Tension can arise from anywhere — in a simple conversation, a family dinner, a job interview, or even with a lone character in a room. It’s what makes a reader inch closer to the edge of their chair and piques their curiosity. What will your characters do next? What could go wrong? What secret will be revealed here?
But how does tension work exactly? In this article, I’ll define tension, show how to apply it in your writing, and walk you through three scenarios where tension can make things more interesting. Lastly, I’ll give you a Story Weapon to help you build tension in your own scenes.
What is tension?
Tension is the uncertainty or apprehension about the resolution of something important for your character.
In simple terms: a person wants something, an obstacle stands in their way, and this creates the experience of rising tension demanding we continue turning the page in order to discover the result.
The obstacle could be a secret, a fear, or a deadline. Your character might not even know what the obstacle is.
The most important aspect of tension is the stakes: what your character stands to lose if things don’t go as they hope.
Tension is different from suspense in that both the reader and the character are aware of the conflict as it’s happening. In suspense, the reader knows there’s a danger or a threat coming but the character doesn’t yet. (You can explore how to write with suspense here.)
How to use tension in writing
Tension can’t be achieved simply by putting your characters through random stressful situations. It’s created by making the outcome both important and uncertain.
Here are some key aspects to keep in mind.
1. Give your character something they want
The starting point is desire.
What does your character want at this moment? Do they want to secure a job? Beg for their partner’s forgiveness? Hide a secret? Leave the room without being noticed?
The desire can be small, but it must be important to that character.
For example, let’s say Maria needs to ask her landlord for a two-week extension on rent she can’t quite cover this month.
This establishes a situation, but it doesn’t say much about what’s at stake personally for Maria. Adding those details helps to create urgency.
Maria has never missed a payment in four years, and she has always taken quiet pride in that. If she can get the extension without the landlord questioning her reliability, she preserves something she has built carefully and slowly. If she cannot, she will have to ask her sister for the money, and her sister will want to know why. That conversation is one Maria has been avoiding for months.
Now the situation and Maria’s desire are clearer, and the stakes are something the reader understands.
2. Create roadblocks
Figure out what your character wants and then put obstacles in front of them.
The obstacles can be relatively minor. A character trying to apologize for something may find that the person they’re trying to apologize to has already heard what happened from Janet, and she always puts her own spin on things.
Perhaps, a character trying to land a new job learns that the interviewer is someone they once knew and lied to years ago.
A character trying to travel out of the country quickly may discover that they don’t have a passport.
The obstacle creates a gap between what the character wants and what they can actually have. This gap helps drive the direction of the scene.
3. Give the character something to lose
What happens if your character fails?
You don’t need to think of failure in catastrophic terms, with death or destruction as the result.
Consider how your character may lose someone’s trust, or an opportunity. Consider how they may have to confront something they’ve been avoiding. Perhaps your character learns that a relationship they thought was secure isn’t.
Complex personal stakes bring more immediate tension.
Consider a character has the chance to win a million dollars, but they care more deeply about losing their sister’s trust. The tension isn’t about “What is the biggest thing I can take away from them?” but rather, “What is most valuable to this character?”
4. Give your character a difficult choice
One way to generate a lot of pressure on your character is to place them in an almost no-win situation.
If one of the choices is clearly better, it takes away the importance and weight of the decision. But what if telling the truth will cost you a friendship, while lying will betray your personal moral code? Now your audience wants to know what the character will choose.
The tension isn’t just about what happens after the decision; it’s about the struggle the character goes through to make that choice. This reveals what your character values, what they fear, and what they believe.
3 examples of adding tension
In the following examples, I’ll give you two scenarios: 1) a situation where there’s no pressure applied and then 2) show the difference of how things can play out much more interestingly with tension.
First, let’s see how applicable tension is in a mundane scene.
Example #1: The job interview
Without tension:
Maria walked into the interview room and took a seat. The interviewer asked about her work experience. Maria explained her skills and tasks she’d accomplished, calmly answering the interviewer’s questions.
This gives the reader very little reason to keep reading or to find out what happens next. Let’s add a secret and a dilemma.
With tension:
Maria entered the interview room and recognized the man waiting for her at the table.
Three years ago, she’d sent an email that could have cost her old employer millions. She’d never told anyone about that mistake.
“Have we met before?” he asked.
Maria smiled. “I don’t think so.”
The interview hasn’t gotten more difficult, and their verbal interaction could continue to go smoothly here. But the context has changed. Now the reader’s curiosity is piqued.
Do they remember each other? Will he discover what she did? Why does Maria need this job so desperately? What will he do once he finds out? These questions are enough to keep readers reading.
The tension in the interview comes from what Maria is concealing and what might happen if that secret comes to light.
Example 2: A family dinner
Without tension:
Everyone took their usual seats at the table as Mom brought out dinner. They discussed the weather at first. Emma’s brother cracked a joke, and everyone laughed.
Now, what if someone is about to reveal a secret?
With tension:
Everyone took their usual seats at the table as Mom brought out dinner. They discussed the weather at first, and Emma smiled at the sight of her favorite dish.
“So,” her brother asked, “how’s your new apartment?”
Emma glanced up and caught her mother’s startled expression. “It’s fine,” she muttered.
Ollie gave her a sly grin. “Dad said you weren’t living in that apartment anymore.”
Now the dinner feels different.
Nothing violent has happened, and no one has threatened anyone.
However, something is about to happen.
The reader knows that a problem exists here now. Will she tell the truth? Lie? Did something happen between them? Why did she keep that a secret?
Example 3: The missing phone
Without tension:
Daniel checked his nightstand. His phone wasn’t there. He checked the floor, the bathroom, and the kitchen.
Retracing his steps from the night before, he realized he’d left it at the restaurant. He called them from an app on his laptop, and the host confirmed they had it behind the counter. Daniel grabbed his keys and headed out to pick it up.
With tension:
Daniel checked his nightstand. His phone wasn’t there. He checked the floor, the bathroom, and the kitchen.
Nothing.
He made a call from an app on his laptop. The call went straight to his phone’s voicemail, and Daniel sighed. It was on silent mode. He couldn’t remember where he’d left it.
The restaurant.
Just as he was about to call them, hoping someone would be there so early in the morning, Daniel noticed a new email in his inbox.
“We need to talk about what was on your phone.”
Now the missing phone is important.
Who has it? What have they seen? What was on it? Why do they want to talk to Daniel? The tension is racking up.
Common mistakes with tension
1. Too much drama
Not every line you write needs to be dramatic. It’s best to find a balance between quiet moments and dramatic ones.
A quiet conversation can be tense. A character considering whether to answer the phone can be tense. A character reading a message can also be tense.
You don’t have to make every scene loud. Sometimes you have to make scenes more meaningful.
2. Confusing tension with conflict
Although conflict and tension go hand in hand, they’re not the same.
Conflict is often defined as opposing forces.
Tension is the anticipation of and frustration in dealing with that conflict.
Two characters can argue for three pages, and most readers will find it uninteresting if they already know how it ends.
On the other hand, two characters can have a civil conversation, and there can still be a high level of anticipation about who will reveal their secret first.
When revising a scene, think about what the reader is most interested in figuring out.
What do they assume will happen?
What are they most curious about here?
3. Telling the reader something is scary
Show, don’t just tell.
Maybe they’re unable to turn the doorknob because their hands are shaking. They might read a text message three times over, frozen in place. Perhaps your character types a response, deletes it, and sets their phone face down.
Let your reader see the character’s reactions, moments of indecision, and they’ll get to experience the tension that comes with it.
4. Resolving the tension too quickly
Once you’ve established a question, don’t rush to answer it.
If they’re about to confess, what’s something that would make them hesitate?
Or if your character has uncovered the truth about something, don’t end the scene there. Let them ponder what they’re going to do with that information.
Tension doesn’t mean never answering the question, but you can make the audience wait for it.
Your story weapon: The tension test
Tension almost never fails because a writer lacks dramatic instinct. It falls short when they haven’t identified what the character can’t afford to lose in this particular moment. Once you know that, the tension takes care of itself.
Before you write or revise a scene, run through the following four questions. Genuinely ask yourself what the scene is actually about.
- What does my character want in this scene, specifically?
- What do they believe is true that may not be?
- What are they being forced to choose between, and why is neither option clean?
- What will it cost them, personally and specifically, whichever way they go?
The answers to these questions will directly affect what you put on the page. Once you’re ready, write the scene.
✒️ Writing exercise
Set a timer for fifteen minutes and let it rip. Don’t edit as you go. You don’t need to craft the perfect opening line here. Put your character in the situation and let them move. Follow them past the point where you know what they are going to do. The scene that surprises you is almost always the scene most worth keeping.
When the timer stops, ask two questions. What did I discover about this character that I did not know before I started? And what is the reader most desperate to find out?
If you can’t answer either question, the scene hasn’t yet found its tension. Go back to the four questions. Something there hasn’t been answered honestly enough.
Tension is what happens when a character who wants something specific is forced to choose between two options they cannot afford, with something genuinely at stake in the outcome. Build that architecture underneath your scene first. The words will follow.
Once you have a draft of the scene, read it back and ask if you resolved the tension too quickly. Did you answer the question before the reader had time to feel the weight of it? Did you let a character off the hook before the scene had fully earned the release? Those are the places to go back into.
Hold the uncertainty a beat longer than feels comfortable. Let the tension work for you.
Strong storytelling depends on understanding how character, conflict, and stakes work together to create meaningful tension on the page. To deepen your understanding of these essential storytelling principles, join one of my next workshops: The 90-Day Novel, The 90-Day Memoir, Story Day.
