Use progressive complications to increase scene tension
I recently wrote an article about using the Story Grid 5 Commandments and nailing the inciting incident of your scene in order to hook the reader. But what do you do after the inciting incident? How do you keep the reader turning the page? Always consider that your reader is looking for an excuse to put your story down. Don’t give them that chance!
The following is a scene from the second season of the television series The Blacklist (a fantastic series, by the way) and it’s a perfect example of using progressive complications to raise the tension of a scene.
The Blacklist: Season 2, Episode 5 “The Front”
Samar scanned the busy airport, looking between the photo on her phone and every face she passed. This terrorist was about to board a plane with an aerosolized version of the Plague and she could not let that happen. Suddenly, there he was, across the hallway beside the Burger King, staring at her. He turned and sprinted away.
“Stop!” she yelled, pushing pedestrians out of the way as she tried to close the distance. “FBI!”
They both sped through the crowded hallway, dodging wayward travelers, the distance between them barely changing. The terrorist darted right around two men with backpacks, then stumbled over a piece of luggage on the floor. Samar was on him, grabbing his waist and toppling him to the floor in a football tackle. They rolled through an open door and into an empty seating area, coming to a stop with the terrorist on top. Samar tried to pull him close, but he freed one arm and withdrew a small spray bottle from his shirt pocket. Grabbing his hand away, she tried to shove it away, but he used his leverage to force it closer and closer to her face. He pushed the top and droplets hit her face as she took a breath. Releasing his hand, she crabbed away and wiped desperately at her face, unaware that the terrorist had grabbed her pistol from its holster until she heard the shot and felt the pain in her side.
He stood above her, leveling the gun at her head. Her eyes widened, hands coming up in front of her face, feet pushing her backward into empty chairs. Another shot rang out. She blinked reflexively, expecting pain, then the man dropped the pistol and fell to the ground. Behind the fallen terrorist she saw Agent Keen with a smoking gun. Quickly, Samar closed the glass door between the two areas and leaned her back against it, applying pressure to her side.
“Samar, open the door!” yelled Keen. “You’ll bleed out!”
Her hands came away bloody as she shook her head. “I’m infected.”
What are Progressive Complications?
Progressive Complications move stories forward, never backward. They do so by making life more and more difficult … for your lead character.
Your protagonist should face obstacles that get more difficult as the scene progresses in order to build anticipation and tension in your reader. In this scene, we have the following complications:
- Samar trying to find the terrorist in a busy airport
- The terrorist runs after seeing Samar
- Samar tackles the terrorist
- Samar wrestles with the terrorist
- The terrorist sprays Samar with the Plague
- The terrorist shoots Samar
Since this is an action scene, the complications are getting progressively more deadly.
How Can You Tell if Your Progressive Complications are Progressive?
I want to emphasize the importance that your complications need to get progressively worse for the protagonist as the scene advances or you run the risk of boring the reader. To check your scene, make a list of all the difficulties faced by your protagonist as I did above and rate them on a scale between 1 and 10 with reference to severity. For instance, for this scene I might write:
- Samar trying to find the terrorist in a busy airport (1)
- Terrorist runs after seeing Samar (2)
- Samar tackles the terrorist (4)
- Samar wrestles with the terrorist (5)
- Terrorist sprays Samar with Plague (7)
- Terrorist shoots Samar (9)
As you can see, the complications are getting progressively more deadly. In the beginning, Samar is not wounded or in any physical contact with the terrorist and the terrorist doesn’t know who she is, thus she is relatively safe. When she gives chase, she is in slightly more danger because she is known. Then she tackles the terrorist, exposing herself to physical harm. When they fight on the ground, there is even more potential for injury. When the terrorist sprays her with the Plague, she is infected and dying. And lastly, when she is shot, she is now in danger of bleeding out and dying even faster.
What would have happened if Samar had been shot first and then sprayed by the plague? Would it have mattered to the reader? Not really, because she would die from blood loss a lot faster than from the plague. What if Samar tackled the terrorist when she first saw him and got sprayed by the plague, and then the terrorist ran away and Samar followed? Is that actually putting her in more danger? Not really, she is dying of the plague whether she runs after the terrorist or not, her level of danger didn’t go up.
How Can You Improve Your Progressive Complications?
Be tough on your protagonists, and do the unexpected. Spend some time with each scene and don’t be afraid to make life difficult for your hero — believe me, they can take it. Raising the tension of each scene will keep your reader turning pages and help you to create more memorable events.
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Be Tough With Your Protagonist was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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Author: Randall Surles
