Intensity. It's the name of a kickin' Dean Koontz novel, but that's not exactly what we're about here. Except, yes, Koontz is a master of the skill we're talking about today:
And yes, we'll focus on Act 2 for the rest of this week.
Maintaining Intensity in the Second Act.
And yes, we'll focus on Act 2 for the rest of this week.
Our last mission was to figure out your goals for Act 2 and a couple of devices you wanted to use to get there. But you have to maintain a stream of interest as it happens--and that's an art. The first person who explained it well to me was Donald Maass in his book, The Fire in Fiction. He called the concept, "Scenes that Can't be Cut." I call it "Down-Range Interpersonal Combat." If you're gonna earn your stripes, you have to master Down-Range Combat. You have to keep the readers' interest ... but how?
Intensity.
It can be subtle, or it can be up-yours-aggressive, but you have to maintain a stream of intensity that carries readers through the second act. When they hit the next window--the one that leads you into Act 3--the stream needs to churn into rapids.
So how do you build a stream out of words, characters, and a setting? The answer is intensity--tension--even microtension. I like to think of that radio song that I didn't hear the end of, so it stays with me all day. Or that annoying road near my home where the lanes are slightly drawn wrong. We all have to sit up and take notice there, so that we don't drive into each other.
I want you to start banging your characters against each other in the second act. It might just be a fight over the last donut before a long day of crime-fighting, or it might be an interrogation of an angry suspect, but each scene needs to play into your intensity--even the romance. The second act is no time for sex--unless it's destructive. Fill Act 2 with misunderstandings, infatuations, arguments, and other interpersonal treachery that puts your Lead or your suspect on edge.
The edge of their seat is where your reader should be.
And like that song you didn't hear the end of, your conflicts won't get resolved here--just laid out to pull on your character's emotional strings. Yep, it's a puppet show where everyone suffers, nobody gets satisfaction, and the buildup is driving your readers crazy enough to...to turn the page.
Sure, something good can happen now and then, but when it does, you need to mirror it with some tension. Here's a comment from my first book where the artist protagonist finds out a good friend, another artist, has just been signed for a NY exhibit.
I felt so happy for her...but at the same time a little bit angry. Char hadn't studied art. My brushwork was a lot more precise.
Fuck that! What kind of friend was I?
At every turn, your characters need to get more and more conflicted. You might be slowly revealing clues, but as you do so, you need to slowly build your tension. Sure, maybe they're not firing machine guns at each other, but your characters in Act 2 should face Down-range Interpersonal Combat.
So pull out a scene from that act.
A slow one.
Have you armed your characters for combat?
