Which comes first, the complication or the character? It seems that when you're developing a character, you're choosing a person who is likely to find themselves in a situation with potential, complication or anticipation. Happy families don't qualify for creating tension, as Tolstoy suggests.
How would you recommend transitioning while keeping tension in memoirs since they tend to cover more time and time you don’t want to mislead the reader about timeline?
Withholding is usually a mistake. However, if the reader knows something the MC doesn't know, that will rase the tension. This is why pinch points work so well. The reader sees trouble coming but the protag doesn't. Better if early trouble results in a twist or new trajectory they MC didn't anticipate.