Let’s take a look at the first several definitions of Tension found on http://www.dictionary.com

ten⋅sion   /ˈtɛnʃən/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ten-shuhn] Show IPA

Let’s face it. Tension is really no fun. But all of life is full of tense moments. Moments where we wonder what is going to happen to us, or a loved one, or our favorite basketball team. In real life tension doesn’t always end in a fulfilling way. (The team loses, a loved one gets hurt, we have a bad day, etc.) But you can use that knowledge (the basic understanding of what tension feels like) that all your readers innately have to make your characters sympathetic.

For literary purposes, tension is what makes your reader want to keep turning the pages. You want your reader so emotionally invested in your characters that they can’t put the book down.

There are any number of ways of painting tension into a scene, but for the purposes of keeping this post short, I will focus on one way.

**Give your characters conflicting desires.

In romance, for instance, it is common for the heroine to be attracted to the hero, but have a good reason why getting together with him isn’t a great idea. When you portray that image of her heart longing to give in, but her mind telling her this is not the right thing to do, you will draw your readers in because they understand what it is like to want something but know it isn’t what they should do.

Let me give you a short clip from my current WIP of what I’m talking about. Just prior to this scene, my heroine, Victoria, overheard her husband-of-convenience telling another woman that he wasn’t happy with her.

“Ria,” he whispered into her hair, “you misunderstood what you saw today.”

“Did I?” The words came out on a tiny squeak and frustration coursed through her. Why couldn’t she at least sound self-assured around him? She pressed her lips together and tried to step away, but he used the movement to catch her elbow and move her into the corner of the kitchen cabinets; then had the audacity to lean one arm against each cupboard.

He leaned in. “Yes, you did.” There was an intensity in his eyes that she didn’t ever remember seeing before.

She swallowed. “Everything I saw and heard seemed pretty clear. You don’t have to lie to me just to make me feel better, Rocky.”

His brows lowered and a muscle along his jaw bunched as he leaned a little closer. “I’m going to ignore the fact that you just called me a liar, for a moment.” A softness settled around his eyes.  “What did you hear exactly?” He lifted one hand to push back an escaped curl, his touch whisper-soft against her cheek.

Tremulous quivering burst to life in the pit of her stomach. She willed it away and opened her mouth to tell him exactly what it was that she had heard…. What had she heard, again? “Um…” She took in the day-old stubble that dusted his firm jaw, the small white scar that peeked out from the dark curl drooping over his forehead, and the way he worked one side of his lower lip with his teeth, and couldn’t quite remember what it was she wanted to say.

A crinkle appeared at the corners of his eyes and his fingers caressed her cheek more firmly as he leaned even closer. “Having a hard time thinking, Ria?”

So, hopefully you can feel the tension in that piece between what her heart wants and what her mind is telling her. It is hard to get the whole picture, sometimes, from just a short clip.

There are other ways of filling your pages with tension. But this is one that works well. Thoughts? Questions?

Next time we’ll talk about secondary characters.

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Different publishing houses have different rules on what needs to happen by the end of your romance novel.

But here are two universal expectations for category romance.

1. The couple needs to overcome all their difficulties and either get married, or be together as a couple by the end of the book. Romance, after all, is a happily ever after genre. Most people who read romance read it for the happy ending.

I’ve heard of authors who’ve lost readers because they didn’t follow this rule. So if you want to hang onto your readers there needs to be a happy ending.

Also of note: If throughout your book the heroine has been debating between two guys, there needs to be a front runner in the minds of your readers and, to fulfill this point, he is the man she needs to get together with in the end.

2. Point number two is pretty obvious, but you need to tie up any loose ends. Unless you are going on to write a sequel you need to carefully read over your manuscript to make sure you’ve neatly solved all the conflict and problems you introduced in the story.

Don’t belabor this process. There is nothing more frustrating to a reader than for a story to be over and still have 3 chapters of resolution.

I read one not too long ago that belabored the ending. I kept flipping through the remaining pages thinking, “The story is over already, what more is there to say?” I did push on to read through to the end, but it was frustrating. You want to leave your reader wanting more, not frustrated that the story is dragging on forever.

Did you read any romances recently that broke one of these rules? How did that make you feel as a reader?

Tomorrow is an interview with my friend K.M. Weiland about her novel Behold the Dawn. The next regular post we’ll talk about a couple ways to build tension between the hero and heroine.

Image from: http://cdn-write.demandstudios.com/upload//8000/800/00/3/58803.jpg

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Part of making our characters real is giving them physical responses to their emotional feelings. A heroine might bite her lip if she is nervous or thinking deeply about something. A hero might scrub his hands through his hair in frustration or clench his fists in anger. Each of these responses makes a character who they are and hopefully contributes to their memorability.

The problem comes when you are on your second or third (or …) book and you realize that there are only so many physical reactions people have to certain emotional feelings. Your character, doesn’t blow a raspberry, for instance, when they are afraid - they gasp, cower, tremble, etc.

So the question is: How to make each character unique and still keep their reactions believable?

1. The first thing to remember is that all people, different though they may be, will sometimes have similar reactions to similar situations. So don’t limit yourself just because Sally jumped sky high when Fred jumped out from behind the door - if Sally retaliates and does the same thing, Fred is likely to jump too.

2. Give each characters a trait that is a habit for them. We all have little habits that develop over time - twisting our hair when we are bored, sucking our teeth when we are thinking, etc. Find one or two of these to ‘tag’ your character with and, while there will be other reactions they need to have throughout the book, focus on emphasizing those responses for that character.

3. Sometimes we get stuck with only a few responses coming to mind for certain emotions. If that happens to you, take a break from writing for awhile and head to the mall. Find a spot in the center of activity and just watch people. Take note of their movements and responses - what are they reacting to? Bring a note-book with you and you will be surprised at the number of new ways you come up with of showing internal emotions with external actions.

I’m sure there are any number of ways of handling this as I’m still learning too. What are some things you do to keep your characters from having the same reactions to their internal emotions?

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As promised, I’m getting back to our discussion about color.

First, I want to thank Dennis Hensley, whose class I had the privilege of sitting in on this past May at the Northwest Christian Writers Renewal Confernce. This discussion comes from his class notes.

Literary fiction of old was full of color symbolism. Now, I have to admit to a severe lack of exposure to modern literary fiction, so I haven’t seen what is taking place in the field today, but a study of what used to be, is always beneficial to what is.

Below is a list of symbolism from classic literary fiction:

• White - Life/Hero. (The good cowboy always wore white, for instance. Except for Zorro. )
• Black - Death. (What was the name of the nine ghouls in The Lord of the Rings? “The Black Riders.”)
• Gray - Life/Death Simultaneously. (So the sea might be described as gray, because it gave life, but also often took life.)
• Red - Pain, Violence, Trauma, Bloodshed. (The red lava in Mount Doom is a good example.)
• Gold - Wealth
• Brown - of the earth, something good. (Usually a character described with earth tones in classic literature was a good-guy, a survivor.)
• Green - Birth/Rebirth
• Pink - Femininity
• Purple - Royalty
• Yellow - Swing color could mean Blindness or Enlightenment. (When a cowboy walked out of the saloon into the golden sunlight, he was often blinded literally and figuratively to his impending death. In Jack London’s story “War” the young man who ends up dead at the end of the piece was covered with yellow pollen for much of the story - he was blinded to his impending death.)

While I found this class interesting, I realized that I don’t pay too much attention to the symbolism of my colors as I write. I wonder if other authors do? What about you?

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Imagine my surprise to learn today that I’d been honored with the Lovely Blog Award. My writer friend K. M. Weiland over at WordPlay was kind enough to give it to me. I highly recommend her blog! Thanks, gal! I appreciate it.

My friend Linda over at 777 Peppermint Place awarded me one of these as well. Linda writes in a way that pulls you in and doesn’t let you go until the story is over. Take a look at her blog. You’ll be glad you did!

Rule for this award are that I now get to hand it on to the wonderful blogs that I follow. While choices were tough, here they are in no particular order.

If I list you below and you want to accept the award. Post this image on your blog with a link-back to me. Followed by a list of blogs that you follow.

1. Bruce Judisch over at It Is To Write always has such nice reviews up. If you’re looking for a good read, check out his blog for great information on some really neat books. (Sorry if the award is kinda girly, Bruce. Try to imagine it with a big ol’ mug o’ coffee and a rifle across the corner. But I think your guy-card can handle it.)

2. Cindy Wilson is another author friend of mine with a wonderful blog about the writing industry. She always has such neat posts. If you are an author, stop by her place. You’ll be glad you did.

3. Kelsey Kilgore writes with wonderful humor and candor. I eagerly await her blog’s return.

4. Sharlene MacLaren can make me laugh whether she is talking about mice or her cute grandson. Whatever she is writing about, you’ll be sure to get a smile out of it.

5. I recently stumbled on Sherrinda over at A Writer Wannabe. From the looks of her blog, she’ll be published soon. Follow her on the journey to publication.

6. Another blogger who is fairly new to me is Terri Tiffany. I enjoy her writing blog.

7. I went to school with Moira from Leppard Life. She and her husband recently brought home two little boys from Ethiopia. She blogs about adoption, and the adjustments they are making now that the boys are home. Love you, Moira!

8. My friend and critique partner Gigi Murfitt blogs about learning to adjust to and live in an empty nest.

9. I have a book due out soon, so I’ve recently been following Sarah Bolme’s blog, Marketing Christian Books. If you need encouragement in your marketing efforts, check her out.

10. Another blog I follow for industry news and updates is Sally Stuart’s Christian Writer’s Marketplace. If you don’t get a copy of Sally’s Christian Writer’s Market guide each year, I highly recommend that you begin to do so. That book is packed with information on publishing companies and what they are looking for. When you know the market, you can better target your proposals.

11. The gals over at The Seekers blog about contests, and the writing industry. They have lots of fun over there, so swing by and check them out.

12. Randy Ingermanson’s blog Advanced Fiction Writing is full of great information for writers of fiction. Randy, just try to imagine the award with an exploding helicopter in the center of it. Thanks for all the great information.

And, for now, those are the blogs that I would like to recommend to you. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Do you have a fun writer’s blog that you follow? I’d love to hear about it!

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In much of Literary fiction, color was very symbolic. Take the old Westerns for instance - the good guy was almost always in the white hat, the bad guy in the black one. Colors meant different things. (We’ll talk more about that next time.)

While in modern fiction, much of this symbolism has been thrown to the wind, it is enlightening to study what color symbolism meant in the past, and who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself slipping some of it into your own writing, because colors are powerful, emotion-eliciting tools a writer can use.

Studies have proven colors affect our moods. Blue, for instance, is an appetite suppressant. Put a blue light in your fridge, paint your kitchen blue, eat off blue plates and you will most likely drop a few pounds. (Really.)

So the colors we incorporate into our writing can enhance the mood we are trying to portray. I recently took a survey over at www.colormatters.com and answered a series of questions on what colors I associated with different items. Go try it, it was kinda fun. Here are the results reported for 30,000 people.

Global Color Survey Results

Since 1997, over 30,000 people from all points on the globe took the survey. Here are the results:

Happy - Yellow
Pure - White
Good Luck - Green
Good-tasting - Red (tomato)
Dignity - Purple
High Technology - Silver
Sexiness - Red (tomato)
Mourning - Black
Expensive - Gold
Inexpensive - Brown
Powerful - Red (tomato)
Dependable - Blue
High Quality - Black
Nausea - Green
Deity - White
Bad Luck - Black
Favorite Color - Blue
Least Favorite Color - Orange

So what can this do for our writing? Well, like ambiance in a restaurants, colors can ad another layer to our writing.

Are you trying to portray a happy scene? Put your heroine in a yellow dress. Do you want to portray a high-powered executive? Put him in a black sports car, or behind a black desk with silver gadgets - and don’t forget the red tie! You see, simply by association, people will presume different things about your characters.

Let’s look at our little paragraph from last time - the one after we added in some of our 5 senses. This time I will add in some colors.

The clack of typewriters raised a cacophony around his oak desk as Ben hurried to type up the report. Kevin would be red-faced and screaming-mad if this didn’t get turned in on schedule. He would have been on time, just finishing up in fact, if he hadn’t run into that aid in the hallway and had to take that side trip to the restroom to clean up. He could still feel the cold wet splotch on his blue shirt, the faint smell of her coffee still lingered. It’s what he deserved, he supposed, for always leaving things to the last minute. Just a few more lines! He was in his zone now. His fingers flying over the smooth, round keys with practiced ease. Three of the strikers tangled together. Blast! He reached up and flicked them back into place.

Pay attention to how these colors enhance the piece. Note, we already knew that Ben was a simple worker-bee trying to get his project turned in on time. But with the added element of the oak (brown=inexpensive) desk we enhance that. We already knew that Kevin was the boss, but when we give him a red face we add a hint of power to him. And giving Ben a blue shirt adds to the image that he’s a stand-up dependable guy, just having a bad day.

I hope these tips will help you with your writing. Next time, we’ll talk about literary fiction and the symbolism of color used in those works.

How have you used color to enhance your writing?

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The first way to infuse some life into your manuscript is to include the five senses.

Everyday, we use our senses to experience the world around us. At this moment, for instance, as I sit at my cluttered desk typing this post, I’m using all five. The rain is falling gently outside, my computer is humming, keyboard keys are clicking, feeling smooth to my touch. My coffee smells wonderful, and tastes even better, and the splotch on the lower left corner of my laptop screen (where my kids spilled something on my computer) is still annoying me. You can’t get away from the senses in real-life, so to make fiction real, you had better include them.

So, lets look at two paragraphs - one with the five senses in focus, the other without.

Ben sat at his desk, hurrying to type up the report. Kevin would be upset if he didn’t get this turned in on schedule. He would have been on time, just finishing up in fact, if he hadn’t run into that aid in the hallway and had to take that side trip to the restroom to clean up. It’s what he deserved, he supposed, for always leaving things to the last minute.

Okay, so we have a guy at his desk, running late, apparently as usual, trying to get his work turned in on time. Not a bad little paragraph. It has some tension in it. Has a little bit of setting - he’s at his desk, wherever that may be. (Is he alone in an office? in a cubicle? in the middle of a large room full of desks?) You see? there is a lot left out, many questions the reader still has in their mind. To liven this scene up we need to include the five senses - now you don’t have to include them ALL, but even sprinkling in a few will add much detail to this paragraph.

I like to close my eyes, put myself in the scene as the Point of View character, and ask: What is he seeing? Hearing? Touching? Smelling? Tasting? Let’s do that with this small paragraph and see what happens.

The clack of typewriters raised a cacophony around his desk as Ben hurried to type up the report. Kevin would be screaming-mad if he didn’t get this turned in on schedule. He would have been on time, just finishing up in fact, if he hadn’t run into that aid in the hallway and had to take that side trip to the restroom to clean up. He could still feel the cold wet splotch on his shirt, the faint smell of her coffee still lingered. It’s what he deserved, he supposed, for always leaving things to the last minute. Just a few more lines! He was in his zone now. His fingers flying over the smooth, round keys with practiced ease. Three of the strikers tangled together. Blast! He reached up and flicked them back into place.

So there is the same paragraph with a few hints to the senses of the POV character. Do you see how that enhances the piece? Makes it come more alive? Draws the reader in? We now know he is at a desk in a room with several others because he can hear them. We also know that someone spilled coffee on him because he can feel the wet splotch and smell the lingering scent of coffee. We know he’s using an old-fashioned typewriter because he sees the strikers get tangled and feels the smoothness of the round keys beneath his fingers.

So take a look at your writing. Could you do a better job of incorporating the five senses? If you would like to post some before and after paragraphs to help other writers along their learning journey that would be great.

Next time we will talk about the use of color in your writing. Hope to see you then.

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Ever consider that concept? What does that mean? We’re going to talk about this here on this blog a little over the next couple weeks. Is your manuscript full of life? Does it have passion? What are the things that put life into a story? What makes words come alive on the page, so that your emotions ride the waves the author wants you to ride?

Put your thinking caps on and come back over the next several weeks as we look at: What is it that invokes passion about a book? What makes people talk about your writing because it reaches them in the core of their being? Can this art be learned, or is it merely a “some have it, some don’t” luck-of-the-draw?

See you next time…

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