Ah, I love a phrase with multiple personalities. Today's post title is one such phrase.

Tension in Writing (1)

This newspaper article strikes me as a perfect example of the kind of tension necessary to a novel. A little set up first: Here in Northern California, we have a mushroom called the Death Cap. The Death Cap is extremely toxic. Most people need a liver transplant if they are to survive, and many don't. Unfortunately, the Death Cap mushroom looks almost exactly like several other edible and delicious mushrooms that grow here, as well as in other countries. Even experts have been known to mistake the Death Cap for one that's safe. This is an area with a large immigrant population, and every year about this time there's typically a poisoning with tragic results. This article is about such a poisoning and how the treating physician tracked down a possible antidote. The article has everything required for dramatic tension, and the tension ratchets because he met red tape, corporate greed, corporate good will, bureaucrats who did the right thing and international time zones and seat of the pants thinking across borders, all against a ticking clock-- an entire family will probably die if he can't get his hands on this possible antidote. It's a riveting article. Read it and think about what's at stake in your story. There's a mostly happy ending, by the way. Only one family member died, the others have survived and without a liver transplant.

Tension in Writing (2)

I don't know if there was any, I haven't done any yet. I had an eye doctor appointment this afternoon, but had to cancel it to take my car to the mechanic to tell me if the dashboard light that kept coming on was something serious. Normally I'd just wait for the car to break down (OK, not really, but practically) only I have to drive 150 miles or whatever to Ripon this weekend, and then back, so I really don't want to break down far from anyone who could bail me out. My car didn't come with a manual, so I needed a translator. (Translation: the tire pressure is low) So either I have a leak (unlikely but possible, was the second opinion at the tire shop) or I needed more air in one tire (which they did for me) or the sensor is broken (which I don't have to care about right now.) So I didn't get home until 5:00 pm, and at 5:30 I had to take my son to soccer practice, only, as one other parent and I discovered, practice today was at 4:00, not 6:00. So... my son and I went to the book store to look for a biography on Attila the Hun because, as he told me at 5:29 pm, he loses 5 points on his book report if he doesn't bring his selected biography to school tomorrow. We haven't had time to go to the library because of soccer, but this is not all that common a biography, let me tell you.

He got one on Alexander the Great instead which he will bring to school tomorrow to preserve his 5 points, and we'll continue The Search for Attila in the meanwhile (because Attila the Hun killed people in reputedly gruesome ways and my son, being a boy, is wild to know the details). We got home from that at 7:00 because, well, we were at a book store (in the used section) and I found several neat books (Who's Who in the Ancient Near East, Ancient Mystic Rites, Byzantium: the Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and The Medieval Underworld) which I just had to have for the Work In Progress. Then I had to get dinner, and now this blog post.

So, after that long way around, I am tense about writing right now because I was expecting to work during his practice and couldn't, obviously, because the book on Alexander the Great cost me $64.70.

Labels: Attila the Hun, tension, writing