Since tension is the key to keeping the plot moving in any story, how do you maintain that tension when you only have one character in a scene? This is a question I often wrestle with because I write mysteries. I often have several scenes where my amateur sleuth Rae Riley is thinking through what she’s learned so far about her case. So how can I write scenes like that without boring readers? Read on for the 3 tips for writing internal dialogue with tension in your novel.

Let’s examine a one-character scene for tension. Here’s the opening scene from my short story, “A Rose from the Ashes”. Rae is in this scene alone.

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“Glancing left and right, I crunched across the frozen weeds to the abandoned children’s home. I could not afford to be spotted now. If only I could take a few seconds and snap some pictures. The light from the early December sunset was perfect. Gashes of blood-red light seeped through the clotted clouds, creating an ominous background for the gray stone building that was rumored to be the scene of a murder.

“At the back wall of the home, I slung the strap for my camera across my chest and climbed through an opening that once held a window. I dropped to the bare ground, my long, dark gold braid catching on a loose nail in the sill. I disentangled myself and crossed the dirt floor. The fire had burned the wooden floor away. And the roof and the whole interior. The four stone walls loomed above me like a medieval fortress as the sunset’s rays spotlighted sections of the garbage-strewn floor.

“I knelt by a large fireplace, straining to detect any sound of psychics, ghost hunters, or thrill-seeking high school kids who had come to catch sight of the ghost of Bella Rydell.

“Nothing but a few caws from crows and sighs as the wind sailed through the empty window frames.
A lonely place. Very lonely, stuck on twenty acres of unused county land.

“Shaking off a shiver, I unzipped my down vest and removed the two roses. I laid them on the rusty iron grate of the fireplace.

“These would start everyone in the county talking again.”

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So how did I tension to this scene?

Description

I use description to show that my protagonist isn’t entirely comfortable in this setting, using words and phrases like “gashes of blood read light” “ominous,” “a few caws from crows”, and “the wind sailed through empty window frames”. Also Rae shakes “off a shiver.” Here is a post about how to use uncomfortable settings to add tension to your novel.

Foreshadow

Hinting at plot points that will become significant later in the story keeps readers turning the page. “The gray stone building that was rumored to be the scene of a murder” and “any sound of psychics, ghost hunters, or thrill-seeking high school kids who had come to catch sight of the ghost of Bella Rydell.”

Raise questions

Rae lays two roses in the grate of the fireplace and thinks that will get everyone in the county talking. Why? The key to raising questions is that while you can be mysterious, you can’t be confusing. Although readers wonder why the roses will provoke talk, they understand exactly what Rae is doing.

These aren’t the only ways to write internal dialogue with tension. Next week, I’ll discuss what I think is the most underused plotting technique for creating tension and one I rely on all the time.

Who is an author who writes tension-filled internal dialogue?

Here are my previous posts on plot this month.