Looking back
Hi everyone,
As you know, when I was blitzing my micro-tension draft and reading 30+ pages a day, I ended up with a run of 37 pages with no micro-tension gaps. Based on my average statistic of at least 25% of my book lacking micro-tension, I knew I hadn’t suddenly become a micro-tension guru.
I re-read the relevant chapter in Donald Maass’s book* and looked at my notes and then re-read the 37 pages. SLOWLY.
I found that yes, old me, didn’t turn into a micro-tension genius overnight. 17 pages lacked micro-tension or could do with some more.
Here’s a summary of the analysis of the 17 pages I glossed over:
Genuinely had no micro-tension: 4 pages
These four pages were either just after a high plot-tension moment, resulting in me dropping the tension as it resolved, or it was in the middle of high-plot tension, resulting in me forgetting to put the inner life of my main character on the page because my writing focus was elsewhere.
I have since dug deep to figure out what my POV character is feeling at these moments. And what emotions or ideas are in conflict.
These are my micro-tension additions:
1. Warring emotions: Frustration v’s enjoyment
2. Warring ideas: Trust v’s objectivity
3. Warring emotions: frustration with progress v’s resistance to seeking the truth
4. Warring emotions: savior v’s destroyer
Main character missing on the page: 2 pages
I found that when there’s a large cast of secondary characters on the page, I neglect my main character because I’m trying to give the secondary characters a moment to shine. I found that in reality when I do this, no one shines. It just leads to a boring page.
I’ve added thoughts in the form of micro-tension on both of these pages. They happen to be from the same scene.
The internal battle is between grief and living life.
Generic description: 2 pages
I found two spots where I use a generic physical description: ‘my heart skipped a beat’. I’m actually fine with using physical descriptions, but I’ve learned that sometimes I use them in place of better, deeper internal descriptions which in this case are micro-tension thoughts.
My new additions are:
Internal debate: what it would be like to be dead and leave people behind v’s being the living person left behind.
Warring ideas: loyalty v’s truth.
Tying up loose ends: 2 pages
I find that at the end of a scene, I have some loose ends to tie up or markers to put in about what the POV character is going to do next. In other words, bridges to the next chapter. While I’m tying up loose ends and bridging to the next chapter, I lose micro-tension.
I forgot that at the end of a chapter, the POV character should be (and actually is) different to how she was at the beginning of the chapter. She changed, but I didn’t catalogue it on the page for the readers.
I’ve added in two internal battles at these points, small indicators that she’s a different person.
Relief v’s worry. Marker: her priorities have shifted.
Happy v’s annoyed. Marker: she isn’t a push over.
Lastly, pages that have micro-tension but would be enhanced with more: 7 pages
All seven of these pages have micro-tension but there are spots that require me to dig deeper, push the POV character more. Add that one extra line to really bring home what she’s feeling.
Each of the micro-tension I added is to ramp up the tension already there.
Here are the seven additions:
1. Self-worth debate
2. Run v’s stay
3. Logic v’s instinct
4. Forge connections v’s protect herself
5. Not caring v’s caring too much
6. Accept forbidden secret v’s don’t accept it
7. Be remembered v’s be forgotten
Seeing all of this, I’m glad I went back over those pages. Now it’s time to move on, but slowly. Ten pages a day. Which means I’ll be roughly finished in three weeks. Not bad.
Okay, that’s all from me tonight.
Chat with you tomorrow.
Happy writing,
Joanne.
Micro-tension draft: 74 pages
* 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
