The Power of Tension Blogfest

tension noun mental or emotional strain; intense, suppressed suspense, anxiety, or excitement.

We all know that in fiction, tension is vital. Tension ramps up the emotional stakes for your characters and keeps readers burning through the pages to find out whether that tension is resolved. Tension comes in many forms – it could be animosity between family members built up over many years, sexual tension between strangers, or jealousy between work colleagues as they vie for a lucrative promotion.

SO, we want to see how tense your fiction can be. Which means... Blogfest Time! 

Yup, Cally Jackson and I our hosting our very first blogfest!

"But, Rach," I hear you say. "I just finished the A to Z Blogging Challenge, and the alphabet is still whirling before my eyes, and to be honest I'm *$%#$#* exhausted!"

And to that I say... "Don't be such a party pooper! I know you've got some fabulous tension-filled scenes filed away somewhere in your computer/notebook/alphabet-filled brain. They're probably the scenes you had the most fun writing!"

Ok fine... What do I do?

Give us an excerpt (up to 300 words) from your manuscript or recently completed work (or just a random scene) that just drips with tension and will tie us up in knots wanting to know more. It doesn’t matter what the piece is about, as long as it screams tension.

What are the prizes?

• 1^st prize: $15 Amazon voucher + interview on Cally Jackson Writes and Rachel Morgan Writes OR 1^st chapter beta read by Cally and Rachel
• 2^nd prize: $10 Amazon voucher + interview on Cally Jackson Writes and Rachel Morgan Writes OR 1^st chapter beta read by Cally and Rachel
• 3^rd prize: $5 Amazon voucher

Prizes? I’m in! What are the rules?

• The blogfest will run from Monday 23 May to Friday 27 May. (So you A-Z challengers can have a few weeks breathing space!)
• At 12:01am (AEST) Monday 23 May, a linky tool will go live on both Cally Jackson Writes and Rachel Morgan Writes.  Post your entry on your blog and then add a direct link to your post to the linky tool on either blog before 11.59pm Friday 27 May.
• Come back on Thursday 2 June to see the six finalists (chosen by us), and then again on Monday 6 June to see the winners!
• All genres and forms of tension are welcome, but if your entry includes anything graphic, please include a warning at the beginning of your post!

Anything else I should do? 

Glad you asked. These aren’t mandatory, but they’d definitely be appreciated :-)

• Include our badge in your sidebar during the duration of the blogfest (download the image above)
• Post and/or tweet about the challenge in the weeks leading up to spread the word.
• Throughout the challenge week, check out as many other entries as you can and give the entrants some comment love!

Can’t wait to read all of your entries. Please leave a comment to let us know you’re planning to enter. :-)