Building Suspense and Creating Tension Part 4

building suspense and creating tension part 4

Building Suspense and Tension – Part Four

Dialogue should, as a rule, always have a purpose and contain at least an element of tension.

Avoid using dialogue for small talk or pleasantries – unless it has a purpose such as dropping information like in mysteries.

Avoid scenes like this:

“Good morning, Mr. Evans.”
“Good morning, Steve. How are you?”
“Fine Mr. Evans. And how are you?”
“I’m well, Steve. How’s the missus?”
“She’s fine, Mr. Evans. How are the kids?”
Mr. Evans can’t answer because he’s snoring.

Creating tension in dialogue can be a tricky proposition, since tension often exists between the lines of dialogue, in what isn’t said, and in subtle body language.

Consider the following example:

Ray stared at the man without a hint of emotion on his face. “Oh, and Carlos? Don’t come back without my money.”
Carlos’s face went white. “But Ray, what if they don’t-”
Ray held up his hand. “I said, don’t come back without my money.”
“But Ray, where am I supposed to go if I don’t have your money?”
Ray smiled. “That’s all been taken care of, Carlos. You’ll never have to worry about a thing. Arrangements have already been made.”
Carlos tried to speak, but one look at Ray’s expression told him it would be better not to.

Now, I could’ve written, “With a look of rage in his eyes, Ray said, “If you don’t bring me my money I’m going to kill you!”
But the danger here is implicit in what wasn’t said.

Conflict in dialogue is a sort of verbal tug-of-war, which creates emotion and energy and forces your characters to act.

“All right, Evers. Damn you! How much?”
I blinked at him. “How much what?”
“Oh, cut the crap, Evers! You know exactly what I’m talking about! How much do I need to pay you to make this go away?”
I leaned forward and got in his face. “All right, asshole! Now you listen to me! Because I’m only going to say this once. Since the day we met, you’ve been riding my ass. But today, it stops! All of it! You hear me?”

Dialogue should always be used only to: