Creating Dramatic Tension - podcast

“Show me; don’t tell me.” It’s something beginning writers are told over and over again, and it’s good advice. Author Bob Martin discusses tips on creating dramatic tension in writing by "showing," not "telling." Telling, unlike showing, leaves nothing to the reader’s imagination, and imagination is what pulls the reader into the story. Without that pull, there is no dramatic tension. Point of view goes hand in hand with the idea of showing instead of telling. Each time you’re writing a scene, you have to make a decision about whose point of view to use. Of course, if you’re writing in the first person, you can only ever use the narrator’s point of view. Maintaining a single point of view forces you to show instead of tell, because you only have access to what one character is thinking. All the other characters’ thoughts and feelings have to be shown by their actions. But most popular fiction is written in the third person, so you have to make a decision about whose thoughts the narrator has access to, and it’s usually best to limit that access to just one character in each scene.