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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44380
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44380
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Full Disclosure: I am not a sports fan; but I do have family and friends with that disability.

Basically tension in a story is created by making the reader wonder "what happens next." That is why they turn the pages, you must interleave a few horizons in your story: What happens in the next few pages; what happens by the end of this scene (or chapter); what happens by the end of this Act (about 1/4 a book); and what happens at the conclusion of the story.

If you have a sports game and you want that to be interesting, you have two of those horizons: What happens beat-by-beat within the game (and why it matters), and what happens at the end of the scene: once the game is won or lost (and why that matters).

In order for the beat-by-beat to matter to the POV character, they need to know a lot about the game and players and the stakes.

In order to accomplish that in writing, from a cold start, you need your POV to have a foil: Somebody along for the ride that doesn't know, so your POV can fill them in (and therefore fill in the reader).

All of that said, **_You may have a darling._** If none of this matters to the story, if it doesn't change the POV character to win/lose and this whole game is just a tempest in a teapot, then it doesn't belong in the story. Scenes need to shape one or more characters that will exist **after** the scene: Their thinking, their motivations, or even just to give them a metaphor for later in the book ("It's like the game against Northern, that great double fake in the last minute! We're doing that!")

So to prevent it from being a darling, you need something in your game that is an analogy or inspiration for something later in the story; perhaps the POV character **learned** something about deception, or persistence, or strategy, or making a sacrifice in order to win in the end.

Subconsciously, that may be why you are driven to write it; the competition is like a metaphorical version of your story as a whole. Or, maybe, it is a darling that serves no real purpose, just a short-story you got enamored with that blew up too big, I find myself doing that when I get stuck on the main story. That happens.

If the game does play some role in the plot, maybe teaches the POV character something, then the way to make it interesting is to make the plays you describe mean something in the eyes of the POV: A serious setback if they fail, or even a loss. And if they succeed, something that either preserves hope, or means a win and celebration.

Original score: 2