Inky Fingers

Welcome to Inky Fingers! This page is for all writers, young and young-at-heart. First of all, I am not (yet) a professional writer, so my voice of experience is not coming from the other side of success. On the other hand, I'm struggling with the rest of you and I've picked up a few tips along the way.

Inkpot Spot: Issue 4, Volume 1. This issue is about tension. Parts have been lifted from Nancy Kress's Writer's Digest fiction column, "'I Just Couldn't Put It Down!'" December 1997 issue.
Tension is about keeping your readers reading. Good tension, that is. There is bad tension, when your readers have no earthly idea what's going on. Good tension makes them turn the page to see what's going on. Nancy calls it an itch. You've got to make the readers scratch, not break into hives.
Tension is the food of writing. Readers can't get enough of it. If you can't picture somebody reading what you've written in the middle of the night into the wee hours, or even at noon, then you don't have it. The secret is hitting them on the first page. Check your first paragraph. What's it doing? Is it describing a beautiful landscape which will be destroyed by a meteor thirty pages down? Is it about a young man going through a humdrum day of school, a dozen pages before his climactic expulsion? So... why should the reader care? The reader will only sit up and take notice if there's a shadow on the wind-tossed field growing larger and larger, and all the animals are running away; he or she will turn the pages if the honor student punches the principal in the first scene. Of course, it doesn't have to be that obivious. It can be a little tension, like how the astronomer who is going to discover the meteor is going to reconcile with his ex-wife. Foreshadowing, introducing subplots, or introducing character flaws are some examples of early tension.
The next task for the writer is making the characters fit the tension. Why would you turn pages for a jerk? You wouldn't... unless you know he's been trying to decide between a college education and his music career, and now that he's expelled, he has to go on the road to find the perfect guitar. If the astronomer is a misogynist, he wouldn't really care if his ex-wife wanted to see him again, much less feel compelled to save her from the meteor thirty pages down. Put your characters into situations that they must confront, that mean something to them, or else the reader won't care either.
The last element Nancy mentions is, well, "everything else."
"This is where the issue of 'tension' shades into all the other issues of writing fiction: memorable characters, original voice, compelling plot, human significance, interesting setting, etc. All these also serve to keep readers involved in your story."
Every story leads from greater tension to lesser tension, until every element is, or isn't, resolved. Always keep it in mind... how shall we keep them turning pages today?

Notable Notes: In the course of creating this page, I use several resources, including Writer's Digest (R), for inspiration. I urge you to use market tools like periodicals, web pages, and the annual Writer's Market if you want to publish. Even if you are not interested in publishing, my philosophy is: IF YOU'RE SERIOUS ABOUT WRITING, BE SERIOUS ABOUT THE BUSINESS. You pick up all sorts of tricks from the masters, who have to write to eat (!) If the glamour of getting a job you actually like isn't enough, remember that writing is food for the soul. Whether you're writing to get things off your chest or because you have a knack for storytelling, never stop improving yourself. Writing is your voice; make it as clear as possible because it's the one thing they'll never take away from you.

Links

Writers Net: Internet Resource
The Real Inkspot for Young Writers
The Levenger Catalog: "Tools for Serious Readers"

© 1998 milesphile@hotmail.com

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