Tension is the element that keeps an audience watching. It is not the same as conflict — nobody needs to shout. Tension is simply something unresolved that the audience cares about. The moment everything is settled, the scene is over, whether you have stopped talking or not.
Four kinds of tension
Drama teachers usually name four kinds. Most good scenes run at least two at once.
- Tension of the task. Someone must do something difficult before something else happens. Defusing the bomb. Getting the ring to the volcano before the army arrives.
- Tension of relationships. Two people want incompatible things from each other, and neither can walk away. Almost every argument scene you have ever loved is this one.
- Tension of surprise. The audience knows something is coming but not when. The shark theme starts; the water stays calm.
- Tension of mystery. Something is withheld. Who sent the letter? What is behind the door? Why will nobody say the name?
Name the tension: three familiar stories (click to expand)
Cinderella at the ball as midnight approaches — task (get out before the spell breaks) layered on relationship (she does not want to leave him). The Three Little Pigs — surprise: we know the wolf is coming; the pigs do not. Any detective story — mystery, by definition, usually with a task tension in the final chase.
Manufacturing tension on purpose
Tension is not luck — conventions exist to build it deliberately. Flashback and Flash-Forward is the clearest example: a flash-forward that shows the audience where events are heading creates surprise tension in every scene that follows, because now they are waiting. A Tableau held three seconds longer than is comfortable creates tension out of pure stillness. Thought Tracking can create relationship tension instantly, by letting the audience hear a thought the other character never will.
When you build your Tableau Story Sequence, choose the moments of highest tension — the instant before things resolve, not after. An audience leans toward an unresolved image and away from a finished one.
The quickest diagnosis for a flat scene is one question: what is unresolved here, and does the audience know it? If the answer is nothing, no amount of louder acting will help — go back and add an obstacle (see Role and Character).
Curriculum connection
A2.1
use the elements of drama to suit an identified purpose and form in drama presentations (e.g., use a historical conflict as the focus for a dramatic monologue revealing a real or fictional character’s attitudes, feelings, and reactions; use a futuristic, science-fiction setting for a mask comedy about an environmental or social issue)
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C1.1
identify the drama forms, elements, conventions, and techniques used in their own and others’ drama works, and explain how the various components are used or can be used to achieve specific purposes or effects (e.g., explain how character interactions are used to create humour, how flashbacks are used to clarify motive, or how flash-forwards are used to heighten tension or create dramatic irony)
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