I’m learning to write tension in my scenes,
to add desire, danger and distress,
to focus on what my character wants
and all the forces keeping her from getting
it—a train arrives too early to be caught,
she doesn’t get the job she wants,
she doesn’t have the funds to pay her rent,
she loses her cat in the city again—
I am trying to let bad things happen.
Otherwise there is no tension,
and, as the book on writing says,
No tension equals boring. Think
obstacle, it instructs. Think grief and
shame and fear. But all I want to do
is make my character cheerful,
happy, glad. I want to immediately fix
all the problems I won’t let her have.
I want to make her life easier—
give her security, friendship,
great sex, true love. Is it so wrong
to want to serve her everything
I want? Create opposition, says the book,
and I try, I do, to write in her weaknesses,
let her mess up, struggle on every page.
But oh, to make her life not just happily
ever after but happily all along the way,
perfect and boring, the kind of life
that no one has, the kind of life
that no one wants to read about,
the dream job offers streaming in, the lover
ever attentive, handsome, adoring,
the sun shining as she thoughtfully sips her tea.
