Amy Deardon - How to Develop Story Tension: 13 Techniques Plus the Five Minute Magic Trick Guaranteed to Keep Your Readers Turning Pages

Imagine that youre telling a quieter type of story, in which Justin needs to forgive his father, or Michelle wants to overcome an abused childhood. These are both strong internal conflicts. Theyre both good starts for a novel, but, sadly, by themselves not enough to form the novel. To do this, you need an external story line with a final tangible goal.

How do you add an external story line?

How about this: Justin and his wife move back to care for his ill father who is losing his house due to mistaken accounting. Justin must learn caretaking skills, and fight different battles including the main one with the state, and others with a realtor and with a neighbor. In the final climax, Justin first clears his fathers name then forgives him, allowing the old man to die in peace.

Or this: Michelle decides to build a child-care center for foster abused kids. She is opposed by the lawyer of a powerful neighborhood group that doesnt want to lower the living standards. In the final climax, Michelle is able to overcome all problems to open the center.

In the midst of Justins or Michelles external battles, they also learn to overcome their inner struggles.

Story is comprised of two parts: the Inner Story, and the Outer Story. Both are necessary to have a resonant narrative. Without an Inner Story the story moves from event to event, without exploration of the characters emotional environment. A story like this might mechanically worksome action movies and books do this, as well as puzzle stories like Agatha Christiebut in general, without an Inner Story these generate disposable narratives.

On the other hand, without an Outer Story the narrative will die stillborn. You wont be able to finish your manuscript, or if you do it wont have a point to it.

To have tension you must have an Outer Story: external events occurring in the real story world and topping out at the climax and resolution. Imagine that you have a camera filming your characters. If they are drinking tea and reflecting on events, without moving through anything, you are not showing an Outer Story.

Many would-be authors I talk with are excited about writing a story, but too often what they describe is a premisean interesting character, situation, or story worldwithout an actual external story to go along with this.

For more information on constructing the outer story progression, you can see my book The Story Template .

You can find a list of all Tips on the at the end of this book. Here is Tip #1:

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Tip #1 : Make sure you include an external story line (Outer Story) in your narrative. The external line should include a Story Goal, Story Stakes, and Story Obstacles (to be discussed in a moment).

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