Pick two people on the same side of a conflict, but give them completely different motivations for fighting on that side.
Plot is simply the actions the characters take, the results of their action, and what they decide to do next. Except this can’t be any old action and result. It has to be action and result that builds the anxiety of suspense, surprise, and the mystery or puzzle...
There are four possible answers to the question of “did the hero’s action solve the problem?”: yes, no, yes but, no furthermore.
For example. Yes, you killed the monster. No, you didn’t. Yes, you killed the monster, but it bit you and now you have the virus that’s going to turn YOU into a monster. No, you didn’t kill the monster furthermore you woke up its mumma.
Of those four possiblities, only the last two build suspense and curiosity. The first removes it totally. So it’s out{ except at the end}. And a no answer leaves suspense unchanged. All you’re doing is delaying things with that. What you want to do is ratchet it up.
to sift through an array of possible motivations... The way to do that is not to ask, “What would make one man kill another?” Unless you’re a telepath... Better to ask, “What would make me kill someone?”
{the} reader cared about these various character deaths because their deaths left an impact...
It has to matter to {the protagonist}, or it won’t matter to {the reader}.
Emotional stakes are created by a character acting to prevent the loss of something important to themself and/or others.
Love, a loved one, a secret, safety, life, a long-time goal, an emotionally important object, a pet, integrity, self-appreciation...
To make those stakes compelling, add in or increase one or more of the below:
Feeling of responsibility for risk/character at risk
Love/respect/strong emotion for character at risk
Risk/fear of failure
Difficulty of character recovery from failure
Another important thing/character at risk from the same threat (house of cards)
Importance of IT to character at risk physical/mental well-being
Character at risk deservingness
Act of bravery (overcoming fear)
Act of sacrifice (character accepts & bears a loss/hurt)
Catch 22 (has to choose to sacrifice one character for another character, or one IT for another. No decision = both lost.)
Failure
All increase how far the acting character is prepared to go, what they are and aren't willing to do. Like spices, a little goes a long way.
your protagonist should have an emotional backstory that enhances or complicates the plot of this book now.Given example:
If he’s falling in love in the plot: What has his experience with love been like before this?
let the emotion come from the subtext. If we, as readers, know how a situation is going to affect the character—how this will make their goals harder to achieve, how this will hurt them, how their subdued reactions hide their true pain—then we will sympathize
By allowing the character to fear what could happen, the stakes are raised for both the character and the reader.http://yamuses.blogspot.com/2012/02/act-1-turn.html
emotion... {is} what makes a fight scene interesting, and it’s what gives the reader a stake in its outcome. The rest, the technical stuff (the mechanics of throwing punches, of laying down sentences, of word choice), that’s just window-dressing.
1. Ask the impossible of your character.
2. Make them a) want it, and b) believe they can achieve it: this will motivate them to put themselves through hell to get/achieve it.
3. Allow them to reach a crisis where they realise they will have to change in order to get/achieve it.
4. Allow them a chance to re-evaluate their desire/need.
5. a) Your character changes and achieves their goal, b) your character realises they never/no longer need(ed) it, or c) your character tries to change and fails.
You say your Romance novel isn’t about life or death?
Phooey!
It is. The stakes can be just as high as life or death because your character’s spirit will die if she doesn’t have her happy ending. Right?
Humans... have basic cravings. If you can speak to these cravings, you’ll win a reader for 300 pages... what are some game-like qualities writers can apply to their manuscripts to make them more addictive?
Clear goals. Characters are always in pursuit of something...
Cause and effect. Characters’ actions have consequences. Always.
Obstacles and rewards. Obstacles speak for themselves. But rewards are just as important. Finding a tool, weapon, magical object, or guide adds excitement and gives readers an emotional boost... even a contemporary novel can use them, although they’ll come in a different form.
The right level of difficulty... keep the challenges coming at the very edge of your character’s ability to deal with them.
A conflict-rich environment... think of games: if you land on the black square, you get bounced back six spaces. If you jump on the yellow crate, you accidentally release a monster. The setting dispenses dangers and rewards at every turn.
suspense comes, not from knowing almost nothing, but from knowing almost everything and caring very much about the small part still unknown.Orson Scott Card's The Lost Gate, Afterword.
when it comes to the ending... {you should} have been brought to understand what's at risk, who's at risk, why the characters are risking ithttp://www.dragonmount.com/index.php/News/fantasyreview/StevenErikson
Most of my stories start with an idea, which usually consists of a person in a situation: a woman who’s the daughter of superheroes, a werewolf who’s a talk radio host. The process of writing the story is figuring out how that person got into that situation, and what comes out of it. The situation... defin{es} the character... What had to happen, what did that person have to do and be like to be in that position? And how does that situation change that character? Where is she likely to go next, based on the decisions she’s making in response to that situation? It’s like an oil painting — you keep adding colors and layers until the picture shines through.http://www.genreality.net/trying-to-explain-characterization
{If t}ensions can't rise because the stakes can never increase... there's nowhere to for the story to go... escalating stakes is a sure way to suck a reader in.http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/12/up-up-and-away-raising-stakes.html
Mixing up the types of stakes is good, as it gives you the ability to pace your story so things keep getting worse and worse... save your biggest risk for the climax, and... build up to that. Waves of low to high stakes, peaks and valleys like a roller coaster.
Show them in the act of attempting to achieve a goal, prevent something bad from happening, et cetera... I don’t really care what it is, just show them trying.
The conflict itself forces characters to respond. In watching their responses, we learn about them.
Create mysteries about your characters... don’t explain. Let us wonder.
illustrate a personality trait that is at the heart of the arc you’ll be putting that character through.
