In a new post, mystery writer Zara Altair says that you can build tension and raise the stakes in your story by crafting a slow burn of emotion. “The degree of emotion reflects the importance of the stakes,” she explains. “Knowing the different stages of universal emotions will help you build emotional intensity as your story progresses.”
The Dalai Lama commissioned a study that identified five universal human emotions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, and enjoyment. Within those five emotions, there are degrees of intensity. For example, disgust starts with dislike, then progresses through aversion, distaste, repugnance, revulsion, and abhorrence, before arriving at loathing.
“Knowing the stages of emotional intensity can help you isolate the way you want to use physical expressions of the emotion,” Altair says. For each scene, identify where your characters are emotionally, as well as the intensity. This will help you describe their emotional and physical responses, and control the intensity and pacing of your story.
