Think of tension as a cord woven through every chapter, slowly pulling the reader towards the last scenes. Tension doesn’t need to be dramatic, like a serial killer who has broken into a house. For romance writers, it could be the question of whether the protagonist will choose his/her dream job, or stay with their new love? Tension can be emotional turmoil. Whatever genre you are writing, pack your scenes with some sort of tension with conflict within the character’s mind or with other characters. Put complications and conflicts into the character’s life and this can be accomplished through action, dialogue, description, and narrative. Draw out the scene with words that evoke emotion and keep raising the stakes. Remember the slowly woven cord. Alternate between action, thoughts, dialogue and description. Take your time. Make sure the scene is set up in earlier scenes so the reader knows what’s at stake, to keep their heart pounding and keep them turning the pages. Torture your protagonist with road blocks. It could be as simple as a weather event – like a blizzard when your protagonist has to be somewhere. A search engine is your friend in finding tension words. In the book Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, he suggests using a scale to rate the intensity of your scenes. The intensity scale is a good way for you to balance the scenes in your book. Determine which scenes are the big ones and rate their intensity, which should be in the 8-10 zone. Then balance those scenes with ones that are slower and more reflective in the 2 to 6 zone.
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