Gerald Hanks Filmography

Monday, April 7, 2014

Screenwriting Tips: How to Create Dramatic Tension With VOTE


If you read last week's post, you learned how to create dynamic characters with Victories, Obstacles, Tactics and Energy. This week, you'll see how to use these character traits to build dramatic tension in each scene. “Dramatic tension” can apply to over-the-top comedies and quiet character pieces as much as it does to intense family dramas and slam-bang action pieces. This tension keeps the story moving and keeps the reader's eyes riveted to the page.

Establishing Dramatic Tension

When you've established two strong characters and set them against each other, their encounters should result in an emotional explosion. The meeting can turn into a high-energy fist fight or a tense screaming match. Characters can communicate in whispered promises or veiled threats. You can establish this conflict by examining the VOTE sheets for each character and seeing both the obvious differences and the subtle shades in their approaches to their aspects of the story.

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Dramatic Tension: Victories

Your script may call for the most obvious source of dramatic tension, which comes from characters with two different conflicting victories they must achieve. The mathematical term “zero-sum game” refers to a game in which one side has to lose for the other side to win. Characters locked in a zero-sum game are in direct conflict: if A achieves his victory, B fails in his; if B wins, A loses. In the first Rocky film, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) wants to go the distance, but he must outlast hard-punching heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). Apollo wants to put on a show, but Rocky stands in his way.


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Dramatic Tension: Obstacles

While your characters may want to achieve the same victory, they could also encounter different obstacles in their paths. In Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Bob (Casey Affleck) and Ruth (Rooney Mara) want to bring their family back together after Bob escapes from prison. Bob must avoid the authorities who want to send him back to prison, while Ruth must deal with her growing attraction to Deputy Wheeler (Ben Foster). When they finally come together, the relief of their reunion does not wash away their conflict.

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Dramatic Tension: Tactics

You can also create tension between characters when they each have the same victory and encounter the same obstacles, but they use different tactics. In the X-Men films, both Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Eric “Magneto” Lensherr (Ian McKellen) share the victory of protecting mutants and the obstacles of violence and discrimination they've encountered. The two lifelong friends take radically different tactics: Xavier promotes the causes of peace and coexistence, while Magneto wants to subjugate humanity and place mutants above ordinary humans.

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Dramatic Tension: Energy

Your characters can agree on nearly every facet of their drive toward their respective victories, but they can still have conflict stemming from the different energy sources that drive them down those paths. In the comedy The Internship, Billy (Vince Vaughan) and Nick (Owen Wilson) have the same victory of being selected for the Google internship. They have the same obstacles: advanced age, lack of maturity and complete ignorance of technology. They use the same tactics to build their team and achieve their goals. While Billy's energy comes from a drive to win, Nick's evolves into an effort to prove his worth  to Dana (Rose Byrne).

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Dramatic Tension in Every Scene

You should remember that, while maintaining dramatic tension during the whole script is an admirable goal, you must not forget to include some tension in every scene. A scene with dramatic tension moves the story forward, while one without tension sits like a speed bump in the road. The use of dramatic tension is especially important in scenes requiring exposition.

In The Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belmont (Leonardo DiCaprio) explains the technical aspects of his stock scam to the audience. His brokers do their deals in one room as federal investigators pore over his records in another. The contrast between the wild brokers and the stoic Feds creates enough tension to make the audience sit still long enough for a lesson in securities fraud.

If you want to learn how to create stories with dramatic tension, contact us at StoryIntoScreenplayBlog [at] gmail [dot] com. You can also follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. We can work with you in turning your concepts and ideas into dynamic screenplays that can get the attention of agents, managers and producers.

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