An Experiment in Writing – Part 78: Meh! Part 2 (False Tension, Part 2)
Joseph Carrabis -
April 8, 2026
CharactersExperiments in WritingFor AuthorsStoryCraftingStoryTellingStyle

Here in Meh! Part 2 I’ll deal with another aspect of False Tension: Readers won’t feel tension if they don’t understand the reason for the tension.

You can create a wonderfully tense scene and wonder why nobody feels it. I remember having someone read an o v e r l y l o n g scene where people in a car chased someone on a bicycle through a small town.

People in the audience checked their watches, their phones, looked out the windows, and one nodded off.

I asked the author, “Is that guy on the bike breathing heavy at the end of the scene?”

Yes, of course.

“Then how come I’m not?”

I wasn’t, nor was anyone else, because there was no reason given for the chase, and the scene itself had no tension in it.

Let readers know why there’s a conflict, give them a reason to be interested (make it personal and interesting to all characters involved), and readers will keep reading to find out what happens.

And enjoy!

 
Think I’m onto something? Take a class with me, schedule a critique of your work, or buy me a coffee.
Think I’m an idiot? Let me know in a comment.
Either way, we’ll both learn something.

Get copies of my books because it’s a nice thing to do, you care, you can follow along, and I need the money. My latest is my fiction anthology Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires Volume 2

FWIW, I hold a Creators RoundTable the last Thursday of every month from 7:30-8:30pmET. Watch past RoundTables. Register to participate.

Wilderness House Literary Review EIC Steve Glines and I (Senior Fiction Editor) hold monthly open chats with authors interested in a) writing for us, b) improving their craft in general, and/or c) increasing their chances of being accepted by other markets.
Meetings are held via Zoom on the last Friday of each month from 9-10amET.
So, want to know how to write for us? Want to know what gets our attention? Want to know how to write better for whatever market you’re interested in? Join us for our next “Meet the Editors” Zoom session. Seats limited! Sign up and talk with us. We’re relatively easy going and fun to be with.

Last item, finding these experiments useful? Strengthen my ego and link/friend/follow me.

All Experiments

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Experiments in Writing
1 – This is How It Begins
2 – Openings
3 – More on Openings, Closings
4 – More on Closings
5 – More on Openings – Establishing Voice, Atmosphere, Setting, and Narrator
6 – Authenticity
7 – Inciting Incidents
8 – Worthy Antagonists
9 – Final Conflicts Worth Reading
10 – Action Scenes (finally)
11 – Language and Word Choice
12 – Overwriting, Toing and Froing
13 – Exposition via Dialogue
14 – Exposition via Character Revelation via Deep POV
15 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 1 – Character Voice
16 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 2 – Author as Character
17 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 3 – Author IS Character
18 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 4 – Author Voice
19 – Plotlines, Timeslines, Throughlines
20 – Plotting, Pantzing, and Procrastinating – The 3Ps Every Author Should Know and Love
21 – More on Exposition via Dialogue – Holmeses&Watsons
22 – More on Plotlines, Timelines, and Throughlines
23 – Into the Mythic
24 – A Little More Into The Mythic, and The Rule of Three
25 – Accidental POV Shifts
26 – World-Building via 1stPPOV
27 – How to read as an author
28 – Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone Teaches Writing
29 – Character via Exposition
30 – What Happens Next?
31 – Who Haven’t I Written About Lately?
32 – Let the Characters Do the Work
33 – Writer’s Block versus Writer Stuck
34 – Editing
35 – Write Moments and Feelings
36 – Timeline and Plotline Convergence (an Example)
37 – Time Manglement
38 – Subjectively Objective and Objectively Subjective
39 – The First Word
40 – Blurbs, Pitches, and But-Then-Except
41 – An Example of “The First Word”
42 – Technique versus Craft
43 – A Humbling Experience – Robin Wilkey Gregory’s Killing Time
44 – What’s a ‘Flaknoc’? (revealing anything through character interactions)
45 – Drinking the Sand
46 – Atrribution via Action (and a little bit more)
47 – Overwhelmedness
48 – An Experiment in Writing – Part 48: Eating My Own Dogfood (more on reading like an editor, critiquing your own work)
49 – An Experiment in Writing – Part 49: Write/Be/Do What Interests You
50 – Match Narrative Voice to Character Voice
51 – Marketing is a Four-Letter Word
52 – Subtlety
53 – An Example of Poor Story Crafting
54 – You’re not Stephen King, Nora Roberts, JK Rowling, Dan Brown, … so get over it
55 – Backcover copy and Blurbs (again)
56 – Creating Tension, Building Tension
57 – More on Character Voice (Showing Change through Tone, Language, Behavior)
58 – Interesting to Whom? (keeping it interesting for author and reader)
59 – Unreliable Witnesses
60 – HELP! (I need somebody)
61 – Pitching Events (or Marketing, again)
62 – Man From Earth, MindWalk (Conflict Without Conflict)
63 – Eating My Own Dogfood (more on reading like an editor, critiquing your own work)
64 – Recognizing My Worth
65 – Genre Schmenre
66 – Surprise!
67 – Creativity Exercises (Building those Muse Muscles)
68 – Finding the Path
69 – Sensitivity Readers…NOT!
70 – Edit Someone Else’s Work to Improve Your Own
71 – Previously on…(more on backcover copy)
72 – Relatability = Believability = Engagement = Sales
73 – Call Response
74 – The Radical Rewrite
75 – Protagonists, Antagonists, and Weak Endings
76 – Character Interactions (Levels of Interest, Observing, Being Aware of What Others Miss)
77 – Meh! Part 1 (False Tension, Part 1)
78 – Meh! Part 2 (False Tension, Part 2)