Quotes About Tension

To uncover the plot of your story, don't ask what should happen, but what should go wrong. To uncover the meaning of your story, don't ask what the theme is, but rather, what is discovered. Characters making choices to resolve tension—that's your plot. If your protagonist has no goal, makes no choices, has no struggle to overcome, you have no plot.

In real life we avoid crisis events. In fiction we seek them out.

To uncover the plot of your story, don't ask what should happen, but what should go wrong. To uncover the meaning of your story, don't ask what the theme is, but rather, what is discovered. Characters making choices to resolve tension—that's your plot.

Well," he said, "we think that companies suck." Yahoo!'s president, Dan Rosensweig, broke the tension with a quip. "At Yahoo!, we like to think we suck less." Everyone had a good laugh.

It doesn't work if the bad guys kill his mother's uncle's friend's neighbor's pet dog. You've got to make the stakes high.

It is like putting a dehumidifier and a humidifier in the same room and letting them fight it out.

A vibration is building up-within himself and the walls of the house.

Bayard's worry, the things he could not say, hung as a tension in the air.

Longing and anger too up arms with her again, as usual.

Nimnezzar knew Tiy was waiting for him to say something; the words that would act as a key to the lock upon her tongue. He had played this game in the past.

Owen jumped up and helped himself to more wine. Othman could almost smell the boy's anxiety. He, more than the more innocent Lily, sensed the potential simmering in the room. Othman observed Owen's taut back. His reserve must be broken down.

Daniel stared at him without expression, wanting to push his hand away, wanting to take hold of it and squeeze the fingers tightly, guide them to his face. It was hard to stay angry at Taziel.

She'd wanted to put him at ease, whilst also revelling in his discomfort. She couldn't understand her feelings.

Rav thought the forced smile on Bayard's face was full of cracks.

Sofia sat down, giving an impression of outward composure, though within she fought the same maelstorm of emotion that showed plainly on Salamiel's face.

He felt as if massing forces pressed against the membrane of reality, and it would take all his strength to keep them from breaking through.

The last person Owen wanted to see when he went into the cottage was Peveral Othman, yet there he was, as large as life, a little bedraggled, sitting at the kitchen table as if he'd lived there for years.

He glanced at Aninka, his eyes alight with the kind of excitement she did not want to see.

Tappish celebrations were laid-back affairs in comparison, loose and carefree, devoid of tension, but it was the tension that made the heart sing, that kindled the feverish need to experience and taste, until the tongue was numb.

The past lay between them, a stagnant flood of unspoken words and unexpressed feelings.

Shem dozed beside Daniel on the floor of the jeep. Daniel stared at his sleeping face, fighting an urge to reach out and touch it. Not yet. The time wasn't right.

He hugged Daniel tightly for a moment, and Daniel could feel Othman's body trembling as if he was weeping. He knew then that Othman would kill him.

Already an atmosphere of anticipation, rivalling that of before the play, was intensifying.

I shrugged, slightly unnerved by the feverish joy in the other girls' eyes.