You Know About Handling Conflict...But What About Handling Resolutions?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of tension. Tension can often be confused with conflict but I would argue that tension is everything under the surface of a conflict. 

For example, tension is extraordinarily important when telling a story. I recently finished watching Season 2 of Bridgerton (stay with me!) and I realized that period romances have a leg up in the tension department. In a modern romantic story, there is usually a build up to the ‘I love you’ moment but the characters can kiss or have sex at any point before that which releases some of the tension. In a period romance, however, the physical story must follow the emotional story. Due to the time period of the story, the characters can barely even justify a kiss until they’re married. So as the audience, we follow along as the tension builds through yearning looks and brief hand touches until it explodes at the end along with the emotional payoff - all the release at once rather than spread throughout. 

But tension is important in all kinds of stories. In comedy, it’s important to create tension in the joke so that you can then break it with the punchline. In an action movie you must build tension between the villain and the hero so that you can release it when they finally have their showdown at the end. 

Sometimes the tension is longer form. In a coming of age story, the main character is usually under a more mild form of tension throughout the entire film. Either from their family or their school, or just from going through puberty, until the tension is eventually released in the form of some life lesson that resonates with them. 

Tension in stories is portrayed as single threaded. There is usually some overarching theme to everything the main characters are trying to overcome and that is what causes the tension. Tension in life is much more complex, but there is an important lesson to be learned from the way stories handle it.

In life, tension is multi-pronged. You can experience seemingly unrelated forms of tension from all sides in your life. Your work, your relationships, your health. Experiencing tension in one area can affect tension in another.

Stories, however, follow a formula. They build up the tension, they release the tension, there is a resolution, and then it ends. Clean and easy. In life, that cycle also occurs. Except… sometimes there are multiple cycles going on simultaneously, and what’s *even better* is that the cycles never stop. When one resolution occurs, there’s always a new form of tension waiting around the corner. 

Because we have all of that going on, it can be really hard to stop and reflect on the resolution part of the cycle. Stories allow for a resolution. The characters get to get married, or see their family again, or graduate. They get to enjoy their success, and that enjoyment is important to the story. That’s the piece of the story where they get to recover from all that tension and grow from it. 

This was my long winded way of saying we don’t give ourselves enough time to reflect on our accomplishments - positive or negative. It’s so easy to get caught up in the next thing, the other problem, the new project. But we’re constantly under a lot tension and pressure, so when one of those cycles ends, it’s enormously important to enjoy the resolution part of those cycles. When you get the job, think about all it took to get there - what went well, what didn’t - and enjoy the big win! When the relationship ends, allow yourself to feel and process everything that happened and learn what lessons you want to take with you or let go of. There are valuable gems of knowledge in each cycle that we are missing out on by simply moving too fast. 

It may sound simple, but if we are aware of each cycle, we can make sure to take our time with each resolution and get the most out of all of that strife we had to go through. 

For once, I properly celebrated an accomplishment - completing my first double black diamond run