How to write tension scenes - Persuasive
Here are some famous examples of great tension. I have included the ending as well as the tension build-up scene.
The Gettysburg Address
November 19, 1863
Abraham Lincoln
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
See also the 'Friends Romans Countrymen' speech by Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2, by William Shakespeare.
IF
Poem by Rudyard Kipling
This is sage advice from a father to a son. The popular opening line is: If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you... Here is the tension/crescendo – and ending
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more – you'll be a Man, my son!
See also 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Martin Luther King – I have a Dream
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Advertising – Clean Green
Tomorrow, do you need...
clean water for your children to drink?
clean air for them to breathe?
a clean world, a green world?
Today, tomorrow, next year, next decade...
Go Clean Green.
(Oh, ok, this one is not well known, I made it up!)
All our Seven Steps techniques can be applied to different text types – they are based on author skills, thus are broad based and easily found. So look around you in the world and find some terrific tension in your life.