Today’s guest post is excerpted from Masterful Microtension: The Essential Element of Powerful Fiction by C. S. Lakin.
Microtension is story tension on a micro level, or in small, barely noticeable increments. Your big plot twists, reversals, and surprises are macro-tension elements, and those have great potential for sparking emotional response in readers. But microtension is achieved on a line-by-line basis. You need both in powerful fiction.
I like to think of microtension as sticky bits, or words, images, and phrases that make you stop and think, Wait, what? These sticky bits make readers perk up and pay attention. While some writers are perhaps naturally brilliant and pack their pages with beautiful microtension, the rest of us have to work hard to infuse our stories with this element. But it’s worth the time and effort.
Repetition for strong effect is perhaps the most common pathway for microtension, and there are many ways to use it. It can be found in a word or phrase, but it can also be a motif, symbol, or image. Let’s set aside characters who think and speak using a lot of repetition (that can be purposeful for certain types of stories). That’s a different subject. What we want to look at is how to grab a specific word or phrase and work it into a scene for a particular effect.
The repeated word (and its variations) might appear scattered throughout a paragraph or two, or we can use a more formal literary device, like anaphora, which is the repeating of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines to build emphasis, rhythm, and emotional impact. The opposite of anaphora is epiphora, which repeats a word or phrase at the end of the sentence (“see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”).
Anaphora and Epiphora
Kristin Dwyer’s YA novel The Atlas of Us opens with teenager Atlas James, a girl who is falling apart after the death of her father, in a car with her mother. She’s heading to an outdoor camp for four weeks, resistant but determined to get her head on straight.
Dwyer’s writing flows smoothly and efficiently, and through the use of word repetition, we learn much about Atlas. Using word repetition for lyrical effect helps make the prose “sticky” and emphasizes what Atlas is feeling. Here are the opening paragraphs:
My eyes are closed.
I don’t open them, even as the light filtering through the trees strobes against my eyelids. If I keep them closed maybe I can pretend.
Pretend that this drive is one I want to take, like it had been so many years before. Pretend that I’m with my dad. Pretend that when I open my eyes, he’ll be tapping his tanned fingers against the steering wheel to the music.
But I know all the things I’ve been pretending aren’t real. Pretending is just another word for lying. And I’ve been doing that. To my mother, to my friends, to myself, because this drive is something I’ve been dreading. And my dad is dead.
Things no one can pretend away. Not forever.
When we repeat words in close proximity in a lyrical way, it compounds the effect of the word and its meaning in context. Pretend could be considered as a limited motif here, for this is something she is doing in all facets of her life, but since the word is only used in these opening paragraphs, it’s simply word repetition. Notice that sometimes Dwyer uses anaphora (first word of the sentence), but not in every instance. And she also uses pretending.
After we learn where Atlas is going and why, she looks at the paper in her lap—a contract for community service she needs to sign.
I haven’t signed yet. Because I do not agree. Because even though this isn’t compulsory, it doesn’t feel like a choice. And because putting my name on this paper would make everything feel final. Like all the things I’ve been running from are finally here for me to deal with in black ink. Failures I have to admit.
Failed to graduate from high school. Check.
Lost my job at a family friend’s floral shop. Check.
Antisocial. Depressed. Anger issues. Directionless. Check.
But I can boil all those things down to two words.
Father died. Check.
My mother doesn’t know what to do with me, but in her defense, I’m not sure what to do with me either.
Bear Creek is the thing she has been hoping will fix me. Save me.
Now we have an example of epiphora, with the word check at the end of paragraphs. (She also repeats because and failures/failed.)
In just a few lines, we get a succinct backstory that has brought her to this moment. Rather than preface the novel with multiple scenes showing all her recent traumatic experiences, we get a checklist. This is terrific microtension, using word repetition in a creative way to convey important information in a very short time.
Dwyer doesn’t overload us with repetition. Instead, she uses this technique for the two most important points she needs to make—that Atlas is just going through the motions of life and failing at it, and that it’s all because of her father’s death, which has shattered her and her mother.
Anaphora and epiphora can infuse your prose with microtension, regardless of the genre you write in. Repetition, when applied strategically at important moments in your pages, can have a powerful effect and evoke strong emotions in your readers.
C. S. Lakin is a book copyeditor, writing coach, and the author of more than thirty books (fiction and nonfiction). Her Writer’s Toolbox Series and online video courses at Writing for Life Workshops have helped thousands of fiction writers pen unforgettable novels. Check out her new release, Masterful Microtension: The Essential Element of Powerful Fiction, which provides the only extensive instruction on microtension published to date. You can find this book, and all the volumes in the Writer’s Toolbox Series, online at Amazon and all other bookselling venues.
