Writing through conflict

The meat of any story is the scenes showing the conflicts and obstacles that the main character(s) face as they try to reach some sort of end point that they can be happy with, or satisfied by. Sometimes they have fully envisioned it, mapped every step it will take to get where or what they want. Sometimes the character has only a vague notion of “success.” Sometimes, though, they have no idea what it will take or look like when they get there and they’re just swimming upstream on some instinct that this is the best direction to go.

But regardless of what they know, characters – like the salmon – face obstacles. Some they can predict and prepare for.

Other obstacles will take them by surprise. That surprise is what builds the tension in your story. You can develop this tension and surprise in a few different ways.

Flashlight method

Never show the character more than a few feet in front of their path. They can know that a meeting is coming up. But not all who will be in attendance.

Ellen entered the room. With everyone seated around the table from the executive team, as the last to arrive, she turned to close the door behind her. A hand caught the door.
“I’ve got it,” said an all-too-familiar voice.
The blood drained from Ellen’s face as she looked into the same soulful brown eyes from last night. Today, they held a glint of steel.

Or they can discover they were not in the inner loop because there’s surprise items on the agenda.

Ellen sat down at the table between Evan and Rachel from marketing as Hodel–not a name she had been likely to soon forget–moved around to the same end of the table as GLB’s CEO Micah Goldstein. The two greeted each other with a mutual handshake, Hodel offering a Micah warm smile that did funny, traitorous things to Ellen’s stomach.
“So, I know I had Jamie send you all the agenda, but I’ve got something different I want to start with,” Micah said. “Meet Hodel Weisman. She’ll be starting a full company audit tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?” Ellen said. She forced herself not to groan aloud. She had a dozen projects in her department running right now, half of them at critical turning points this week.
“IT couldn’t get her accesses finished any sooner,” Micah said with a shrug.
Beside Ellen, Evan, as the head of IT, squirmed.
“Alright. Let’s get started.” Micah sat down with Hodel to his immediate right. Hodel’s gaze met Ellen’s as she tucked a smartly tailored suit jacket against her stomach before she settled.
The stomach Ellen had kissed her way up for hours last night. She glanced away and swallowed.

How they deal with these surprises should showcase their personality, attitudes, both positive and negative about having their plans disturbed. And don’t forget that all-important internal dialogue that shows them reflecting on what the complication is doing to them emotionally.

You Shall NOT Pass

All the plans in the world won’t mean diddly if a character can’t accomplish one (or more) of the steps that will keep them on the path to their goal. These scenes are the ones where the character is sent into a tailspin because they absolutely cannot get what they want or need. The macguffin is unattainable. The boss outright denies their raise.

These denials should be paced so they happen at the last moment of a scene–even more preferably, at the end of a chapter. Desperate to know how the character will respond, the reader will turn the page.

You can depict the world as the character knows it crumbling around them (just like the balrog and Gandalf in the mines of Moria), and send them into a tailspin of emotional turmoil, a depression that their best friend will have to them out of.

“Pack up your desk. Security will meet you there to escort you out.” Hodel reached for the phone on her desk. “Your final paycheck will be mailed to your address on file by the end of the week.”
Ellen stood on shaking legs, firming her jaw against the quiver. She refused to cry. In a daze, she stumbled mechanically down the corridor to the office on the end that had been her home away from home for the last three years. None of the office doors to either side were open, but she was sure she heard loud conversations go quiet as she passed each one.

Or you can have the character act like “where one door closes, another opens” and they regroup and change their direction, taking another tack. Perhaps they rationalize this new path might not take them to the exact destination they first had in mind, but it might get them close–ie. to a reasonably desirable alternative outcome.

Ellen pushed out of the building, her office contents in the box secured under her arm. The sunshine made her blink. When was the last time she’d seen the noonday sun? She exhaled and pulled out her phone. “Mariel,” she said when the line opened, “get me those numbers on your startup.”
She hadn’t had start a new company on her bingo card this year, but… She looked back at the 25-story building behind her, craning her neck to see to the top. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

The bulk of the ride

This push and pull between conflict, forward motion, and personal change and growth is going to be the bulk of the rollercoaster ride for your readers. Twists, turns, and track switching, as the characters move over, under and around obstacles (sometimes those that pop up and scare the $h1t out of you, too), trying to reach the end. Every scene should be shifting the ground under the character.

The amount of shift differs by genre. Thrillers and adventures – the coaster goes and goes and goes until it stops. The suspense thriller or mystery is done with the flashlight method, the character struggling forward in the dark about nearly every twist and turn coming up.

A romance has sudden euphoric lifts, a glorious view from the top of the world for a few beats, shared laughs and gasps, sometimes, a gut-wrenching surprise drop (that awful third-act breakup). But it always smooths for a partner-hugging “we made it!” turn to the happy ending.

Up next

You can, of course, have a bare bones coaster, but the reader loves the atmosphere of your story, too, and these can give rise to subplots that you weave through the main plot. You can fill in a story’s landscape with gangsters or a nostalgic tour through childhood locales. You can roll the characters through mountains on broken mine trestles, or fly them above a crashing ocean shoreline, then dive below the surface looking up through all the sea life. You can fly them on dragons or have them dance in fairy circles. Each one births a side trip, a subplot, that fills out the atmosphere of your story. We’ll talk about that next time.

~ Lara

If you’re looking for advice on structuring your story, that’s part of coaching or developmental editing services. Contact me for a free 30-minute talk. Let’s put your rollercoaster on a well-designed track today.