SWRT 257 | Trouble

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Kathryn, & Robert discuss trouble and your plot, character, arcs, craft and more. Sneak Peak: Alida: It's always from the fry pan to the fire. Keep asking yourself, how is this going to get worse for my character? Kathryn: The decisions they make can't make them happier. These decisions have to make them suffer more, constantly more suffering. But it's not always the physical suffering, just things going on around them are overwhelmed or frustration or anger. Things not turning out the way that they want them to turn out. It's just that constant compounding of things. Alida: Right. I think I hear a theme here. Frustration, overwhelm. Weren't we just talking about that? well, but let's break that down a little bit more, because we do want our characters to have moments of light and joy in the story. We don't want the story to be a total drag for the readers, and we don't want it to be hopeless for our characters. So let's say that your hero gets to kiss the Princess. Then what? Well, the Princess gets kidnapped. So you give us that hope, you throw us the dog bone or whatever. But then you've got to come and escalate the trouble. And by doing that, by combining the hope with the trouble, you actually raise the stakes for the character and the reader because by giving the character what he wants, then we've got that sense of reward and satisfaction. And it's harder to have it and lose it than to never have it at all and to just keep slogging along. This episode previously aired as #019.