Tension, tension, tension! Establish tension early, before your reader loses interest. Some kind of tension is essential to keeping your readers engaged. Give your readers that itching sense that something is going to go wrong. Build up to important events using ominous imagery. But don't go too fast – readers need to feel the full extent of the story's tension before arriving at the climax. Introduce the possibility of an ominous event or bad outcome. Then be patient. Take the time to describe the situation in detail to help create suspense.
My writing instructor was a fan of establishing some sort of "clock": a timer counting down to the climax. This is a strategy that I've found works well with short stories, although longer fiction may require multiple clocks, and the source of the tension may shift as the story progresses. There are many ways to establish tension; there's no hard-and-fast rule.
I've included a few examples of story hooks that use the clock/tension strategy, for your enjoyment.
Example 1:
The afternoon of the day before Aileen's death, the stray visited her yard again. He was a large dog of indiscernible breeding, with black fur that looked like it had been ruffled the wrong way. He – she was sure it was a he – was tugging and pawing at something in the corner of their small yard, churning up so much of the Indian summer dirt that Aileen couldn't discern what it was after. As she drew closer, unsure whether or not she should shout, the dog caught her eye, huffed, and spat a little onto the bone-dry ground before padding away toward the main street.
That's odd, Aileen thought. I didn't know dogs could spit.
Only two paragraphs in, we already have an impending tragedy – tomorrow, Aileen's going to snuff it – and two mysteries: 1) how she will die and 2) the significance of the strange black dog in the yard (which observant readers will probably identify as a Grim). Instant tension!
Example 2:
Rita has a fantasy boyfriend. They met on her third day of college. His name's Nathan Wiltshire, and his loose blond hair fans over her face when they kiss. He has magic powers – telekinesis, mind-reading, invisibility – and he drives a dragon-shaped rocket ship that reaches a hundred km/hr.
Rita knows Nathan's not real, but he's still better company than her roommate, who invites the entire floor to their room to pregame before Friday night frat fests. During the pregame parties, when everyone except Rita is mad drunk in their room, Rita slips out to find Nathan. Later, they smirk at her roommate's sorry life choices, the push-up bras, the broken beer bottles, and they laugh at the idiot drunks who hit on Rita at the pregame. Nathan's so much better than them.
Nathan's much more interesting than Rita's multi-calc class too, and when he comes with her to class, whispering in her ear, distracting her, Rita lets him. She spends boring classes imagining their adventures. They find holes in the wall, which lead to magical kingdoms. They have dates in Paris and Venice and Spain. He takes her to restaurants, and she savors each dish – so much finer than that slop the cafeteria feeds them. Rita would rather starve than eat some of that stuff.
The tension is more subtle and vague here, but there is tension nonetheless, because the situation is weird and you know it is only a matter of time before this fantasy boyfriend results in some sort of humiliating, tense, or bizarre outcome.
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The Things I Learned in Fiction Class
Non-FictionI learned so many great things in Fiction Writing, and it seemed like a waste not to share them. This book contains tips for both advanced and beginning writers, with examples!
