping at people. That in turn makes us care less about their aims, which in turn makes us less interested in whether they do the thing or not. In short, it undermines the exact narrative tension which it’s trying to create.
That’s because narrative tension and conflict are not tension and conflict by our usual definition of the words: they’re much wider. In fact, I’ve stopped using the words “tension” and “conflict” in much of my teaching, and instead talk about narrative drive and interest. In the Story Elements course, we open it up to discussion of all the things it can mean, such as…
Casting a wide net of all the different kinds of narrative interest gives us a much richer repertoire to draw on, so we’re far less likely to fall into the bickering-characters trap.
It’s much more than those individual various drives, though: it’s the thread that draws the reader eagerly through the whole story. So the most helpful way to distil it, I find, is this: What does the reader hope / fear / think will happen next or want to find out?
That question is so useful that I’ve now added it to my template for my writing-group-instalments, so I always remember to ask them. And asking it sharpens my storytelling immeasurably. We always want the reader to be able to answer that question, 100% clearly: there is a definite reason they’re reading on. And if the reader can’t answer that question, we need to make the reason clearer – or, sometimes, invent it!
In each scene, in each chapter, in each act of the story, ask yourself, “What should the reader hope / fear / think will happen next or want to find out?” That’s your narrative tension, your narrative drive.
If you’d like to work on your narrative drive and plot interest in your stories, I have a brace of resources for you, now available as any-time Evergreen Resources: Narrative Drive and Plot Tension Map.
With Narrative Drive, you’ll distil that all important question for a story, including the crucial component of backing the character through the story. With Plot Tension Map, you’ll pace and layer that across the whole story, so every part is equally gripping: no slow starts or soggy middles.
Both are self-paced videos that you can use any time, taking you through the process in an hour. You can use them to plan a story, troubleshoot it, or redraft it, whichever stage you’re at. Click here to get started with your Narrative Drive.
