Had an enlightening conversation with a colleague about character-driven stories versus action-driven stories, specifically heavy violent action. Character-driven stories are still rife with conflict but the emphasis shifts to growing tension rather than a series of tensions.
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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.1 reply 1 retweet 4 likesShow 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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