Conflict In Every Line

(This was originally posted on another blog, but I reposted it here.)

I wanted to talk about conflict today, because we all could use more conflict in our lives, right? Especially now that it’s December and Christmas is around the corner?

(Breathe ... breathe ... I’m just kidding! I mean, I’m kidding about us needing more conflict in our lives, not about Christmas being around the corner. And if you’ve still got your head stuck in the sand of denial about Christmas—you have only nine days left, sugar. Get cracking.)

Anyway, one of the best things I picked up from a Donald Maass seminar was his injunction to add tension to every sentence on the page.

Yes, you read that right. Every sentence.

Okay, real world application: I typically can’t add tension in every single sentence, but I definitely try to add tension in every paragraph. And I aim for tension in every sentence as much as I possibly can.

Why do we need more tension and conflict? Because the reality is that conflict is what keeps a reader reading. If things are all hunky dory and perfect, the book—and the writing—is boring.

Conflict and emotion engage a reader’s attention. While we don’t like conflict in real life, in fiction, we thrive on it. Yes, we’re just a little sick and twisted that way.

Consider this before and after example. I’m going to use part of a “lost scene” from Deadly Intent. It’s a date scene I cut out entirely because it reduced the tension (LOL) of the pacing, plus if a woman has just seen a dead body, would she really go out to lunch with the dead woman’s ex-husband and be all ga-ga over him? Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. Neither did my critique partners, who told me to nix the scene. Here’s a before and after shot.

Before tension is added to every paragraph:

Wow, she was having lunch with Dr. Devon Knightley. How cool!

“Are you sure this restaurant is okay with you?” Devon peered at her over the top of his menu.

“Yes, of course.”

“You seem … nervous.” Devon crowned her with a smile dreamier than McDreamy. “I hope it’s not because of me.”

“Of course not.” Maybe he’d ask her for her number this time. Last time they’d met, he hadn’t, but now that he was spending some time with her, maybe he’d become more interested. She couldn’t believe he was taking her out instead of her more beautiful sisters. “When Rachel and Aunt Becca both said they couldn’t go to lunch, it was really nice of you to insist on taking just me.”

He winked at Naomi. “How could I disappoint Becca when she’d worked so hard?”

Well, Aunt Becca had been rather obvious in trying to play matchmaker. Embarrassment heated her neck and she looked at her menu.

Okay, I admit, I—ahem—doctored it a little to show even less tension. But you get the picture, right?

Here’s the scene after tension is added to every paragraph (and several extra sentences are added, too). I put the tension in each paragraph in red font. You can see that some of the original version already did have some tension, and I ended up adding tension to almost every sentence:

Lunch had so not been a good idea.

Aside from the fact Naomi couldn’t scrub Jessica’s waxen face from the backs of her eyelids, Aunt Becca had embarrassed her worse than when she’d crashed Naomi’s eight-grade sleepover.

“Are you sure this restaurant is okay with you?” Devon peered at her over the top of his menu with wary eyes.

“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You’ve picked the stitched seam out of your menu.”

Naomi looked down. A gold-colored thread hung bedraggled from the edge of the leather menu, where the folded-over edge cracked open. “I did that?”

“You seem … nervous.” Devon crowned her with a smile dreamier than McDreamy. “I hope it’s not because of me.”

“Of course not,” she snapped. This was just like the last time they’d met. He’d be charming and fun, and in the end, it wouldn’t mean a thing. Or maybe he’d ask her for Rachel’s number—most of the men who cosied up to her were doing so because they lacked the backbone to approach Rachel themselves. Something about being so drop-dead-gorgeous made men lose their nerve. Stop griping. You can’t expect anything more when you’re the plain sister. “You know, when Rachel and Aunt Becca both said they couldn’t go, you didn’t have to insist on taking me to lunch.”

He winked—winked!—at Naomi. “How could I disappoint Becca when she’d worked so hard?”

He’d seen through Aunt Becca’s excuses. She’d been hoping they weren’t really as flimsy as they sounded to her ears. Ugh, this had gone from horrible to a-step-above-death. Naomi snapped her menu up to hide her face.

Now, the type of tension you add to your sentences will probably be different, depending on your writing style and genre. I tend to add more humorous tension by default—it’s just my personality—and I have to work hard to make my tension and conflict more suspenseful for my romantic suspense novels for Steeple Hill.

But do try to add more tension and conflict to every sentence, if you can, and at the very least, every paragraph. It really adds to reader interest.