Stop killing your tension
- J.J. Richardson
- Apr 6
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 9
I have critiqued hundreds of budding authors' stories. The amount of talent, creativity, and energy authors devote to weakening their stories never ceases to amaze me.
Most of the time, it's fun and rewarding to come up with thoughtful and kind ways to tell new authors that their writing is in desperate need of help.
However, there's one glaring problem in about half of the stories that makes me so annoyed I must use exclamation points when marking up their manuscripts. If their problem persists, capitalized words start appearing. Ultimately, I must step away and find a treat in the kitchen to calm me down. Treats are hard to find in my house because my wife is a health food fanatic. Dried seaweed doesn't do it for me.
The problem I'm referring to is when every character in a story speaks with a snarky, snappy, smarmy manner while they wink, smile, or grin, making it absolutely clear to the readers that,
“There be no tension here.”
I’m writing this post because this is a too common, persistent problem. In other words, it’s a big deal!
See, I’m already using exclamation points.
Authors pour their hearts and souls into their suspenseful, conflict-driven stories, only to sweep away their well-developed tension with characters who sound like socially struggling junior high school students trying to be popular.
Maybe budding authors do this so their readers will like their characters and, in turn, love their stories. But readers don’t like tensionless stories filled with characters who sound like nerdy adolescents.
Watch the following scene from the movie Rebecca (1940). You’ll hear no snappy, playful dialogue spoken by winking, nodding characters:
-- Rebecca (1940)
“But, that's a serious drama,” you say. “Of course, the tone is intense.”
All right, watch the following scene. Notice that the characters take their problem very seriously. There are no quippy remarks or assuring winks:
-- Laurel and Hardy
“But these examples are from old movies that don’t apply anymore,” you say.
How about a modern comedy. Where’s the relief in tension?
-- Galaxy Quest (1999)
The tension remains even though the audience chuckles. How about this next scene from Galaxy Quest, where on a mining planet, the characters come across alien miners:
-- Galaxy Quest (1999)
The audience enjoys the lines, but the characters do not.
Let me count the ways
Below is a partial list of the other ways beginning authors mangle dialogue, not to mention characterization, theme, pace, description, and story.
Putting explanations into dialogue (“As you know, Tim, we shouldn’t...”), which isn’t necessary if the writing is good, because readers will have already caught on and don’t want to be hand-held. Spoon-feeding your fans will only cause them to skip pages.
Repetition (Tim laughed. “Ha, ha!” he exclaimed with a grin.)
Drab (boring) pleasantries (“Hi, how are you?” “Good. And you?” “I’m fine.”)
Lack of subtext, where the characters say what they really feel or know. Subtext is when what is really going on in a discussion is missing from the dialogue.
“On the nose” dialogue that throws the characters’ thoughts and feelings in the reader’s face, eliminating any suspense, intrigue, subtlety, or mystery. ("I am very angry at you right now because you forgot my birthday, and I feel unappreciated!")
Use of cliches (“Shaken, not stirred,” “Are you talking to me?”)
Dialogue without tension (Characters are too polite.)
All characters sounding the same
Dialogue without action
No high stakes
If new authors did nothing else but fix the above issues, their writing would be twice as good.
What about in real life?
What’s interesting is that everything mentioned in this post applies equally to real-life conversations. We’ve all spoken to someone who must explain everything to you as if you were a child. We've also spoken to the guy who repeats himself.
Perhaps all the flaws we’ve discussed can be summarized in three words:
Read the room.
When you write a story, a half million people are in the room. You'd better read it right!
The iceberg theory
The best dialogue is achieved by NOT revealing what's beneath the scene, by not showing what's under the characters’ skins.
Hemingway coined the term “iceberg theory,” which means that the text on the page (including the dialogue) should contain only 1/8 of what’s really happening. The emotional nuances of emotion, theme, and story should be hidden. They’re all felt by the reader anyway if the writing is good enough.
Never tell the reader, or anyone you’re talking to, how to feel. Don’t spell out emotions. The more you explain, the less the reader will feel it.
It’s like explaining a joke.
It never works.
Pixar director Andrew Stanton said, “Don’t give them 4. Give them 2 + 2.”
And it gets worse
How about this for even more complexity:
Dialogue must sound natural.
Dialogue must be the best wording the characters can say.
As a writer, you must use dialogue that represents the best the characters can say, yet it must sound perfectly natural. Every good movie and book does this. And so does anyone on a good date.
“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
-- Alfred Hitchcock
Imagine being in a tense argument. Everyone is on edge. You’re so angry that you say something stupid and then hate yourself for it. The next morning, you wake up and say to yourself, “I should have said...” That is what you have your characters say.
This doesn’t make your characters perfect, and it doesn't mean that what they say solves the problem. But you want your readers to believe your characters are doing the best they can, given the limitations of their personality and understanding of the problem.
Watch the following video about 8 times. You’ll notice that every word is perfect given the characters’ background and point of view.
Die Hard (1988)
Notice how Bruce Willis's character doesn’t answer the antagonist’s question.
Likability isn’t required
To enjoy a book, readers don’t need to like its characters. But they do need to understand them. One of my favorite movies is Flight of the Phoenix (1965). In that movie, the main character, played by Jimmy Stewart, is not likable. In fact, he is such a jerk at one point in the movie that when rewatching it, I must fast-forward past the scene. But I understand why he is the way he is. It’s not how I would have acted, but I’m not him.
In fiction and in real life, we must realize why people are the way they are if we're to get along.
The following are three examples of novels in which, in my opinion, the author was more focused on creating likable, snappy, hip, popularity-seeking characters than on creating fully realized, realistic, rich, 3D characters:
Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir) – All characters. The “snappy, quippy character” problem is so bad in the book that I was forced to put it down halfway through. Of course, millions of people disagree with me. But they’re wrong.
Foundryside (Robert Jackson Bennett) – “Clef” character. The novel is one of the tensest I’ve ever read. But every time Clef speaks, the tension is sucked away. Yet I finished the book. I still recommend it to everyone because it’s so good in many other ways.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling) – Most of the main characters. I had to put down the book halfway through. I know that millions of people disagree with me, but they’re wrong, too.
In fact, the likability of a character is never necessary. Is Katniss Everdeen likable? I don’t think so. I believe that if I spent time with her, she’d scream at me constantly. Is Hermione Granger likable? Who wants to be around a condescending, haughty, know-it-all? It could be that the Harry Potter series wouldn’t have succeeded without Hermione Granger’s character.
My desperate plea
Please, everyone. Quit trying to create popular characters. Quit trying to impress. Why is Darth Vader a popular character even though all he does is kill people? Is it because he’s not vindictive and emotional, but just does his job?
Maybe if budding authors took their characters more seriously, the literary fiction industry would be in much better shape.
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