Readers expect the tension to build as the plot progresses. The rising intensity keeps them turning the page.
Imagine a day-care center. All day, every day, it is a bed of action, activity everywhere, conflict occurs when Tommy clunks Mary over the head with a book, Susan bites Tammy, Jason spits on Mark, and Tiffany steals Tameka’s doll. But it is all mundane, ordinary activity among tots. Without increasing intensity, the story of this day care center will be unable to sustain a reader’s interest. A brilliant writer might keep them engaged for a few chapters with great characterization and descriptions, but eventually the reader is going to wonder—What was the point?
Thus increasing intensity, heading for a goal, is intrinsically important.
This is where many autobiographies and ‘autobiographical’ novels fail. People often say, “you have led such an amazing life, you should write a book.” Unless you are a celebrity, no one will buy it. Okay, maybe your parents and friends, but you will be sorely disappointed at the utter lack of interest. “What’s it about?” asks the potential customer. “Me. I’ve led an amazing life.” “Yeah, okay, me too. Maybe later.” Walking away, rejecting YOUR life. Ouch.
Now, if there is an event, a major incident that you have overcome that others will be able to empathize with, your ‘memoir’ might fly. If you survived the fall of the Twin Towers, that story might generate attention. A story about an event or incident in your life, (nonfiction) is a memoir. With the right concept, it can work.
But if your intention is to write a novel based on your life, you MUST have a plot, the tension MUST rise, and there MUST be a resolution.
In our writing group alone we have a few examples of each of the above. Jackie is writing a biography on an early American musical pioneer. Yet to retain the reader’s interest, she has included a few plots, involving intrigue, treachery, and power struggles. We have Ruth’s autobiographical novel where Aggie comes to understand herself and the world around her AFTER overcoming parental abandonment, war and the bombing of London while surviving on the streets on her own, becoming the toast of Europe, marrying a Greek shipping tycoon, an abusive marriage, alcoholism, the Vietnam war protests, and searching for the meaning of life. Ultimately she comes to her own self-awareness and finds peace. Or we have Barbara’s inspirational memoir on overcoming mental illness with the help of God.
My point is that even nonfiction needs to capture and hold the reader’s interest. This is done by increasing the intensity, forcing the reader to keep turning the pages to discover what happens next.
Scenes and Chapters:
Novels develop through a series of units, usually chapters, which are composed of one or more scenes. These units should have a structure that reflects the novels overall structure.
What’s she mean by that?
Each chapter needs to catch the reader’s attention at the beginning of the scene and have a specific struggle or problem that is being worked on, and reach a conclusion that moves the scene or chapter into the chapter that follows, just like the plot for the novel.
This is not to say a chapter should stand on its own. If each chapter is well founded, you are building sturdy walls on your sturdy foundation of plot. But you need to start with the conflict or problem and keep a sense of forward motion. Each chapter should rise naturally from what has already occurred. Each chapter should end on a note that entices the reader to turn the page to satisfy their curiosity.
For many centuries chapters tended to end in a cliff hanger. Remember Batman, the television show? Each segment ended with a major dilemma. This technique helps move the forward motion of the novel, with the subsequent chapter beginning in the middle of the dilemma’s outcome.
The cliff hanger need not be major or earth shattering, It can be as simple as a telephone ringing, maybe in the middle of the night. The reader wonders ‘who’s calling so late? This can’t be good.’ Or as serious as the protagonist seeing a gun pointed at them and the trigger being pulled. The reader has to know whether the hero was shot, are they alive?
The cliffhanger can also be a statement by a character. The protagonist heard a scream and tears up the stairs to the heroine’s room. The curtains flutter in the breeze coming in the open window. He looks at the empty bed. “Where’s Jenny?” he cries out. The reader turns the page hoping for an answer to the question he has asked.
Another technique for ending a chapter with intensity is called a tag line. A tagline is a dialogue that ends in mid-conversation having delivered the important information. The reader does not need to hear the trivial remainder, as it is not germane to the story. The reader understands the conversation continued and the participants move on.
Often beginning writers make the mistake of believing they have to complete the scene, saying goodbye, putting on coats, and closing the door. All this information can be implied. The reader understands and can fill in the blanks. All the superfluous information bogs down the scene and the book. When you have imparted the information your reader needs, gracefully end the scene or chapter.
Leitmotif is yet another way to increase intensity throughout your novel. Leitmotif is a leading theme running through the book. Hemingway used rain as a theme of sadness in “A Farewell to Arms.”
It may be subtle and build slowly as part of a characters personality. As an example, you create a character with an ordinary occupation, an ordinary life, say a clerk at Walmart. In the beginning of the story he mentions to a coworker that he ‘bagged’ a 12 point buck when he was only eight. The reader doesn’t really take note, no big deal. A few chapters later, he’s sitting at the local tavern talking to a woman he’s trying to pickup and again mentions that as a kid he brought home the biggest deer his mother had ever seen. Maybe he even mentions that he had to dress it because his mother was disgusted by the chore.
Toward the middle of the book he may be talking to his son about his big accomplishment when he took down the stag. Bambi’s dad, he tells his boy, who starts crying. The reader realizes this scene from his childhood has some kind of significance in the story. At the end, as he is stalking the manager through the aisles of the Walmart with a rifle he picked up in sporting goods, the reader understands how the man issued subtle warnings of the impending crisis. These ‘plants’ should perk the reader’s curiosity as the book progresses, making them wonder what it is leading to. It should not be so obscure that they don’t pick up on it when the theme is revealed.
So, a quick recap. Using cliff hangers, taglines, and leitmotifs help keep the story moving relentlessly toward the resolution, keeping the reader turning the page to satisfy their curiosity.
Now a word of caution. Increasing intensity is crucial to an effective plot. BUT it can be overdone.
In most cases, novels need to shift in tone and intensity to maintain the reader’s interest. All out action, all the time, can wear the reader out. Slowdowns give the reader a chance to catch their breath and a chance to appreciate the rising intensity when it occurs. For me, Koontz’s “Intensity” is a prime example of too much. I read about ten chapters and gave up. Yes, there are some readers who loved it, but he hasn’t written another with nonstop rising intensity since. Rather he has reverted back to the balancing act that most successful novels employ.
So how do writers balance their intensity levels? Glad you asked!
The general trend of your scenes should be upward, but there should be scenes that lower the intensity momentarily, allowing readers to catch their breath. There should be more ups than downs.
It should not be up, down, up, down, up, down.
More like up, up, up, rest, up, up, rest, up, up, down, up, up.
It is not a definite pattern, but there should be more ups than downs, and it depends on the length and how high in intensity a specific scene may rise.
For those of you who have completed your plot outline, this workshop can help you gauge your intensity balance. Give each scene/chapter a voltage reading on a scale from one to ten. Consider each scene/chapter independently.
A scene that is entirely descriptive, setting scene, or depicting a character in unproductive thought would rate a one. A scene with a car chase, an escape from death, or lovers finally falling into bed for hot passionate sex would rate a ten.
You want a steady upward direction with occasional down times to give the reader a breather. If you find more low-intensity chapters than desirable, go back and sprinkle the necessary high-intensity information in where it helps. Get rid of boring chapters (ones, twos) as they bog down your book causing saggy middles.
As a final note, your climax (resolution) should be a ten. You may have one short chapter after your climax to wind up loose ends, but the resolution needs to be the MOST intense scene in the book.