Uneasy Thoughts
Hi everyone,
Not much going on today because it’s Sunday. My micro-tension draft* was focused on page 88. In addition to noticing micro-tension, I’m finding this draft useful for identifying if my MC (main character) is present on every page. For this page like a later one, my MC is absent for the first half of the page. I added in 32 words which comprised of a thought and commentary on what is being discussed. I tried to make the thought give the reader an uneasy feeling. That is, the thought is not comfortable for my main character. Hopefully, this will result in some unease on the page. Friendship v’s loneliness.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: Page 88:
The micro-tension here comes from Haymitch’s question: train together or separately to allow them to keep secrets from each other.
It’s a subtle reminder that while on the surface they are friends, for this game, they are enemies. Only one can live. Also, there is the suggestion that they may be keeping secrets from each other, creating unease for the reader. The question that makes the reader turn the page is: are they going to declare to be on different sides here? Has one got a secret that they want to keep from the other? This is the source of the micro-tension and the reader turns the page because they must know and they must dispel the uneasy feeling that keeping secrets, declaring sides, and the possible death of an alliance, brings. It’s well done. I turned the page, too.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn: Page 88 (mild spolier)
There isn’t much or any micro-tension on this page that I can identify. Disclaimer, I’m still learning to identify micro-tension and write it so I could be missing stuff.
But for me, it is a description of two people approaching. I don’t see any dis-ease in the description that makes me go uh, oh, or gives rise to thoughts in the main character that make me feel uncomfortable.
I don’t ask, who are these people and how are they going to make things worse for the MC or shake things up or any of these type of questions.
Knowing what came before, I should be asking will these two people spot her and Nick's ruse. But I don’t. There is tension, because I know what came before and if I’d just read those previous pages I would have asked: will these new comers spot the ruse, I would be uncomfortable. However, as a standalone page without that context, I don’t feel any unease, so I’d say that there is no micro-tension.
Although, it’s good to note that reading it in context, that this page is able to coast on the plot tension from the pages proceeding it, so micro-tension is not strictly needed on each page. However, I think the descriptions would be better if micro-tension was added in, if the descriptions made us a bit uncomfortable. Some different word choices would do this. But I think you can only see this if you take pages out randomly and read them in isolation.
That’s another good reason to do a random page draft, even if you aren’t looking for micro-tension, and just want to determine the strength of each individual page.
Since there was no micro-tension on this page, I decided to look at Fourth Wing which is known as a page turner. I’ve also read and enjoyed it.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: Page 88
This page details a class discussion. A classmate wants to ask a question and changes his mind, saying he doesn’t want to ask anything. He gets mocked for this indecisiveness.
The main character, Violet, has thoughts that she wishes that she was confident as the person, Luca, who is the source of the mocking comments.
It’s hard to identify the micro-tension here, but I turned the page and read four more pages before stopping. There is definitely micro-tension on those additional pages.
So why didn’t I stop at the end of the page? It’s hard to tell and hard to pin down micro-tension sometimes. Here are my thoughts on the micro-tension subtly at play on page 88.
Thoughts/Exposition: The wish to be more confident like this horrible person she doesn’t like and neither does the reader. There is a subtle war implied here between a desire for confidence and the desire to keep her ‘niceness’ for want of a better descriptor word. She explicitly says she wants Luca’s confidence, but not Luca’s mocking attitude. Micro-tension source: confidence V’s kindness (which are presented as mutually exclusive in the passage.)
Atmosphere: It shows a hostile environment. The classroom is quite a toxic place. The micro-tension comes from the implied question: how is Violet going to survive it? Micro-tension: survive or be eaten alive (by the toxic classmates)
Action: The third source of micro-tension is linked to this hostile environment. The boy being mocked gives rise to the anticipation of Violet being mocked. Will she or won’t she. And if she is: when? Anticipation is a type of micro-tension. The reader wonders (not explicitly), is this mocking of the boy a foreshadowing of violet being mocked. And having read the next four pages, it is foreshadowing. She is mocked.
So there is quite a lot of very subtle micro-tension at play on this page. Three types: thoughts, atmosphere and action giving rise to anticipation.
That’s it for now.
Happy writing,
Joanne.
Micro-tension pages revised: 3
* 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
