Micro-Tension Draft
Hi everyone,
Okay, so today I’m working on a micro-tension draft. Micro-tension is a term coined by Donald Maass * which means unease, discomfort on the page. It’s not about the plot of your novel but more the small details.
According to him there are one or more of three things on a page:
1) Dialogue
2) Exposition (including thoughts and description)
3) Action
Each of them can include a turning point: a change in direction.
Micro-tension in dialogue is when two people want different things and they are both vying for the thing they want. At the end, there’s either a winner and a loser or a stalemate.
Let’s break micro-tension for exposition into two categories:
Thoughts: this is internal conflict: warring desires, warring emotions. This includes anticipation, trepidation, shock, disbelief, moral dilemmas.
Description: this is harder to explain. My understanding is that it is words that evoke unease, subtext, an uneasy atmosphere. It is down to the word level. Using word choice to make the reader feel a little uneasy, that something is off. Shadows mentioned on a happy day, that sort of thing.
Mystery and discovery.
Micro-tension draft: pages printed in a random order
The idea of a micro-tension draft (which I’ve never actually done), is to print out your book in a random order and check each page for micro-tension (not plot tension, not big stakes-it’s only a focus on the little stuff). If there is micro-tension on the page—yay! If not, it’s up to the author to figure out where and how to insert it—that’s the tricky part.
Alright, so I got a random number generator to give me twenty numbers between 21-426 pages (my book it at the max, MAX words count for YA fantasy). I didn’t want to edit the beginning of my book right now as someone is reading my first 20 pages.
Here’s what I got: 319, 58, 282, 88, 221, 146, 37, 368, 44, 199, 324, 331, 227, 353, 42, 197, 380, 136, 35, 245.
I printed them out and highlighted any micro-tension: dialogue, thoughts, description, action. And made notes.
It’s a funny experience to jump around the story. Surprising. It’s like opening gifts at Christmas. You aren’t sure which page it will be and it’s such a pleasant surprise when you see where it is.
Here’s what I found: Eight pages have micro tension on them. 8/20. If I’m projecting over the entire book that’s 40%. Not a great statistic. So this is definitely a draft worth continuing.
Eight of my pages were a lovely surprise because they were filled with micro-tension. Here’s the kinds of micro-tension on those pages:
Exposition: Description with words giving rise to micro-tension and leading to thoughts and warring emotions and desires. (pg 353)
Action & Exposition: A scene with action that gives rise to warring desires and warring emotions (pg. 282)
Exposition: A scene with relationships at war, not an argument (friction between people) but it gave rise to warring desire/emotions/thoughts (page 331)
Exposition: This scene had discovery and description micro-tension. (p.37)
Exposition/Dialogue: Warring emotions. Friction between people-argument. (pg 380)
Exposition/action: warring emotions, invade privacy v’s respect and the micro-tension of unfolding discovery. (pg. 221)
Exposition: Micro-tension of trepidation: something’s off/coming. (pg 199)
Exposition: Micro-tension of anticipation and trepidation. (pg35)
I highlighted these scenes. I will check to see if I can polish them a little later. The second one, I doubt but maybe the one with the description. The weakest is the third one because although there is micro-tension on the page, the beginning of the page has no tension. So I think I can spruce that up.
That leaves twelve pages with little or no micro-tension (MT). They do have plot stuff happening that carries the reading through the story, but I’m ignoring that.
Here is a brief summary of my notes by page number:
Good micro-tension pages: 282, 221, 37, 199, 331, 353, 380, 35
Needs a micro-tension adjustment: 319, 58, 88, 146, 368, 44, 324, 227, 42, 197, 136, 245.
Page 319: ZERO MT. Oops. This is a pleasant, nice easy interrogation between my main character and a witness. I have to give the other person in the dialogue an agenda different to my MC.
Page 58: ALMOST has MT. Lost opportunity for micro-tension. All one emotion. My main character feels bad. I fail to say the other emotions that she is feeling which are satisfied, excited, enjoyment. I have to work in a second opposing emotion through her thoughts. There is also a lost opportunity in dialogue. She is very accepting, but actually she’s annoyed—which isn’t really on the page. Perhaps irritation v’s politeness/patience?
Page 88: ZERO MT. This is one I’m glad I spotted. My main character isn’t present for the first half of the page. I mean she is there but there are no thoughts, no observations, no actions, nothing. I have to add her in and try to add micro-tension into what she observes or thinks. Not sure what yet.
Page 146: ALMOST has MT. Lost opportunity. A secondary character is being sullen, rude, oppositional but my main character mostly accepts it. Not fully but it can be mined for more micro-tension.
Page 368: ZERO MT. Need warring desires. Maybe patience v’s speed.
Page 44: ZERO MT. This is a very pleasant scene and beta readers have liked it but there’s no micro-tension on the page. Perhaps patience v’s curiosity could work.
Page 227: SOME MT. There is some micro-tension on the page but it can be polished. Perhaps make explicit the battle of adequacy v’s inadequacy that’s going on with my main character.
page 324: SOME MT. My main character is a little absent from the top of the page. Maybe a thought: hide v’s been seen? There is a reason she is absent but it should only be from the dialogue and not from the page. She should still be there for the reader. There is micro-tension on the second half of the page.
Page 42: SOME MT. There has been a lot of micro-tension and plot tension proceeding this page but the end of it becomes accepting so I’ll need to add only a line or two to add some micro-tension to keep up the tension. Perhaps love v’s cowardice. It’s there, but not explicitly.
Page 197: ALMOST has MT. Lost opportunity. MC mentions that there is something bad coming but doesn’t struggle with what to do: protect v’s flee/hide. The unique and newness of the setting carry the reader through the page so the lack of micro-tension isn’t apparent unless you look for it.
Page 136: ALMOST has MT. Lost opportunity. All one emotion. Add in an opposite or warring one. Annoyed/sad. Not sure what other emotion to add in yet.
Page 245: ALMOST has MT. Lost opportunity. All one emotion. Add in an opposite or warring one. Fear v’s excitement. Or careful V’s recklessness
Because I’ve never done a micro-tension draft and micro-tension is tricky to add in, I’ll just do one page a day for twelve days. If I stay at this speed it will take me 8 1/2 months for 258 pages if you think that about 40% need no revision.
I’m sure I’ll get better and faster as I go, so maybe 4 pages a day, eventually. That means the draft will take 2-3 months.
My idea is to do one page a day while I do other stuff like queries or revising The Search for Magic. I’ll leave a counter at the bottom of each blog saying which page I did and how many total to keep you updated. But I’ll document the first set of pages (12). Hopefully after two weeks I can go to 2 pages a day, we’ll see. Anyway, even if I only do 1 page for a month, after 30 days, I’ll have 30 extra pages with micro-tension on it and that thought makes me happy. 30 pages that compel my reader to keep reading. Not bad.
Tomorrow, I’ll work on the interrogation-so page 319 because, seriously, not sure what I was thinking, there should be micro-tension in an interrogation. My bad.
I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
That’s it for me tonight.
Happy writing,
Joanne.
* If you want to learn more about micro-tension see Donald Maas’s, The Breakout Novelist: How to Craft Novels That Stand Out and Sell. Chapter 17.
He’s also given webinars on it which can be bought from the Free Expressions website I linked on my courses recommendations page. Here’s the link directly to the webinar recordings. https://www.free-expressions.com/webinar-recordings
