Quotes About Tension

Rocked, he sank into a sea of chamomile as it grew agitated and seethed.

A tension develops between what I want and what is emerging. This tension is important to the feeling of the piece.

But David felt something else as well. A tension. A hesitation. Something wasn't exactly right about all of this. But that inner hesitation made no sense in light of the circumstances in which he and his loyal men found themselves.

One of the reasons we ignore the tension when we are making decisions . . . one reason we push through and ignore the advice of other people or the voice of our conscience is: We believe we can predict outcomes. Don't we? We think we know. But we don't know. You don't always predict outcomes accurately, do you? Does anybody? If you've ever been disappointed, you know this to be the case.

The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.

The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting

A day without an argument is like an egg without salt.

The stakes—what your protagonist is risking—should increase in significance as the story progresses.

One of the keys to good pacing is to alternate your plot complications with rewards. Like a pendulum that swings on an arc, let your character relax, if only briefly, between disasters.

who was curled into a tight ball. And then past his master, Silas. Maxie felt uncomfortable going past Silas, because Silas was Top Dog and Maxie was Not Allowed in Front.

Better not think about Mrs Barum either; it was really such a strain going on being fair.

Angela yelled. Realizing she was dangerously out of control—in the last couple of hours, she'd begun to understand why gerbil parents sometimes ate their young—she

Guilt always made her ratty.

Since the funeral there had been an undercurrent of tension, a tetchiness

His face paled and he blinked violently as if he'd been slapped. She stepped away, expecting an angry outburst, but when he spoke it was almost in a whisper. 'Do you really think that badly of me?

The shock of waking suddenly had made her muscles tense and she'd never been any good at relaxing.

Now, dressing for breakfast, she felt sluggish and tense.

The Olympics were produced absolutely the same way from 1960 through 1988. It was always the Western World against the Eastern Bloc. You didn't even have to spend one second developing the character of any of the Eastern Bloc athletes. It was just good guys and bad guys.

There is a strong tendency in explanatory prose to invoke quantities of tension, energy, and whatnot to explain the genesis of pattern. I believe that all such explanations are inappropriate or wrong.

It's a mystery, that thing about chemistry, because often people who hate each other in real life and hate each other on the set have great chemistry on the screen. And people who love each other in real life and love each other on the set have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever.

I always look at these superhero films, and I see people hurdling towards at a hundred miles per hour, and then they get up, shake their head, and charge back at a hundred miles per hour. Nobody seems to really get injured or hurt. I don't find any threat in that. There is no tension in that whatsoever.

Petroleum is a more likely cause of international conflict than wheat.

It's an interesting plot device to enter in a third wheel - it always helps raise the stakes for all parties involved. But often, those characters can be one-dimensional.