Writing Tension in Screenplays: Learn from 10 NAIL-BITING Scenes

Writing Tension: The Difference Between Shock and Suspense

Take an ordinary scene where for five minutes three people are sitting around a table talking about their day. Suddenly, BOOM! A bomb is detonated that destroys the entire building and the audience is treated to five seconds of shock. That is not how you create tension in writing.

However, if you take the exact same scene and show the audience the bomb under the table before the characters have even sat down, everything changes. The audience listens to every word the characters speak, hangs on every action they make and anticipates what is going to happen. Now you’ve got your audience right where you want them.

That is the difference between writing shock and writing tension. Tension is vital in any story. Audiences want to feel excited when they watch your film. They want to emotionally invest in your story, the characters and the scenes. The most efficient way to elicit this response in your audience is through tension.

Writing tension in your screenplay effectively ensures an audience’s anticipation of the future of your characters and the outcome of your plot.

To demonstrate how a screenwriter can compellingly create tension for an audience, this article will be examining ten famous scenes from film and TV. Through them, you will gain a greater understanding of how tension can ebb and flow within a scene, how it can heighten the stakes of your screenplay and ultimately how it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.