By 
Narrative tension is the tension that characters in a novel feel about unresolved and unmet needs and events. That is why it is so important to suggest the promise of a story in a dramatic context, so that a narrator creates characters who have a need to act and act despite obstacles. When characters in a story can’t get what they want, they experience narrative tension. When acting to gain something increases a character’s pain (because the story / narrator increases obstacles), a character in a story experiences increasing narrative tension.
Simply put, a storyteller creates a character who cannot refuse to act due to the cost of inaction, but there is also a price to pay for acting.
Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, is a great example of narrative tension. To act on the basis of his love for Juliet is to turn against his clan and his family; not acting on his feelings for Juliet is violating his sense of what is important to him. But whatever action you take increases your pain.
Romeo is a great character because he will not allow death to prevent him from being with Juliet.
A novel (or memoir) that lacks narrative tension is not convincing. It may seem episodic; Events happen, but there is no tension around the outcome of these events. The characters act, but there is no tension around their actions.
Suggesting tension to the characters is just the first step in generating narrative tension. The second step is to write about this tension in such a way that it transfers from the characters in a story to the audience of a story. This is why introducing the promise of a story around a matter of human need is so important. When the audience of a story identifies with the characters and goals of a story, that audience can also be induced to internalize the tension about whether a character achieves their goals.
While a great plot can help hook the audience into figuring out what will happen next, when an audience has internalized the narrative tension of a story, that audience needs to experience the resolution and satisfaction of a story to ease the tension created by the story. storyteller.
The higher the tension, the more compelling the novel is.
That’s why keeping the promise of a story off stage can be so deadly. That lack can lead to weak or absent narrative tension.
The generation of narrative tension, then, begins with the opening sentences of a novel or short story.
Narrative tension can be compared to an electric current running through a story. The weaker the stream, the less a story is conveyed to the audience. The higher the current, the greater the audience engagement.
When I have worked or spoken with agents, the lack of narrative tension is the number one reason for rejecting novels.
Another path to this subject of narrative tension …
What does your main character want when your story opens …
and …
… what’s stopping you from getting what you want?
Externally and internally?
If nothing blocks a character, there is no drama surrounding the progress of the story. There is no reason for a character to feel tension, nor for the audience of a story to feel tension because a character gets what they want.
Another way to create tension is to start a story with a character struggling with a dilemma (which can be primarily internal or external). If a plot event forces the character to act to resolve his dilemma, the story begins with a question (what the character will do) and moves toward an answer to that question.
If that step solves the original dilemma, but creates a new and bigger problem that requires another step forward, the story continues to move on.
Due to the resolution reached, the character in the story should experience a change of feeling.
If a character does not go through a change of feeling (or understanding), nothing has impacted him. If nothing in a scene impacts a character, it can be difficult for what is happening to impact the audience. The exception, of course, is that the narrator wants a character to be unaware while doing something that acts on the audience.
When a character is faced with a bigger and more challenging problem, he must have a new and different state of feeling.
That feeling can be embodied in an action (a character cries, lashes out, stutters, etc.) or it can be expressed through dialogue.
This simple process is obvious in the Harry Potter books. When done right (Harry’s world is full of continual dilemmas), the effect is to move the audience forward.
The dilemmas in Harry’s world have many faces: Harry wants to go somewhere with his friends but cannot because he is in danger; Harry has many powers, but if he uses them to defend himself on the Dursleys, he runs the risk of his powers being lost. taken away.
Many stories I read have action, things happen, and things work out, but the deeper issue is how to make the action compelling.
Just to make this clear, a character can be in conflict with himself and something external to him. In The Hunt for Red October, Ramius has been furious all his life at how the Communists have treated his homeland. Only with the death of his wife can he act to resolve that feeling by punishing the communist party (while his wife was alive, he could not act without putting her at risk). To push Ramius even further to the limit, he blames the communists for his wife’s death due to a failed surgery.
Once that internal tension is established (and is occasionally referenced), the story mostly progresses as Ramius must outwit the forces that line up against him. But, the transfer of this internal tension to the audience has already occurred.
Understanding how popular stories and storytellers create narrative tension can be a great teaching tool.