Writing Concept: Tension and Release as Wave Collision

One of the things that has gripped my attention in the voyage of writing is trying to understand the nature of tension and release of a story. Have you ever felt the moment where a story gets so intense that you can't put it down? It doesn't always happen in stories, but when it does happen it is the best thing to read, isn't it? That has to do with conflict and tension/release cycles, I am certain of it. I feel like this is something that many writers don't understand about scene composition, and it makes writing good scenes seem like a matter of luck when it can really be figured into skill.

So, how does tension/release cycles work? Well, it is kind of like a sling shot. Tension builds up energy based on piling up uncertainty and doubt. We get more invested as we go along. When it gets released all at once it has an emotional effect on the reader. It is always really intense when the hero and villain of a story are facing off, and the way the villain talks and acts, it doesn't seem like the hero has a chance. Maybe the villain's philosophy seems like the only right answer, that their perspective is the right one to take. It seems hopeless. But then it happens... out of the blue the hero rises up. They turn the philosophy around giving it a whole new perspective, they turn negative into positive, and weakness into power. In a moment, the unbeatable villain becomes beatable and the hero stands strong. It gives you a rush. The moment of doubt where we think the hero can't win makes things so much more interesting than if a hero just trounces a villain without struggle. Nobody likes a mary sue story because they aren't interesting and they have no concept of tension. A rubber band that doesn't pull back doesn't fire far. Let's say it isn't hero and villains, but two characters caught up in a romantic struggle. Will they? Won't they? Can they overcome the flaws and become happy? People like when people get together, but it feels so much better when they struggle for it... When it has been denied us for so long. Then again, everybody has seen a show where they hint at romantic tension for so long that it just becomes stale and you lose interest. Why is that? At that point the illusion of tension is gone. The rubberband has snapped, and it doesn't launch us anywhere. We have come to terms and given ourselves out own release.

How do you use tension?

So Tension is the conflict between things we like and things we don't like, or things that characters like and don't like. In stories we are constantly bombarded with information, whether it is from dialogue or narrative or what ever tools your medium has to offer. I have a lot of theories on how to qualitatively graph some of this, but I'll try to keep it simple for this. We have positive information (information that is good from a perspective, negative information (information that is bad from a perspective), latent information (information that needs other information to register as positive or negative), and fluff (useless junk that doesn't play a role in the story). Characters and narrative are always emitting these types of information and it changes the climate of a story. I think it attributes to why a story that is all happy is as boring as a story that is all brooding, and why we have niche genres that appeal to some people and not others, but that is getting into complicated stuff.

Here is what I really want to talk about: Tension/Release cycles as Wave Collision

So in physics, there are two major types of collision: Constructive and Destructive

Constructive: When waves are harmonious with each other and amplify each other. When two equal waves collide constructively, it doubles the amplitude of the wave. Information that is harmonious to either negative or positive in a story can create the feeling good or feeling bad emotions of a story.

Destructive: When waves are dissonant with each other they collapse in on each other, although usually it isn't perfectly. In a story this is what makes us feel tense. It is conflict of two or more forces against each other. When we are invested in the results these collisions grab our attention because this is where it could go either way.

Both types of waves are important to a good story. Harmonious collisions help create release, which is good for climax of a scene or figuring out how we interpret things. Dissonant collisions help build up energy to create tension. In a way, I think this reflects what many writers believe to be the model for how to write a story.

You have the hook (inciting incident) and exposition (putting out information), you have rising action and trials of the hero (build up of tension), and at the end you have the climax (the biggest release). It is pretty much a model graphing tension.

However, I have also heard that if you further break down that model, authors will tell you that it repeats itself over and over, with smaller build ups to miniclimaxes over the course of the story, getting more and more intense as things go along. I think that use of tension release is why it is this way. Here is what it might sorta look like:

I think one of the keys to using this is understanding the importance of rate of change. You want an even tussel. It is harder to tell positive apart from positive, and it is hard to tell negative apart from negative, so much so that it can be hard to quantify them beyond recognizing they are there. You get around this by having things go back and forth. If you make a situation really good in a story, it can set up for an intense bad thing happening. If things are really grim, it feels so much better when the light finally shines through. You have to keep dynamic. You need the back and forth of positive and negative information to create tension to make things interesting.

Anyway, I hope that if you read this you found it interesting. What are your thoughts on tension and relief? Do you use anything like this in your own story writing? Leave a comment below.

I don't own any of the images used here. The Hot Blooded Pinkie image is from UC77's deviant art.