Writing Urgency, Momentum, Unpredictability
Hans Ness, Jan 16, 2025
Today is leftovers day — three scraps too little for their own posts.
Time Pressure
Shortage of time is a great way to add tension and urgency.
Countdown — A ticking time bomb, impending warp core breach, looming storm, etc.
Scheduled Event — In
Soul, Joe must make it to his audition in time. In
Cars, Lightning McQueen must make it to the race by the end of the week. In
Finding Nemo, he must escape before the dentist’s niece comes on Friday. In
Zootopia, Chief Bogo sets an arbitrary deadline of 48 hours for Judy to solve the crime. A heist might be scheduled for the night of a big party so there’s distractions. Any arbitrary deadline will do.
Magic Deadline — Spells and curses often have a time limit — midnight (
Cinderella), sunset (
Onward), the blood moon (
Turning Red), 21st birthday (
Beauty and the Beast), etc.
Hunted — When the bad guys are hunting you down, it’s only a matter of time before they catch you. In
The Good Dinosaur, the pterodactyls keep chasing Arlo. In
Onward, the police and his mom are looking for Ian. In
Up, the dogs are looking for Dug and the bird. In
E.T., the government keeps snooping around Elliot’s house.
Momentum
Physical movement helps give the story momentum.
Journey — Keep moving from place to place. Adventures, hero’s journey, journey home, etc. Plus there’s always fresh visuals to look at or imagine.
Walk-n-Talk — When a character needs to tell a lot of exposition to others, often they walk while talking — a mini foot journey. Or characters might converse while driving,* or at least doing something physically.
Switching POV — In addition to the characters moving, you can make the reader move by switching to other characters’ points of view.
Mood Swings — Figuratively, even the moods need to keep moving. Switch from tragedy to comic relief, nail-biting chases to heart-to-heart conversations. Otherwise it’s like hitting the same note each chapter.
Planted — Of course, some scenes do work best when they are stationary, just two people sitting and talking, especially for more emotional, dramatic conversations. Movement and lack of movement help create contrast and variety.
Un/Predictability
Having a “predictable” story is not necessarily a bad thing. Generally, we can predict the good guy will win, or the couple will fall in love. In non-linear stories, we may already know the outcome. And in retellings, we already know the whole story. The prologue in
Romeo and Juliet even gives away the ending. Instead, readers may be thoroughly engaged to see
how the events unfold, even if the
what is predictable.
But it is more common and easier to keep the reader wondering
what will happen next. Will they or won’t they succeed? What will they find next?
It’s a full spectrum from the reader having no idea to having a strong hunch.
Takeaways
- To add tension and urgency, put a deadline in your plot, or have bad guys tracking down the protagonist.
- To add momentum to your story, keep your characters moving, or move the reader by switching points of view.
- Don’t get hung up on trying to make the whole story unpredictable. How events unfold can be as intriguing as what events unfold.
*
Aside: Drive-n-talk scenes always make me nervous that they’re going to crash because the driver keeps taking their eyes off the road. Just me?