This is a little vague and hard to encapsulate in a single tweet, but specifically I’m looking at a lengthy experience of increasing internal tension inside a character versus the multiple tense moments of a typical action story as they escalate, resolve, escalate again.
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I know
@BrianNiemeier has told me action relieves tension and I hadn’t fully understood that until I looked at it in this fuller context. Action does relieve that immediate tension even if it leads to a new tension. Character-driven tension remains constant as it swells.Show this thread -
Just a different view of storytelling than I’d typically held in the past. I believe this is why people point to Making Peace as my “best book ever” because internal tension escalated continuously versus my newest pulp stuff being a series of escalating but separate tensions.
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In that case it maybe best to divide my stuff into Pulp writing and Psych writing, action-driven and character-driven.
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A good reminder. I wonder if this is the issue with my writing. I’m writing character-driven stories, but using the action-driven tension conflict types. Hmmm.
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I sometimes am tempted to divulge too much and make characters get along too soon. Keeping the tension high so they don’t hug it out right away can help.
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All of my stories are character driven. I had an assassin. It was a heavy moment when they couldn’t pull the trigger. Pulling the trigger was a release, as the mission was done, but at the end of the story, you knew he would be called to kill again and die a little more inside.
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