Today’s post is on anticipation and tension and the stress that it causes. I spent most of yesterday obsessively weather-checking because I wanted to know if school would be cancelled today, ergo, Kathleen would be stuck home with the kids. The school district will sometimes call the snowday the night before, but usually, you get a call at 5:freaking:30 in the AM.
So, last night, we watched the news, and still it was iffy. No news from the district. The weather was supposed to get bad in the afternoon, although we might have snow in the AM, but they weren’t sure. Was it going to be a snow day? A noon-dismissal? Nothing?
Finally, I went to bed, grumbling about the unknown.
At five AM, I woke up, noted the time, and realized there had been no call. The kids would be in school. YAY! I thought about my day. Heading off to Starbucks to work. Hitting the gym. Maybe I’d even hit the grocery store. And then, just as I was nodding back off to sleep…
The phone rang.
No school. Ranty-rant-on: Ten minutes BEFORE the six AM cut-off, we get the word. I had to replot my entire day and I. Wasn’t. Happy.
Now, this is writer’s corner, and you may be wondering why I’m writing about tension and anticipation, but…. wait for it… tension and anticipation is one of the biggest pieces in writing romance. You turn the pages, obsessively waiting for the payoff. Sometimes that’s The Sex. Sometimes that’s ‘hero-can’t-say-I-love-you-will-he?’ Sometimes that’s ‘OMG-they-hate-each-other’ and sometimes it’s ‘OMG-he-loves-his-mother-more-than-her-what-sort-of-book-is-this-romance-right?-okay-its-got-to-be-the-heroine-unless-oh-squick!’
Romantic tension is nearly as powerful as the tension for survival. Anybody who has ever experienced the first throes of love will confirm this (never having been in a near-death-experince, I cannot compare the two). Romantic tension is universal and well understood, but it’s up to the writer to bait the hook, skim the line, wander back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… until the reader is salivating for the hero and heroine to be together.
There’s a linear-well-trod path for most romances, but sometimes a writer will throw you a sucker punch. The biggest sucker punch for me is in Lord of the Scoundrels when Jess shot Dane. I remember thinking, ‘oh, no, she didn’t. Oh, no, she didn’t. Oh, yes. She did.’
OMG.
So, know of any examples in books, or in life, where the tension was laid out well, or you got a great sucker punch that you weren’t expecting?
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello Ladies!
I enjoyed reading your cyber chat and I just wanted to throw in my tuppence ha’penny–yup, I’m British, let’s get that out there, before I start. I use ‘u’s; am not dyslexic.
With regard to the ‘sucker punch’ endings, I wanted to cite Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. Heart-wrenching, gut-churning, lungs-deflating kind of an ending. I telephoned my best friend and demanded she tell me that I had misunderstood, that that wasn’t how it concluded, I was just thick. Alas, no.
Secondly, as regards the divinely dignified Mr. Firth, I will be interested to watch his performance in ‘A Singular Man’, for which he is Oscar nominated. The movie seems tres depressing, as it covers the day of the ‘Singular’ Col grieving for his homosexual partner, who has been killed in an accident. A big 180 direction for ol’ Col, but I am sure he is brilliant in it.
That’s all from me, for now. Thanks for letting me chat out loud, rather than just in my head.
Eleanor
Oh, Cold Mountain!! Yes! I was so furious because yes, it had been set up, yes, but I hate when people have to work for their happy ending, and then, poof, it disappears (usually penned by a MAN!).
I’m dying to see A Singular Man, as well. The reviews have been fab, and he’s got such expressive eyes. The rest of his face will not move, but you see everything in his eyes.
I’m having a hard time with a “sucker punch” in a book. Must think on that longer.
I do have a romantic, heart in my throat moment from a movie I love – The Last of the Mohicans. Guess this counts as the book too. Remember this -
Hawkeye: No, you submit, do you hear? You be strong, you survive… You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you.
I guess a sucker punch from the movie is when Alice throws herself over the cliff after Uncas is pushed over the cliff by Magua. I sure bawled my eyes out.
The Last of the Mohicans! I was yelling at the screen when Alice jumped. No!!! But you could see what she was going to do, and it was heart-breaking. …
Such a great romance….
I’ve had more sucker punches in life than I can count, LOL. I think Jodi Piccoult does a lot of sucker-punching in her novels, but they are usually twists I really like. Like My Sister’s Keeper. But don’t tell Jacquie I said I liked it. Let it be our little secret.
Oh that reminds me– big sucker punch in Anita Shreve’s Weight of Water. I suppose I knew it was coming, but it was so emotionally wrenching. I love her books, but that one was hard on me.
Really? (scribbling down on TBR list)…
Jeez–I’m not deaf, you know.
Horse Whisperer. And it wasn’t one that could be recovered from. I read that book years ago and it still makes me angry thinking about the cop out ending. SUCKER PUNCH.
Exactly.
I didn’t like the ending for MSK (the book), only because the entire story was the battle of a girl fighting against her family for her own rights, but then the Jodi Piccoult gods de machina swept in and made the whole issue moot, sort of fate trumps the individual, which to me seems very Greek theater. But up to the end, I did love it, and it’s not like the end didn’t work, it just felt… cheap. Of course, with a truly great conflict, you paint yourself into a corner, and sometimes I wonder if Piccoult didn’t craft another ending and then the editor came back and hated the main character. One opinion only, and spoken from a fan of JP’s books.
Nothing to do with the topic, but I saw Colin Firth’s name and had to just say….yum! Put him in a movie and I’ll watch it. Again and again and again. Can we clone him so we can all have one??
Tune in tomorrow, Jacquie. He figures in to my Fashion blog this week.
OMG! I can’t wait!
I have a crush on Richard Engel, only because he looks like Colin Firth. Not sure what it is about that earnest, steadfast brown hair, brown eyes thing, but… yum. I mean, there are the Johnny Depp’s of the world that are pretty and fun, but they’re not the guys you want to *be* with, only *play* with.
That’s exactly what makes Pride and Prejudice the best book ever, for me. All that lovely romantic tension between Elizabeth and Darcy. (sigh). No one has ever done it better. And it’s unfortunately missing from P & P and Zombies, because there’s too much going on to take away from it (a mistake I tried to avoid in Jane Slayre, because the romance is my favorite part).
I also love it in A Room with a View. No surprise that these are also my two favorite film versions of books (the BBC with Firth for P & P, the Merchant Ivory for RwaV). Helen Fielding also did a fabulous job with Bridget Jones’s Diary (and again, with the film version, and again, Colin Firth!)
Love Colin Firth in BJD — and in Love Actually and even in P&P but give me tall DARK and disturbing for Darcy anytime (as in the newer version)
I can see that Colin isn’t everyone’s perfect Darcy. I didn’t fall for him right away. The first time I saw the first part, years ago, I thought it was bad casting. But then somewhere in the middle, he completely won me over. I really don’t like Matthew MacFadyen’s Darcy (Keira Knightley version). I thought he was just icky as Darcy. Didn’t work for me. But I could entertain thoughts of a darker Darcy. Just can’t imagine who. Firth pretty much has me weak in the knees in that role now.
Oh, another Darcy? Hmmm…. No. Firth keeps popping in my head.
Love, love, love Love Actually. It always makes me cry (in both good and sad ways). All those little stories that build together so nicely. Very well done. And Firth was so awesome… I’m in the Firth=Darcy camp. The pretty boy was nice, but I never got the arrogance that I think Firth does so well. However, I know you’re thoughts on this, so we will have to disagree and argue it over a glass of wine.
Matthew, Matthew he’s my man – but then I loved him in MI-5 too.
He was in MI-5??? I missed that.
I agree with this one, Sherri. I don’t know exactly how JA did this without becoming tedious (because it’s not very actiony), but it’s a very small story. I noticed with the Blind Side how we have gotten so accustomed to BIG things and yet a lot of times small gives you the biggest satisfaction….
I haven’t seen ARWAV in a long time…. Will have to check it out again. Today is a great day for movie watching.
I got caught up in movies two days ago. Should have been writing. Ended up getting into Benny and Joon and then The French Lieutenant’s Woman. My husband was working from home. When he does that, he works with the TV on, but he always manages to find great stuff on and then he tunes it out. I can tune out shows, but not movies. Not great movies. I get sucked right in.