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I have a confession to make: I am not really a romance aficionado. Sure, I had the obligatory teenage Harlequin phase, but by the time I hit my junior year I’d already started to chafe at the genre’s focus on Love as the Answer (possibly partly in response to the fact that, at six gangly feet tall, with braces, glasses, and an unfortunate hair incident that left me with a Ronald McDonald coif, I was shall we say not in heavy high school romantic rotation).

The hubs, too, can live without the genre, but both of us are enthusiastic fans of Kristen Bell—and as we’re pretty exclusively programming our TV-watching time with lighter, happier fare these days because we both need respite from the world’s current relentless tension, we decided to give Nobody Wants This a try.

To our happy surprise, the show is about much more than just whether “boy gets girl,” and is charming, hilarious, relatable, and incredibly well written. Yet every single episode, every single scene, really every single moment, is riddled with constant taut tension.

Luckily it’s the delicious narrative kind that hooks readers and keeps them engaged and invested—not the dark, unsettling, are-we-going-to-be-okay? kind that our escapist programming is meant to save us from.

If you’re a regular reader or know my work at all, you already know that I think tension is the rocket fuel of propulsive, engaging storytelling. But it can be challenging to incorporate it in stories and scenes that aren’t about overt hostilities or battles or car chases.

And especially with romantic stories, the temptation can be to continually create silly misunderstandings that strain reader credibility or stick out as author devices, or to gin up squabbles and quarrels that can quickly start to feel artificial or undermine the characters’ connection—or just to lean into those connections in a way that deflates all story tension.

Nobody Wants This expertly sidesteps these pitfalls, but what I love is that the writers understand that tension is as important in scenes of connection and attraction and accord as it is in those of conflict and discord—in fact I’d venture to say even more so.

You can probably guess that I’m going to do my favorite hobby and pick this sucker apart to analyze what makes it work—how the writers effectively use tension to raise stakes and engage readers.

Read more: If you like these story-analysis posts, find more here

Let’s dig right in. As always, darlings, this dissection is going to be riddled with spoilers, so don’t read on if you dislike that sort of thing.

A Master Class in Story Tension

Before you even hit play the show’s creators have already instilled tension right in the title: Nobody Wants This, a promise of universal opposition to the central premise, which is the profound draw between Noah, a devout “hot rabbi” fresh off the breakup of a long-term relationship, and Joanne, an agnostic, serial-dating, commitment-challenged sex-show podcast host.

Besides the obvious and intractable conflict of their histories, careers, and worldviews, creator Erin Foster slathers in even more:

• His mother champions Noah’s Jewish ex-girlfriend—who is still pining for Noah—and is adamantly set against the outspoken shiksa who usurped the future his mother had mapped out for her son.
• Joanna’s sister, Morgan—her fellow podcast host and comrade in dating—isn’t fully on board with Joanna’s new relationship, worrying their differences are too profound to overcome; that it renders their podcast boring; that Joanna is losing herself in the relationship.
• Morgan finds an unlikely ally in Noah’s married brother Sasha—the two are inexplicably drawn to each other, but hide their frequent texts and calls from their siblings, and from Sasha’s wife, a hilarious virago of a woman who sets herself against Joanna (and Morgan) from their very first icy-cold encounter.
• Joanna and Noah each have their own concerns and misgivings about their romance: Noah worries about his image as a spiritual leader, and his ambition to become head rabbi at his synagogue. Joanna can’t stop obsessing over his ex, perfect Rebecca, and how she measures up; worries she’ll never be accepted by Noah’s family and friends; and has serious reservations about how their diametrically different views on religion can be reconciled.

And this is just a sampling of the many tension elements layered into the story—and in every one of its relationships, every exchange, every situation. The show establishes tension from the very first scene, maintains it in every subsequent scene throughout the story, and escalates it across every episode as well as the entire first season.

Besides layering in numerous elements of tension, the show also uses all types of tension. Here’s just one example, involving a single scene where Noah brings Joanna to meet his parents, including his very disapproving mother, Bina:

• External and internal: Bina overtly opposes her son dating Joanna (external), but also comes to the reluctant realization that she likes her much more than she wanted to (internal).
• Subtle and overt: Bina makes veiled passive-aggressive comments upon meeting Joanna (subtle), versus her blatant direct rudeness to her at the dinner table (overt).                                                       
• Indirect and direct: After accidentally discovering Noah’s mother in the middle of an action Bina is desperate for her family not to know, Joanna aggressively cozies up to her in front of the family, knowing Bina will play along (indirect). But as she hugs her goodbye, Bina tells Joanna she’ll never end up with Noah (direct).

Now Let’s Get Granular

I’m enchanted by the way the screenwriters use tension even in scenes of attraction, in “quiet” scenes, and in scenes of accord or tenderness, where the temptation can be to “lean in” instead of push against. Let’s look at a couple of exchanges.

In the opening scene of the first episode, Joanna’s sister Morgan is rescuing her from a bad date after a desperate text from Joanna. The scene is crucial for establishing the sisters’ close relationship, a backbone of the show—yet nearly every single line is met with negation, opposition, contradiction, or deflection: all juicy sources of tension:

The sisters’ squabbling transforms what could have been a low-stakes, even treacly scene simply establishing a sisterly bond into one that sings with taut narrative tension. It clearly establishes the sisters’ frank and close relationship not despite their negations, bickering, and friction, but through it: It’s only with those who know you best, with whom you feel safe and unconditionally loved, that you can be this open and real.

Let’s look at another early scene—Joanna and Noah are instantly drawn to each other when they meet at a party, but soon learn of their foundational divides. It’s crucial that we see and feel the powerful pull between these two—but leaning into it would likely result in a flat, one-dimensional, dull scene of mere mutual attraction.

Instead, Foster and the other screenwriters play against that connection with constant resistance, infusing the scene with layers and levels of friction, opposition, and contradiction throughout.

In this early scene, unsettled by her strong draw to this inappropriate man, Joanna has excused herself early from the party. A very interested Noah instantly offers to walk her to her car. Notice in this first exchange how Joanna is almost constantly throwing up roadblocks, while Noah continually looks for ways to bat them away, both great sources of tension:

Joanna: I didn’t park close. Bottom of the hill.

Noah: Perfect. Me too.

Joanna: Can you hɑvе sеx?

Noah: Right now?

Joanna: No. Like, in general.

Noah: Yes. That’s priests. We’re just people. Are you even a little bit Jewish? Like an aunt or a great-grandmother? A forged document?

Joanna: Nope. Why?

Noah: Well, rabbi, gentile. It’s pretty hard to pull off. We’re trying to repopulate a people, you know?

Joanna: Plus, I don’t believe in God. Sorry, is that offensive to say to a rabbi?

Noah: You can say anything you want. Also, not that it matters, but baked into the Jewish experience is wrestling with what God is or isn’t, not knowing.

Joanna: Really?

Noah: Yeah.

Joanna: I didn’t know that. People always seem so clear on what they imagine God to be. I don’t know. None of it has ever felt right to me.

A little later in the scene the tension shifts as the connection deepens between the two, and at first the resistance arises when Joanna realizes how clearly Noah sees the real her and she fears he may be overwhelmed or put off, like so many of her previous dates.

Notice at the end how once that element of her resistance is overcome—her fear—Joanna is the one who starts to shift more toward him…but this time it’s Noah who puts up the resistance:

Noah: You trying to highlight our differences?

Joanna: I guess I’m just testing you, seeing if I can say something that would scare you.

Noah: Oh, you scare me, Joanne. You do.

Joanna: I do?

Noah: Yeah. You’re terrifying. You’re an unfiltered, complicated, vulnerable, beautiful woman.

Joanna: I’m not vulnerable.

Noah: Walking into a party with a big-ass fur coat ’cause you’re scared not to be seen as special or different? Sorry, babe. You vulnerable.

Joanna: What the fսck? What the fսck? You some sort of mind reader?

Noah: Mm-hmm. I read your mind at dinner when you were looking at me. It was very inappropriate.

Joanna: This is me. Where’d you park?

Noah: Uh, I got a spot right in front of Ashley’s. God likes me.

Joanna: You’re pretty smooth for a rabbi.

Noah: Just trying to be a good citizen, make sure you’re safe.

Joanna: You’re not, by chance, wrestling with your faith, are you? Considering throwing it all away? ‘Cause with all the “fսcks” and the flirting, you really don’t feel like a rabbi.

Noah: Yeah. Yeah, I know. I play up the Torah bad-boy vibe, but, uh… no, I’m all in on this thing.

The connection between these two is palpable (helped enormously by the two stars’ fantastic chemistry), but Foster and the other writers avoid the narrative soporific of smooth sailing; instead they keep constant “chop on the water” that maintains tension on the line that hooks readers and reels viewers in.

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If you love this sort of nerdy analysis—which is the most effective way to master craft and improve your own writing—join me and Writer’s Digest University for one of my most popular (and fun) classes: How to Train Your Editor Brain, Dec. 5

If you want to learn more about creating taut tension, join me and Jane Friedman December 11 for my online class Mastering Suspense and Tension. Both offer recordings for registrants if you can’t make it live.

Over to you, authors. Tell me your favorite tension tools—how do you keep it taut even in the “quieter” scenes, or ones where things are going your characters’ way?

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