As Donald Maass says in his book, How to Write the Breakout Novel, conflict and tension is key to keeping a book engaging. Maass says to have tension on every single page of your book. Now I'm not even sure that's possible, but according to him, if you manage to do it, then that will virtually guarantee the reader will keep turning the pages, and you'll have a successful story.
With my first two completed novels, KILLER OF KILLERS and THE VASE, there surely is a lot of conflict and a lot of tension, and almost on every single page. I suppose the pages that don't are pages where the conflict and tension is building up. So maybe I did succeed in that regard.
And in my WIP, John Dunn, Heart of a Zulu, I think I've succeeded even more. Because of the circumstances. There's tension in every facet of the story. Tension between the races, black and white, tension regarding how other whites view John Dunn, a white man married to a colored woman, and to fifty plus black women. Tension in the national relations between white controlled Natal, and the independent and militaristic Zulu nation.
And then there's the tension between Catherine Pierce, Dunn's first wife, who relates to her white half, and the Zulu wives of Dunn who know only their Zulu world. And there is the tension of the culture clash in every aspect.
Not to mention a full out war that breaks out. The story is set during the height of England's Imperial Empire, and there's tension brewing with the various natives, the Boers, and even among themselves in the way they proceed with colonization.
I've said before, if I included every character and every event that happened in real history, I'd have a very long book. Too long. But I don't want to write a thousand page book here. I will deliberately abridge the events and the people involved. I want to keep this thing underr 100,000 words, and under 400 pages.
That's all.
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