As a reader, I’ve always understood how important it is for the characters in a novel to suffer. If the main character doesn’t suffer enough, a novel fails to engage me no matter how much I might like the character or the prose. As I look back at the books I’ve loved at different points in my life — from Little Women to The Lord of the Rings; from Catch-22 to The Remains…
I hate conflict, so I wasn’t surprised when I had trouble putting my characters into difficult situations. When I set out to write a novel, I wanted to create a town filled with people that I loved. Couldn’t I write a story about a bunch of people who cared about each other? Isn’t the world filled with enough trouble as it is? Don’t we read to escape stress? Needless to…
This statue-angel-thingy sits on my desk displaying one of my mottos: Embrace Change. Frankly if I hadn’t, and didn’t, and wouldn’t, I’d be up the proverbial tree and creek. But in my writing world of women’s fiction (no heroes, no zombies, no high heels) the opposite must be true. Your main character (mc), and perhaps your secondary characters as well, cannot embrace change. At least not at first. Conflict must…
In real life, the only stakes I feel comfortable messing with are spelled s-t-e-a-k-s. Give me a filet mignon or a good old brisket, and I’m happy. In writing, however, I am forced to deal with s-t-a-k-e-s. Not only do I need to know what is at stake for my characters; I also need to raise those stakes at every opportunity. How do I do that? By adding conflict. As…
In my real life, I am a conflict avoider. Conflict is so messy – it brings up unhappy emotions, and people get mad or cry and in my mind, despite all my counselor training, I tell myself that if only I were different and better and more accepting, the conflict wouldn’t be necessary. Which is totally absurd, of course. It’s not possible to go through life as a reasonably authentic…
