The goal of every good novelist is to craft engaging and captivating stories that get his/her reader hooked and in anticipation of newer titles. Consequently, most writers go out of their way to utilize various literary devices to meet this need.
Tension is one of the best and quickest literary tools storytellers use to evoke emotional responses in their readers. However, the major problem lies in a writer’s ability to create tension without frustrating their audience.
Ready to learn the best ways to avoid frustrating your readers while using tension? Keep reading this article. We’ll start by understanding the differences between both terms.
Difference Between Tension and Frustration
Tension in storytelling is a writer’s strategy of infusing a good or bad event into a narrative. This narrative technique often begins with suspense and causes a strain on the readers as they are uncertain of the outcome of future events. A well-organized tension alters a reader’s emotions, keeps him/her in the loop, and leads to the plot’s progress.
Tension can be induced in the form of a physical or emotional situation. Physical tension involves a situation where a character or characters are at risk of danger triggered by a fight, natural disaster, or violent attack. Emotional tension may arise through difficulty in making decisions or relationship issues leading to unrest on the part of the audience.
However, frustration in storytelling refers to the feeling of anger or irritation in a reader that stems from a poorly planned tension. Frustration is that emotional state of being disappointed or caught in between, making a reader feel like flipping over to the last page of a novel. Readers may feel frustrated if the tension in a story is unnecessarily prolonged or ends unsatisfactorily.
Hence, while tension is good, frustration isn’t good. Tension can make a reader eager to turn over to the next page of the story to know what happens next. Contrarily, frustration will make them drop the storybook entirely.
Benefits of Tension in a Story
Tension is an effective literary tool that enhances a narrative in the following ways;
- It helps in character development.
- Tension makes a story more entertaining.
- It helps in the building and unveiling of the plot.
- Tension makes an audience engaged as they stay glued to the story.
- It keeps the readers emotionally connected, which makes the story richer.
- Through tension, readers keep guessing not knowing what to expect. Hence, it helps to get them interested in the story.
- The emotional connectivity created by tension triggers a feeling of accomplishment in the readers as they are either invested in a character’s success or failure.
How to Prevent Frustration while Creating Tension
As a writer, I’m sure you’ll never want to get your readers annoyed while they read your story. So, the good news is that it’s possible to create tension in your story without making your audience feel frustrated. Here are simple ways to do so.
Avoid the Disappearance of the Protagonist
The idea behind every story always revolves around the chief character. Any story without a protagonist is usually empty and boring. So, the protagonist in a story must always be seen in the picture.
Whether or not you intend to introduce tension, avoid taking the main character out of the story. If his/her disappearance is the motive behind the tension being created, such disappearance shouldn’t stand for too long to prevent your readers from getting frustrated.
Avoid Excessively Prolonging an Event
No individual loves to be held in a place for too long. Similarly, no reader feels comfortable reading about a particular event for a very long time. Readers expect to see light at the end of every dark tunnel while they quickly move on to the next.
Hence, to avoid your reader being frustrated amid tension, do not let the tension linger for too long. Be wise enough to end a tense situation at an appropriate time. As a novelist, it is better to create multiple tensions in your story than sitting on a particular one. Prolonging tension to a great extent may cause you to run out of ideas, bring in unrelated stories or actions, or bore your readers.
Chip in Sweet Moments
While creating tension, do not wait till the end of the story to unveil the sweetness of the event. You can sprinkle in a few satisfying scenes to give your readers something to hold until you unveil the rest.
Let’s assume that two love birds are going through a rough time in their relationship. You can spring in a little bit of relaxing scenes to help your readers stay entertained.
For instance, infuse scenarios where one party reminisces about their love life and is prompted to end the conflict. This can spur up some happy feelings in your audience even though they are not sure of the eventual outcome of events. Creating much tension without any happy moments in between can frustrate your readers.
Unveil Character Secret
Unveiling some character secrets is one way to prevent your audience from losing interest in your story during the tension. Readers always want to capture a new and interesting event while they read. So, revealing stuff about a character can come as a surprise to them.
You can unveil a character’s past secret, his/her traits, weaknesses, strengths, or motivations. The best part can be to reveal a character’s hidden plan that will likely trigger a happy ending. By so doing, you can successfully prevent your audience from getting frustrated amid tension.
Rule out Unnecessarily Sluggish Characters
You must be careful not to disengage your readers while trying to create tension. Most writers intentionally introduce sluggish characters into events in a bid to create suspense. They try to take advantage of the character’s sluggishness in making the readers feel tense.
Contrarily, these characters might become unnecessarily sluggish, making the reader feel irritated. Unfortunately, such a writer may end up frustrating his/her audience instead of creating tension. Hence, it’s important to rule out any character who might be unnecessarily slow.
Avoid Including Incompetent Characters
Characters are the major drivers of every story. Any story without a character is never a story. Hence, you must sift your characters to ensure their input adds to the plot development.
Resist the urge to include incompetent characters in your story. Readers feel frustrated when a character fails to take appropriate actions or act in an incompetent manner.
Take Away Irrelevant Obstacles
A well-thought-out and calculated tension will keep your audience hooked while making the story more interesting. Hence, any obstacle that will add little or nothing to the narrative must be carefully removed.
Naturally, most authors use obstacles or challenges to drive tension. But, it’s important to know whether or not any of the obstacles or challenges infused are relevant to the story or rather time-wasters.
Any obstacle that will hardly move the plot forward or add no meaningful tension ends up frustrating the audience. And so, writers must endeavour to take them out.
Conclusion
Tension is a viable literary tool for crafting an immersive story that keeps an audience engaged. However, it is risky to make your audience feel irritated and annoyed in a bid to create tension. Therefore, you must learn to set clear expectations for your story while crafting tension to help you remain focused on the aim, thus, avoiding frustration.