Stretching the Tension in Writing

To all of my fellow writers out there, how many times have you heard from writing instructors and the like, that you should stretch out the tension point in your writing. How many of you have heard that you can’t give the reader what they want right away. For example, a novice might write a sentence like so:


    The cow jumped over the moon and as it streaked back to earth, landed in the shoot of a meat processing plant.


Whereas an expert would stretch this sentence out more and make the reader wait for the “punch-line” at the end when the cow meets its fate. For example:


    The cow streaked into the air, looking left and right while wearing goggles for eye protection. The cow marveled at its surrounding while the earth grew smaller below its hooves. Birds casually flew through the air and doing a double take at the sight of a cow in their territory. It was such an odd sight that the flying creatures began to circle the cow as it flew through the air. The birds flew until they could fly no longer. The cow ascended further and further, up in and through the earth’s atmosphere until the bovine creature found itself looking down on the moon which was far underneath its rudders and nipples. Terror did not reach the cows eyes until it found itself falling like a rock back down to earth. As the cow neared the earth and what was directly underneath it, the cow began flapping its four legs frantically in an attempt to avoid its eventual fate. Alas, the cow’s desperate act at salvation were unrewarded. The cow plopped down into the shoot of a meat processing plant. Before the grinding blades took the creatures life, the cow had smiled at the thought that it had seem something no other cows could ever imagine.


As you can see, my example runs a little long but I think you get the idea: to build up the tension as much as possible before you give the reader their payoff for continuing to read. The age old adage that I have heard from many a published writer is that, if you show a gun on the dresser in act one, the gun should be fired by act three.
While I do like this rule and understand the meaning behind it, I also try not to overuse it. I guess its like they say: everything in moderation, including moderation. At the same time, while I do utilize this rule, I also feel as though this technique can be utterly frustrating, especially as the reader. Sometimes, with certain writers, it can get to the point where the writer describes every little detail from how the wind feels blowing against the grass to every piece of food on a table, its origins and down to how it was cooked, by who and even what that person was wearing with in depth detail down to the underwear. Okay, I admit that I am exaggerating a bit but you get the idea. The practice of delaying the gratitude in order to squeeze more tension out of a scene and keep a reader on the edge of their seat until they fall off can be overdone. It is possible to fill a scene with so much detail that it bogs down the paragraph or chapter. I feel as though this technique, if overused, can put off a reader and force them to put down your book which is the last thing any writer wants.

Guest Post by Chantal Bellehumeur

Welcome to Ryukage Brainwork, where today, the Shadow Dragon's imagination takes this blog post off. For your reading pleasure, please dive into the alternate reality world created by Chantal Bellehumeur and her feel good novel: "Not Alone". 

Story Summary:

  

Harmony Goodhumor didn’t always get along with her younger sister Katherine, but the girls became close after their mother’s death.  When Harmony moved to another city for university, she missed Katherine very much.

The girls tried to be there for one another as best as they could whenever a personal problem would occur, but there was only so much they could do for each other.  

There came a time when Harmony started feeling depressed and alone.

One summer, Harmony decided to go visit Katherine in her new home.  During her short trip to Moncton, New Brunswick, Harmony did more than just spend time with her sister and something unexpected happened during an excursion.  

When Harmony returned home, she started missing Katherine again as well as other loved ones.  But, during her moment of blues she makes the realisation that she is not as alone as she feels.

   

Excerpt:  

Not Alone

by Chantal Bellehumeur

Excerpt from Part one

Hi.  My name is Harmony Goodhumor.  Before you ask like most people I meet, yes I like to live in harmony with others and am generally in a good mood.  However, as I am human and therefore not perfect, I don’t always live up to my name definition.  From time to time I am in an unpleasant mood and sometimes get made fun of because of it.

I will admit that I had problems living harmoniously with one particular person in my youth.  Wow!  The last part of my statement just made me feel really old!  I actually just celebrated my thirty second birthday and hope to live until I am about triple my current age.

Anyways, my younger sister Katherine and I did not always get along when we were kids.  In fact, we argued a lot.  Most of our arguments were about movie rental selections, and the uncleanliness of our playroom or the small bedroom we shared.  Sometimes we would cause scenes over stupid things, like the fact that one of us looked in the other’s window during a long car ride or even went over the invisible line of the middle car seat that separated our sides.  I always sat on the left and Katherine sat on the right.  We shared the middle seat and were pretty anal about our spaces.  Not even our toys or books could go over the other’s side without us arguing.  We would also annoy each other by placing the tips of our fingers close to the other’s face.  When we would yell out “Stop touching me!” the other would say matter of factly “I am not touching you.”  We drove our parents nuts.  Of course, they always told me to show the example because I was the oldest and it irritated me.  My sister seemed to find it amusing and always stuck out her tongue at me. 

As we grew older though, Katherine and I started appreciating each other’s company and became closer to one another. 

I think the fact that our mother died when we were children made us realise how important it was not to take your family for granted.  I was fourteen and my sister eleven years of age when we found out that our mom had cancer.  It was a complete shock to us both, and to our father as well.  My mom just went to a doctor’s appointment and came home with the bad news.  We all thought that she would fight it, but the disease had already spread too much by the time it was discovered so the chemotherapy treatments didn’t do anything to improve her well-being.  It seemed to just make her sicker and lose all her beautiful long black hair. 

My mother died six months after her diagnosis, at the age of forty-five.  I was holding her hand in the hospital when she took her last breath.  I don’t remember ever crying so much in my life.  I don’t think I ever saw my sister cry so much either, and she used to be a real cry-baby.  My father tried to be more discreet about it, but he wasn’t fast enough in wiping his first tears.  Katherine and I told him it was okay for him to cry in front of us, something we had never seen him do.  He ended up crying a river just like us.

The novel can be purchased on Amazon in eBook or paperback:

http://www.amazon.com/Not-Alone-Chantal-Bellehumeur/dp/1496055608

For other titles by Chantal Bellehumeur please check her website here: 

http://author-chantal-bellehumeur.webnode.com/

Also like her author page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chantal-Bellehumeur-public-author-page/347446362035640

Perils and Pitfalls Behind a Prologue

With this being “National Start Your Business Month”, I thought this would be a perfect topic to write a blog about. Since I started my publishing company, EVapor ENT over two years ago, I have a bit of insight into the arduous task of running an organization and the perils that come along with it.

One of the pitfalls to be aware of: who you decide to give money to. When it comes to running a business, in my short period of time as a CEO, I know one thing for certain: you cannot do everything on your own. Even if you could run every facet of your business single handedly, I would not recommend it. There is just not enough time in the day and as I have found out over the years, time is not money; time is more precious than that, more valuable than just equating it to simple monetary value. Therefore, be careful of who you decide to work with. Since I am an independent author/publisher, I have to decide who is going to edit my book, who is going to do the binding, the advertisement, the cover, the distribution, everything. Before I decided to go into this business, I had no idea how difficult it would be. I had no clue as to the sheer amount of competition there is in the publishing world. With all of this competition comes the chance for people to make a lot of money and also for people to take advantage of you and scam you out of your hard earned money.

Here is my tale of caution: I had finished writing my second novel, “Winter’s Legacy” and contacted my editor. She was a freelance editor who I found online. I had previously worked with her on my first novel, “Heaven’s Fate” and even hired her for some short stories and I never had any issues. Now what should have alerted me not to go forward with this person is the fact that when I contacted her to let her know that I was ready to go forward with the editing process, we exchanged a few emails and then I didn’t hear back from her for a long period of time, at least a few weeks. So then, when she finally gets back in touch with me and we start the process I sent the first payment installment. We set up the terms of the arrangement which were similar to the times I worked with her in the past. After a few weeks I sent an email to check up on the status of the project, just to see how far she had gotten, I get no response. This continues for months, of me sending out emails and asking for status updates and getting no response. Needless to say, I haven’t heard from her since and it has been seven months. This experience upset me mightily, pushed back my release deadline and quite frankly made me skeptical about dealing with future freelance professionals. In the end, I decided to not let that experience deter me and I have found another editor. The project is moving forward and my second novel is due to be released in April.

So with all of that being said, please let my tale be a lesson to all of you new business owners out there; find trustworthy people to work with and don’t let obstacles deter you from your goal. Nothing in business will go as smooth as you have planned but these are only tests of your resolve. So stay strong and keep moving forward and remember that nothing worth having is ever easy. 

Book Review - STEELHEART By Brandon Sanderson

If I had to sum up this book in one word, it would be: gripping. However, that one word would not do this novel justice. From the moment I started reading I was hooked and could not put the book down.

In the prologue, when we first meet David, he is a scared little boy that loves his father. Through that love, and after watching his sole guardian and protector murdered in front of him, David is transformed into a soldier with a singular purpose. When we see David again, in chapter one, he is eighteen and he is a man on a mission; a mission that was shaped by his experience on that day in the bank when a man with super powers killed his father and took control of the city, calling it New-Cago.

The action picks up quickly in this novel and never pauses to let you catch your breath. Soon we are introduced to the beauty in a red dress, Megan who is hiding a deep secret that could shatter David’s reality. At the moment, she is even more of a badass than he is. Proficient in weapons, combat, and brave to boot, not to mention that she is the newest member of the Reckoners, a team that David hopes to join; a team that makes it their business to kill men with super powers – called Epics. She is a dream come true for David.

After taking down their first Epic together, David meets the rest of the team and proves that his value to the team is worth his weight in gold, or, rather the information that he has obtained throughout his life is worth his weight in gold. Perhaps the information he has gathered in his notebooks is priceless when you were in the business that the Reckoners were in, the business of killing Epics, and business was good.

Corny and cliché as it was I could not help myself, this book is a one of a kind and puts an interesting twist on what it would be like if regular people one day obtained god-like super powers. Brandon Sanderson does not disappoint as he builds this action packed thriller to its climax: defeating Steelheart.

Review written by: Andre Alan

Part VI - The Peach and the Crone

The Power Array Saga

  

Tales of the Sword and the Peach

“I have been waiting for you.” said the old crone, sitting on an overturned, MoonGlow tree log that soaked up the moonlight and reflected it back out with a dull white shine. The hunched old lady had a handful of long white, wispy strands of hair that could be seen snaking from underneath a thin hood covering her face in shadow down to her nose. A dark walking cane lay beside her as she sat with hands outstretched, seeking warmth from a raging fire.

The twin moons of Threa loomed large in the distance, appearing as two halves, lined up in a row with the grey rock Cassini sitting lower in the sky while the brightly shining ice sphere Galilei was arrayed behind it in a perfect shot like the white ball on a pool table. Stars littered the dark background of the heavens, twinkling and sparkling in endless rows like thousands of spectators. On the surface of Threa, the dry dirt spread for kilometers in every direction while a scarce splattering of trees dotted the landscape. The bare terrain was framed by large mountains that sat black and shadowed in the distance, far to the south of the city Duke and Aver and the river Amis. The river Amis was still a few dozen kilometers to the south.

“How did you know we were coming?” asked Zahur wearing a large smile.

Momotaru approached…, wary, eyes surveying the bland landscape while his hand hovered over the hilt of his blade.

“I can see many things through The Lines,” said the old crone with crusted, dry lips and missing teeth. While her hands stayed outstretched towards the fire for warmth, her head turned towards Momoratu with an unnatural quickness. “You can let your guard down here Young Void Warrior, The Sire of Arcadia.”

Momotaru looked at her briefly with hard, untrusting eyes and went back to surveying the surroundings; the flat terrain would give him ample time to see any threat that was foolish enough to try and ambush him. He was still on edge after facing Iris. Not to mention the fact that he was still on edge after killing the elven city guards of Aver. He was afraid that even his father would not be able to weasel himself and his son out of that kind of trouble; despite whatever type of influence he held over city officials in the elven continent.

“You have been searching all your life,” said the old crone. “Stop searching…, relax, wait and what you search for might find you,” she said grabbing his hand with snake-like quickness that belied her old age.

Furrowing his brow, Momotaru clenched his teeth as a cold sensation crept across his palm then spread throughout his body as if it traveled through his veins like an IV.

“The void has shortened one of your lines,” said the old crone. She took Momotaru’s hand and turned it so that she could look at his palm.

“Stop your cryptic babble,” Momotaru said defiantly. He grew irritated by her probing. “Let go of me. What is the meaning of this? Zahur?”

“Her sight is similar to that of your Void, Taru-san,” said Zahur.

“How so?” asked Momotaru. He repeatedly tried to yank his hand away from the firm grip of the old hag. “Can she see the Astral Plane?”

“In a sense…, yes,” responded the old crone. “I can see through the dimensions of time and space when I look at the Life Lines in a person’s palm. I can see their future, their past, everything that I wish and much more.”

            “So what do you see when you look at my palm?” asked Momotaru. He raised a curious eyebrow.

            “Trust me…, you do not want to know,” said the old crone.

            “Anyway,” interrupted Arif Zahur. “On to more pressing matters; we need your help Ba-Ba.”

            “You need to find the Alchemist Guild and finish the enchantment on that sword,” said the old crone. “But little do you know that your quest is much larger than that and an even more powerful weapon awaits for you to claim it, the legendary Tundra Sword.”

            “What are you cryptically hinting at now,” said Momotaru in mocking tones as he rolled his eyes in frustration. “Besides, the Tundra Sword is just a legend from a dusty old book. It’s not real.”

            “What I am hinting at could be the very fate of you and the rest of your line for eternity…, the fate of the very world and the heavens itself,” said the old crone pointing a gnarled finger at Momotaru’s chest. “You have not the slightest clue as to where you come from, truly…, Riestu Master Momotaru Sensei. You have gifts at your disposal that most men would kill for yet you whore around and smoke and let them dwindle away. You, who are unwilling to take up a cause unless there is profit to be gained…, you…, who has a lot to learn…, young Void warrior. If you knew half the things that I knew about your ancestors and your future, the pressure would crush you. If you knew where your decedents take the planet Threa then you would commit suicide.”

            “Well then why don’t you tell me or have me killed,” said Momotaru.

            “As much as I would like to…, I cannot. The human race needs you to fulfill your destiny. Your mission must be completed for all of our sakes and this information would only provide you with an unneeded burden,” said the hunched back, gray haired crone.

            “Look old lady,” said Momotaru. “Just tell us where we can find the Alchemist Guild so I can be rid of you and this worthless mage.”

            The crone laughed; cackling howls with mouth wide showing missing teeth. “You will not be rid of Arif so easily young Void warrior. You two will be forever linked in more ways than you could imagine…, sooner than you know. This little mage is hiding a great secret from you warrior. When the time is right, you…, Momotaru will understand that you and the young mage, together, will usher in a new age and determine the Fate of the Heaven’s and bring about the Legacy of Winter which is spoken of in the ancient prophecies from the Tales of Arcadia. That dusty old book, as you like to call it, can answer all of the questions you have.”

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