Quotes & Sayings About Dramatic Tension

She sighed heavily before whispering, "I'm still a bit confused as to what we are waiting for." "We are waiting for one of the constants in our world, Miss Braun," Wellington assured her. "At the end of every opera, there is the grand finale, where the music continues its gradual crescendo, the tenor and tempo rising ever so gradually for that pinnacle of dramatic tension, that moment of anticipation - " "Welly, are you talking about opera or about sex?" His next words caught in his throat. For a woman of higher tastes and seeming refinement, this woman could be utterly crass. — Philippa Ballantine

One of the general patterns of good (i.e., striking and memorable) writing is the effect of repetition. If you use a certain element - a plot device, an image, a noticeable phrase - once, readers may or may not notice it consciously, but it doesn't disturb the flow of their reading. If you use that element twice, they won't notice it consciously - but they will notice it subconsciously, and it will add to the resonance of the writing or to their sense of depth and involvement (and if it's a plot device, it will heighten the dramatic tension). But if you use that element three times, everybody will notice it the third time you do it. — Diana Gabaldon

The reason stories have dramatic tension is because LIFE has dramatic tension. — Donald Miller

I hoped the dramatic power of the play would rest on that tension between elegant structure - the underlying plan is that you see the first and last meeting of every couple in the play - and inelegant emotion. — Patrick Marber

I needed to create some dramatic tension to sustain the interest of the audience. For instance, the boy in the film is not in the play, so this relationship that he had with the former teacher, and his guilt, this is not at all in the play. I thought it would be interesting to look at in the film, and I added stuff like that around the main character. For me, it was not more difficult or less difficult. — Philippe Falardeau

The most interesting character to me is someone who is stuck in the no man's land between Belief and Unbelief, Faith and Faithlessness. I'm capitalizing like a German, but it doesn't matter whether it's faith in a person or in God, or belief in science or whatever, it's the desperate in-between state that makes for interesting dramatic tension. — Richard Dooling

I had witnessed the moment when this girl found out that nobody (not even Papa) knows what's going to happen to her or him or anyone and that's called Dramatic Tension and that's called the Suspense of Life and that's called Being Alive. — Catherine Lacey

McQueen is an astonishing film maker. He uses really unusual shots and builds incredible dramatic tension. — Kevin Whately

I don't always set stories in villages, more often in towns. But always in smallish communities because the characters' actions are more visible there, and the dramatic tension is heightened. — Joanna Trollope

I want to taste that sweet little mouth of yours," he says, but he's not done. He's just using a dramatic pause to build the tension for the next bit. And it's good that he does, because the next part is this: "Before I make you come so hard you forget who you are. — Charlotte Stein