tension and pacing
z_rayne had an thought-provoking post last week about elements that make a story unreadable or difficult to read for her, and quite an interesting discussion sprung up in the comments. I weighed in with some of my own factors that make my fingers move toward the back button. But there's one thing that can't be expressed in the same type of black-or-white test (e.g. lots of grammatical errors, epithet usage, present tense) that is a major factor in whether or not I finish reading a story, and that's tension. If a story doesn't create tension that makes me want to see it resolved, that raises questions in my mind as to what happens next, that makes me care about what happens to the characters - why bother continuing?
I think that my sensitivity to tension and pacing is why my reading patterns change over the course of my involvement with a fandom. In the early stages, I am so in love with the characters that I always care about what happens to them, so absent the "killer factors" I am likely to read and enjoy a wide variety of stories. But at some point I am not automatically invested in, say, John and Rodney getting together. When that happens, I need more than just that. That is, it can certainly be a romance in which the plot is entirely about John and Rodney getting together. But the story needs to dangle compelling questions in front of my nose, to make me feel that it is important for them to get together, to show me the obstacles to them getting together - which will make me want to read more and find out how it happens. That's what tension is all about - creating questions in the reader's mind that can only be answered by continuing to read.
Pacing is a big part of this. The longer a story is, the more questions need to be raised and later answered (or perhaps it's the opposite, in that the more questions the story raises, the longer it has to be to resolve them all). But the story can't do nothing but raise questions until the bang-up resolution solves everything, because that's unsatisfying at best and confusing at worst; the trick is to space out your questions and answers, to raise new questions as you answer earlier ones, so that the reader is carried along on the crest of the wave. Deadwood scenes - scenes which don't do anything in the service of the story, such as snappy dialogue that doesn't actually have a purpose other than to be amusing, or redundant introspection that covers ground the character has already dealt with - can disrupt this wave by distracting the reader from focusing on the questions she wants answered.
In Black Widow (The Blaise's Mum Has Got It Going On Tango) by marksykins, the first scene sets up the tension: Blaise's mother gets married, loves her child, is unhappy. (So what does she do?) And then she kills him. This pattern gets repeated, and I think it would become boring were it not for the thread of how Blaise views things as he grows up, and how Blaise's mother's actions play out against the Voldemort situation - these are the bigger questions that the whole story works toward, with the smaller questions of "okay, how is this one going to bite it?" raised and resolved inside the story.
A fabulous SGA example is Fourteen Years by hth_the_first. The 'past' vignette raises a question, then answers it - but then I want to know how this is reflected in the 'future' vignette. And then each set adds something more to the story of Ronon in Atlantis, how he finds his place, how he forms his relationships. The second year in Atlantis shows his affection and respect for John (how will this develop?), the third year shows it developing and adds Rodney's relationship with John (how will Ronon assimilate this?), the fourth year shows his realization of jealousy and desire for a relationship (how will Ronon handle this?), and so on.
These two examples have obvious, repetitive structure, which makes the smaller question/answer cycles within the overall one a lot more obvious. But even in a less obviously structured story these things are present. I'll pull an example from dS: Such Things as Angels by j_s_cavalcante. At the beginning, Fraser wonders why Ray perpetually sets himself up for a fall with Stella, and so we wonder, too. Ray strings Fraser along, and the author strings the reader along During the story, we wonder how Fraser will handle Ray's behavior, we wonder what will happen; we can guess that Ray will make a move on Fraser, and we want to see how, and how Fraser will react. By the time the first question is answered around the midpoint of the story, we have new questions raised - the move is made, and we want to see the sexual tension resolved.
It's really hard for me to point at specific bits and say, this accomplishes the ratcheting up of tension, this answers a previous question, this moves things forward. But I definitely feel, while reading a story, either a motion up/forward (increasing tension), a motion downward (release of tension, answering a question), or a flat "nothing happening" feeling. What works for me is when a story is a gradually rising sawtooth ridge, with a succession of small climaxes which build to the overall large climax of the story - when small questions are raised and answered, but each contributes to a larger question for which I must read to the end to find out what happens. If a story's small climaxes don't build to a clear point, it feels unfocused to me; without the big peak at the end to reach for, I get bored. Ditto if a story has long flat stretches with no peak in sight. Even if a story is technically well-written, it will fail for me if there is no tension.
ETA: minisinoo has some related thoughts here.
I think that my sensitivity to tension and pacing is why my reading patterns change over the course of my involvement with a fandom. In the early stages, I am so in love with the characters that I always care about what happens to them, so absent the "killer factors" I am likely to read and enjoy a wide variety of stories. But at some point I am not automatically invested in, say, John and Rodney getting together. When that happens, I need more than just that. That is, it can certainly be a romance in which the plot is entirely about John and Rodney getting together. But the story needs to dangle compelling questions in front of my nose, to make me feel that it is important for them to get together, to show me the obstacles to them getting together - which will make me want to read more and find out how it happens. That's what tension is all about - creating questions in the reader's mind that can only be answered by continuing to read.
Pacing is a big part of this. The longer a story is, the more questions need to be raised and later answered (or perhaps it's the opposite, in that the more questions the story raises, the longer it has to be to resolve them all). But the story can't do nothing but raise questions until the bang-up resolution solves everything, because that's unsatisfying at best and confusing at worst; the trick is to space out your questions and answers, to raise new questions as you answer earlier ones, so that the reader is carried along on the crest of the wave. Deadwood scenes - scenes which don't do anything in the service of the story, such as snappy dialogue that doesn't actually have a purpose other than to be amusing, or redundant introspection that covers ground the character has already dealt with - can disrupt this wave by distracting the reader from focusing on the questions she wants answered.
In Black Widow (The Blaise's Mum Has Got It Going On Tango) by marksykins, the first scene sets up the tension: Blaise's mother gets married, loves her child, is unhappy. (So what does she do?) And then she kills him. This pattern gets repeated, and I think it would become boring were it not for the thread of how Blaise views things as he grows up, and how Blaise's mother's actions play out against the Voldemort situation - these are the bigger questions that the whole story works toward, with the smaller questions of "okay, how is this one going to bite it?" raised and resolved inside the story.
A fabulous SGA example is Fourteen Years by hth_the_first. The 'past' vignette raises a question, then answers it - but then I want to know how this is reflected in the 'future' vignette. And then each set adds something more to the story of Ronon in Atlantis, how he finds his place, how he forms his relationships. The second year in Atlantis shows his affection and respect for John (how will this develop?), the third year shows it developing and adds Rodney's relationship with John (how will Ronon assimilate this?), the fourth year shows his realization of jealousy and desire for a relationship (how will Ronon handle this?), and so on.
These two examples have obvious, repetitive structure, which makes the smaller question/answer cycles within the overall one a lot more obvious. But even in a less obviously structured story these things are present. I'll pull an example from dS: Such Things as Angels by j_s_cavalcante. At the beginning, Fraser wonders why Ray perpetually sets himself up for a fall with Stella, and so we wonder, too. Ray strings Fraser along, and the author strings the reader along During the story, we wonder how Fraser will handle Ray's behavior, we wonder what will happen; we can guess that Ray will make a move on Fraser, and we want to see how, and how Fraser will react. By the time the first question is answered around the midpoint of the story, we have new questions raised - the move is made, and we want to see the sexual tension resolved.
It's really hard for me to point at specific bits and say, this accomplishes the ratcheting up of tension, this answers a previous question, this moves things forward. But I definitely feel, while reading a story, either a motion up/forward (increasing tension), a motion downward (release of tension, answering a question), or a flat "nothing happening" feeling. What works for me is when a story is a gradually rising sawtooth ridge, with a succession of small climaxes which build to the overall large climax of the story - when small questions are raised and answered, but each contributes to a larger question for which I must read to the end to find out what happens. If a story's small climaxes don't build to a clear point, it feels unfocused to me; without the big peak at the end to reach for, I get bored. Ditto if a story has long flat stretches with no peak in sight. Even if a story is technically well-written, it will fail for me if there is no tension.
ETA: minisinoo has some related thoughts here.