: Re: How do I add tension to a story, when the reader knows the MC survives? To clarify: There are two parts to the book (or I might split them into separate books), one with my main protagonist,

@Tiffany377

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Life and death is actually a pretty low-stakes conflict in my opinion. Yes, of course, it's the ultimate thing we all want to avoid, but when it comes down to it, how many of us have experienced being dead?

That's right: No-one. If you have, then get back into the grave, unholy zombie.

Amadeus brings up a good point about tension coming from the reader being curious about what comes next rather than the end result, but it's also worth noting that there are so many different kinds of stakes in a story involving warfare.

Instead of 'will MC survive', it could be 'will MC have to grieve her friends' deaths' (something more people have experience of), 'will MC lose their home', 'will MC ever psychologically recover from the cold hand of war', et cetera, et cetera. These are all things people have actually gone through and the consequences of which can be richly explored, far more than being dead ever could.

There are so many sources of tension; life or death is really just a go-to 'all or nothing' variant on it.

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