Tag: conflict

Categories
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

Dramatic Tension

mystery suspense thriller

What is dramatic tension? Merriam-Webster states dramatic is “sudden and extreme, greatly affecting people’s emotions” and defines Tension as an “inner striving, unrest, or imbalance, often with a physiological indication of emotion or a state of latent hostility or opposition between individuals or groups.”

Put them together and you have “a sudden or extreme unrest which increases emotions, hostility, or opposition between individuals.” Talk about a page-turner. Setting characters up with this type of tension will keep readers engaged.

We could also describe it as a sudden conflict or unexpected change that blocks the character from his mental or physical goals, causing fear, stress, tension, or anger toward others or within oneself.

Dramatic action comes by blocking the goal or task at hand, disagreements or distrust between characters, a shocking, unexpected revelation, or by ramping up the element of surprise.

A myriad of scenarios can cause tension, as in these examples.

1. The hero or heroine mysteriously disappears and causes a sudden fear of the unknown.

2. An unexpected intrusion of a villain creeping through the house or an attack increases tension.

3. Rain turns to ice, making roads impassable amid a hostage situation or a high-speed chase increases frustration and blocks the character’s goal.

4. The hero assumes he’s in control of a situation, but learns he isn’t. His anger skyrockets.

5. Someone’s chasing your heroine, and she finds herself at the edge of a cliff. Does she jump and risk death or find another way of escape?

6. Answering the phone in the middle of the night. The caller breathes heavily, saying nothing or states in an eerie voice that he’s watching you.

7. A sharp knife pressing against your hero’s throat could cost him his life. How will he escape unscathed?

Give the reader a sense of trouble. Build the tension by upping the stakes and putting your characters in unexpected circumstances. The best scenes come about when every decision your character makes is bad. Whatever he does will cost him something.

Dialogue is a good way to show the emotional element and expose the internal conflict. What’s going on inside your character’s head during this intense situation? Some inner thoughts spill out in a heated discussion. Ramping up the drama and maintaining unresolved tension keeps readers intrigued.

Using the five senses is another great way to intensify dramatic tension. The smell of rubber burning, a sour taste of clabbered milk, the sound of a growl close by or a shot fired, seeing a shadow slip passed the window when you’re home alone, or touching the gooey slime on the cold doorknob.

Anytime one or more of these senses enters the picture, readers relate to what your character experiences. They keep turning the page until the risks subside and their desire for an acceptable end is in sight.

Loretta Eidson writes romantic suspense. She has won and been a finalist in several writing contests, including first place in romantic suspense in the Foundations Awards at the 2018 Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, a finalist in ACFW’s 2018 Genesis, was a finalist in the 2018 Fabulous Five, and a double finalist in the 2017 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence.

              Loretta lives in North Mississippi with her husband Kenneth, a retired Memphis Police Captain. She loves salted caramel lava cake, dark chocolate, and caramel Frappuccinos.

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Categories
Screenwriting

On the Rise

Six months ago when the pandemic first came to America, scientists and medical professionals thought that once the temperatures warmed up it would kill the virus and everything would go back to normal.

But, as we know, in a crazy plot twist the heat actually made the virus spread like wildfire and everything got worse.

  • Businesses began closing back down.
  • Schools that tried to open have now switched to virtual learning.
  • Large gatherings are still frowned upon, meaning even movie theaters have yet to fully reopen.

The old adage came true, “what could go wrong, did!” It seems like every time something went wrong, fear and negativity went up. This is a clear example of how conflict encourages action and how actions fuel life.

The same principle applies to storytelling, especially movies. As the stakes are raised, the story is propelled forward when actions are on the rise!

On the Rise!

As we progress forward from our story’s inciting incident, rising action is the vehicle that moves our narrative from scene to scene; eventually to the conclusion of our journey.

Although it seems formulaic, it is more a framework to guide us as we go on the journey with the characters. Famed 19th-century German writer Gustav Freytag divided a story’s plot into five distinct stages:

1. Exposition (sometimes including the inciting incident.)

2. Rising action.

3. Climax.

4. Falling action.

5. Dénouement.

As we move from scene to scene, action is kinetic. Before the climax it is called rising action, because there is rise in tension, conflict and risk that creates a need for a resolution. It is important to understand that rising action isn’t the climax of our story, but the preparation for and road to it.

 Robert McKee points out, “In the ideal last act we want to give the audience a sense of acceleration, a swiftly rising action to climax.”1

The action that follows the climax is called falling action as we let the changes in the narrative lead to a satisfying conclusion. The rising action makes us anticipate a climax where the conflict will peak; falling action is the result of the climax.

 Understanding how action works in a story, helps us see which direction it should go.

Which Way?

Rising action in our narrative has a steady charge until the climax, which by nature changes the direction of the story: positive to better, positive to negative, or even negative to worse.

Think of your story’s character arc, where they’ve been and where they’re heading. Rising action is what takes them there. Below are some examples where the rising action changes the course of the story between beginning and end.

The Hobbit: The rising action occurs as Bilbo agrees to act as a burglar during this adventure.

Grease: All the hurdles and obstacles Danny has to overcome to win the heart of Sandy.

Legends of the Fall: As each brother vies for the heart of the same woman in their own way.

Again, rising action isn’t the climax, but the motivation to get there: what should I do? , what shouldn’t I do? moments for example. The answers are when our story peaks at the climax, but up until then it’s simply the action on the rise!

1 McKee R. (1997). Story: Substance, Structure, Style, And The Principle of Screenwriting (Kindle edition) pg Page 218.

Martin Johnson survived a severe car accident with a (T.B.I.) Traumatic brain injury which left him legally blind and partially paralyzed on the left side. He is an award-winning Christian screenwriter who has recently finished his first Christian nonfiction book. Martin has spent the last nine years volunteering as an ambassador and promoter for Promise Keepers ministries. While speaking to local men’s ministries he shares his testimony. He explains The Jesus Paradigm and how following Jesus changes what matters most in our lives. Martin lives in a Georgia and connects with readers at Spiritual Perspectives of Da Single Guy and on Twitter at mtjohnson51.

Categories
Screenwriting

Plot Twist?

Before I began writing my current W.I.P I knew exactly who my protagonist and antagonist were. I knew how they were connected and when and how I would introduce them. The setup for my story was obviously act one.

But, the preparation and this information left me with a bigger problem: how to keep my audience interested all the way until the end of act three. That’s 70 pages or about an hour and 10 minutes of screen time.

Since my audience would have already met the bad guy in act one, I feared that I gave away too much information too soon. So I had to figure out how to trick my audience to keep them interested in my narrative. Then I remembered the key aspects of keeping an audience engaged

  • Conflict.
  • Relevance.
  • Theme.

In this case, its not about getting to the end of the story/destination; it’s more about how we get there and why we need to. Plotting a story should be interesting and challenging for both us and our characters.

As summer sets in a lot of people are planning on taking road trips. Many simply want to go from home to the destination, while others like myself like the little detours or pit-stops along the trip. They make the journey more interesting.

Easy paths in a narrative are boring, that’s why they need drama to keep us engaged. Life is full of drama, our stories should be as well.

Plot Twists?

Bad storytelling is like having a heartbeat that flatlines, there’s no life in it. Each ripple or obstacle in a storyline gives our characters purpose to continue on the journey. If things get too easy there’s no need to continue on in the plot.

Don’t let your story flatline. Screenwriting legend and teacher Scott Myers explains, “We WANT to see our story’s Protagonist struggle to overcome obstacles along the way. It makes for a more interesting read, the plot filled with twists and turns.”1

Robert McKee notes, “The final cause for the decline of story runs very deep. Values, the positive/negative charges of life, are all at the soul of our art. The writer shapes story around a perception of what’s worth living for, what’s worth dying for.”2

The charge of these values should change from beginning to end, ideally from scene to scene. Each change of charge represents a change in character or a change in our story, and these lead to character growth.

Each change of charge is a turning point in our story. Turning points are necessary to keep our stories from flatlining. Screenwriters have several ways to accomplish turning points.

  1. Roadblocks.
  2. Complications.
  3. Reversals.
  4. Plot twists.

  Turning points are a great way to keep the momentum in our stories going forward, they keep our audience on their toes and interested in our narrative. Without turning points and obstacles, stories just coast along from point A to point B in a straight line, which is pretty boring if you ask me.

Obstacles?

In storytelling, we know the journey should take us on an adventure. Whether the journey is one of self-discovery, self-sacrifice, or fulfillment, the obstacles we encounter along the way make the destination worth it.

When a story is told correctly, the audience connects with it. We are challenged along with the characters. Ideally, we will grow, grieve, and love right along with our favorite characters as they overcome whatever obstacle blocks their way. Below are a few of my favorite movies with plot twists.

Don’t make the journey to easy, it’ll bore everyone involved. Sometimes the biggest obstacle for a screenwriter faces in getting their scripts produced is the writer themselves—and that’s a plot twist.

Martin Johnson survived a severe car accident with a (T.B.I.) Traumatic brain injury which left him legally blind and partially paralyzed on the left side. He is an award-winning Christian screenwriter who has recently finished his first Christian nonfiction book. Martin has spent the last nine years volunteering as an ambassador and promoter for Promise Keepers ministries. While speaking to local men’s ministries he shares his testimony. He explains The Jesus Paradigm and how following Jesus changes what matters most in our lives. Martin lives in a Georgia and connects with readers at Spiritual Perspectives of Da Single Guy and on Twitter at mtjohnson51.

1  https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/complications-reversals-and-roadblocks-1515facefba

2  Mckee, R 1997 (Story) HarpercollinsBooks, page 17.

Categories
Romancing Your Story

When All Seems Lost

The Black Moment. The Crisis. The Breakup. There are many titles for that moment when all seems lost.

No matter what you call it, every novel must have a crisis point, at which time it appears the characters will not or cannot reach their goals. The black moment needs to happen two to three chapters before the end of the story so that the characters have time to examine their open wound, recognize their flaws, and face their greatest fears. Without that time, they will not be able to move through self-evaluation toward the resolution.

The black moment cannot come out of the blue. There need to be hints from the beginning of the story. Often the wound revolves around something the hero or heroine has kept hidden or perhaps believes has healed. The black moment reopens that wound.

In Deborah Dixon’s GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, she writes, “This black moment is brought about by the external event. But it is the internal choice, the compromise, the character growth that keys the resolution.” 

If you are writing multiple viewpoints, each character is on a separate personal journey with different wounds and external events and emotional issues. It needs only to be one character who withdraws to cause the breakup, which will trigger the black moment and cause both of them to believe their love isn’t enough to overcome the external obstacle. Their wound(s) have been ripped open, and they may withdraw to a place in the past where they felt safer. 

The black moment leads to the internal emotional event that allows them to examine their feelings, recognize their flaws, and see how their fears are keeping them from their greatest desire or goal. Whether they are facing the realization alone or are confiding their hurts to a friend, they must come to the pivotal point that allows them to try again.

In How to Write a Brilliant Romance, Susan May Warren writes, “Every Black Moment has two parts. An  event, which is the actual fear coming true, and  effect, which is the following emotional and spiritual crisis.“

The resolution is the big payoff. Readers have been anticipating it from page one. Make it emotional, whether by making the reader laugh, cry, or gasp. The resolution needs to be big enough to count. The reader is expecting a satisfying ending. One in which the character grows and sacrifices. In a romance, the conflict resolution is an emotional choice.

If you reach a point in your romance where the black moment needs to happen, and you haven’t hinted at the wound or flaw, the reader feels cheated. By revealing the wound early in the story, it doesn’t surprise the reader. If it only appears at the black moment the author may have left the reader confused, puzzled, or perhaps worse, disappointed in the story. 

Every story begins with a promise. In romance, that promise is a satisfying ending that makes the reader believe all is right with the hero and heroine’s world. As the reader closes the book, we want them to feel they have experienced their journey to find love. A satisfied reader will return for more of your books.

Award-winning writer, Rose Gardner’s journey toward publication has come in two phases. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. After a break from writing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing, and the power of forgiveness. She has won or placed in several contests for unpublished writers since 2017 as she works toward publication. You can find out more about Rose at her website mrosegardner.com or on social media at Facebook at MRoseGardner/, Twitter MaryGardner6, Instagram mrosegardner/ 

Categories
Writers Chat

Writers Chat Recap for October, Part 2

Writers Chat, hosted by Jean Wise, Johnnie Alexander, and Bethany Jett, is the show where we talk about all things writing, by writers and for writers!

“Because talking about writing is more fun than actually doing it.”

Writers Chat Book Review

In this episode, Johnnie Alexander, Melissa Stroh, and Norma Poore join together to review Cheryl St. John’s book, Writing with Emotion, Tension, & Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel. This book is jammed full of tips, techniques, and exercises to add emotion and depth to your novel. Some of the exercises call for watching movies as research. Who knew? So, if you’re in need of some fresh research ideas on emotion, tension, and conflict for your fiction, then this is the episode for you.

Watch the October 15th replay.

For resources and more information check out this week’s Show Notes and Live Discussion.

Self-Publishing with Stephanie L. Jones

In this episode, Stephanie gives us her insights in to the world of self-publishing. She is the author of the award-winning, best-selling book, The Giving Challenge. Stephanie shares with us practical tips, from her insider view, as well as what to expect when embarking on the road to self-publication.

Watch the October 22nd replay.

JOIN US!

Writers Chat is hosted live each Tuesday for an hour starting at 10 AM CT / 11 AM ET on Zoom. Here’s the permanent Zoom room link. 

Participants mute their audio and video during the filming then we open up the room for anyone who wishes to participate with our guests. The “After Party” is fifteen-minutes of off-the-record sharing and conversation.

Additionally, you can grow your network and add to the conversation by joining our Writers Chat Facebook Group.

Categories
Romancing Your Story

Conflict in Romance

Someone told me once there wasn’t conflict in romance novels. Boy meets girl. Boy gets girl. End of story.

I don’t think they had read a romance since conflict is a primary element in all fiction.

It is what keeps readers turning the pages and can sometimes be confused with plot.

Leslie J. Wainger says In Writing A Romance Novel for Dummies, “A strong romance plot put the hero and heroine together early on and, no matter how much difficulty they may be having connecting emotionally, the plot physically separates them as infrequently as possible. Close proximity allows the character an opportunity to externalize their internal, emotional conflicts.” She goes on to say, “Just as your plot offers the context for the romance to play out, the romance and the conflict that complicates it should drive the plot forward, creating an inseparable whole.”

Both external and internal conflicts are important in romances. External happens in the world around your character. Internal happens within the character’s thoughts and emotions. Romance novels, by their nature, are emotional stories and rely heavier on internal conflicts than other types of fiction.  However romantic suspense may rely heavier on external conflict than a sweet romance.

William Noble says in his book Conflict, Action & Suspense “Conflict means drama.” He goes on the say “There are different types of conflict…it can be subtle as well as overt, or threatening as well as comedic.  For a good story to emerge, we must know who or what is pitted against whom or what, and we must understand the consequences.”

What makes a good conflict? Unfortunately, there isn’t one answer. Everything depends on the type of story you are writing and the emotional makeup of your characters.

One piece of advice I’ve heard many times is if your conflict can be resolved by a conversation, you don’t have a strong enough conflict to build a story around. I think that statement is true to      a point. Your characters may have deep internal conflicts that prevent them from engaging in that conversation. On the flip side, if you throw every possible complication and conflict you can think of into your story, you risk losing or confusing your reader.

A writer must master the elements of conflict to write a compelling story. It is important to be intentional in defining both the internal and external conflicts.

There are a number of books written about conflict and crafting novels besides the ones I have referenced above.

Here are a few titles from my writing resource shelf:

Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon
Elements of Fiction Writing – Conflict and Suspense by James Scott Bell
The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing by Evan Marshall
Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

What are your favorite writing resources?

Award winning writer, M. Rose Gardner has written for many years. Her journey toward publication has come in two phases. Her first phase was focused on long contemporary category romance. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. She took a break from writing to become a grandma to beautiful granddaughters and say good-bye to her son, who lost his twenty-year battle with cancer, and her husband after a long battle with dementia. After a period of healing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing and the power of forgiveness. She is extremely proud to have won 1st place in the Blue Seal Award for General/ Contemporary/ Romance Novels at OHCWC 2017; 3rd place in the Blue Seal Award for Romance Novels at OHCWC 2018 and became a finalist in the 2018 ACFW VA Crown Award.
Find out more about her at www.mrosegardner.com
Facebook at https://facebook.com/MRoseGardner/
Twitter https://twitter.com/MaryGardner6
Instagram https://instagram.com/mrosegardner/
LinedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/m-rose-gardner-600b1740/

Categories
Screenwriting

Friction

Every writer has a desire to learn the craft, screenwriters more so. However, their journey is complicated by the essence of their craft. Movies are visual anomalies and it’s a screenwriter’s job to break them down into its subparts in words.

  • Characters
  • Setting
  • Conflict
  • Plot
  • Theme

In a clear and visual way that creates a complete story on the screen. The glue that holds it all together is the center subpart: conflict. Author, speaker and screenwriter Donald Miller notes,

“Far from being a bad thing, conflict in story is a necessity.”

When I was in college and wanted to be a writer, my main problem was I had no ideas for a story, just knowledge about how to write it. Then, the unthinkable happened, always in a severe car accident that left me partially paralyzed.

If you follow the disability column here on Almost an Author, you’ve read about my struggles of writing with a disability. My disability has become the conflict in my own story.

My own body has worked against me for over 20 years now. What I learned so far is that my conflict, my disability, isn’t actually against me—the friction is actually helping me grow as a person and writer.

As hard as it is for some to accept in this day and age, the truth is friction fuels life is as much as conflict fuels our stories in our writing. Miller continues,

“There is no character development without conflict. So when we choose our ambitions, they should be difficult and we should anticipate and even welcome conflict.”

Conflict?

To better understand conflict, let’s look at the definition: A battle, or struggle, especially a prolonged struggle; strife; antagonism or opposition, friction. In our stories it’s our protagonist’s opposition. This opposition or complement may come in one of various forms.

  1. External – The most obvious and visual to an audience, this form of conflict is a physical struggle against the protagonist.
  2. Internal – Not always obvious, but the most important type of conflict because it often reveals our protagonist’s goal and flaws, it also reveals our character growth throughout our story. In film this type of conflict can be the hardest to show instead of tell.
  3. Interactional – This type of conflict is more of a relational conflict, how our protagonist deals with other personalities (both different and similar).
  4. Environmental – While similar to external, this conflict is more of a location or setting-fueled conflict, think a “fish out of water” story.

Environmental conflict is everywhere in life, we see it in Mother Nature; we experience it when we travel and even within our own bodies when they don’t agree with Mother Nature. As fall approaches, my allergies are already beginning to act up. Unfortunately I can’t even see the little particles that do war with my body—but somewhere there are hidden triggers waiting to set me off.

Background?

Even if conflict isn’t obvious in our stories (which it should be), there should always be something motivating our protagonist to grow, be better, do better or get stronger. Conflict is often personified in the form of the antagonist in our story, screenplay or novel.

Award-winning author and speaker Steven James once shared,

“All stories involve some sort of pursuit, but how many chapters or acts or pages that takes depends more on the obstacles that the characters encounter and their subsequent choices.”[1]

In some of the best movies, conflict is multilayered and fueled by each of the conflict types I mentioned earlier and they shape each of the sub parts I mentioned at the beginning. Here are a few examples that come to mind.

  • The Breakfast Club
  • Forrest Gump
  • Slum Dog Millionaire
  • Rocky

The Rocky franchise is a classic example. We see our hero struggle with his body, his environment, his ego and his relationship with his wife; each causing Balboa to grow through friction.

[1] http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2017/11/steven-james-consummate-story-blender.html

Martin Johnson survived a severe car accident with a (T.B.I.) Truamatic brain injury which left him legally blind and partially paralyzed on the left side. He is an award-winning Christian screenwriter who has recently finished his first Christian nonfiction book. Martin has spent the last nine years volunteering as an ambassador and promoter for Promise Keepers ministries. While speaking to local men’s ministries he shares his testimony. He explains The Jesus Paradigm and how following Jesus changes what matters most in our lives. Martin lives in a Georgia and connects with readers at Spiritual Perspectives of Da Single Guy and on Twitter at mtjohnson51.

Categories
Talking Character

Creating Villains

In order to really show his stuff, a protagonist needs challenges to overcome. The tougher the opposition, the more our heroes can shine.

In other words, to have awesome heroes, we need formidable villains.

Like any other important character, villains need to be constructed with care. Even if they aren’t given much screen time, they deserve a multi-layered personality and backstory that explains how they got to be so nasty.

Five keys for constructing villains

  1. Give the villain a face. Sometimes our hero is fighting a corrupt government, a corporation, or an epidemic. However, a vague, shadowy them will not make a satisfying antagonist. Create a single person that represents the larger entity, such as ambitious executive driven by greed, or a character whose own agenda is at cross purposes with those trying to control the spread of a disease.
  2. Make the villain hard to beat. Better yet, make the villain seem impossible to beat. The stronger and smarter the antagonist, the more satisfying the story. Nobody will be impressed if the hero outshines the villain in strength, resources, and smarts—because there was never any doubt the hero would win. But if the villain outclasses the hero, the result of their struggle is far from certain, and the reader must read to the end to find out how the hero manages to win despite the odds. Then you have a story!
  3. Don’t let them steal the show. (Because they’ll be happy to, given a chance—cads that they are). Be careful not to create a villain who is so eccentric and flashy that they are more interesting than the upright, do-gooder hero. Also, by the end of the story it should be clear to the reader that the villain’s motivations are flawed and that the protagonist’s choice is the better way.
  4. Remember, all humans are redeemable. Your villain may not budge from his twisted evil ways, but deep inside he must have a small piece of his character that is redeemable. All humans are made in the image of God, therefore no human can be pure evil. This may not be true for otherworldy characters such as demons or space aliens, however. Pure evil works in certain cases, but for most stories a villain who retains some aspects of humanity is the more believable choice.
  5. Make the villain believable. All well-developed characters have reasons they act the way they do. Your villain’s thinking may be twisted, but deep down she must believe she is doing what is right, even if everyone else thinks her actions are wrong. The more readers understand why the villain acts the way she does, the more they can relate. Be warned, however, not to create too much sympathy for the villain’s misery. You don’t want readers to identify with the villain’s pain or the justice of her cause to the point they root for her instead of the hero.

[bctt tweet=”Good villains are important. The tougher the opposition, the more our heroes can shine.” username=””]

Categories
Talking Character

Give Them Something to Hate

I hate making phone calls.

When it comes to picking up the phone, I always procrastinate as long as possible. It might take me a month to get around to calling for a haircut appointment or a wellness checkup. I cannot explain why I hate phone calls. It is simply part of who I am.

Unfortunately, no matter how much I wish I could avoid them, making phone calls is part of modern life. I will never enjoy it, but I do it when I have to.

Do your characters have something they dislike but can’t avoid?

Well-rounded characters need weaknesses as well as strengths. Giving them a specific task or two they detest will add depth, especially if that task is something they cannot avoid.

For example, what if a secretary hated making phone calls? Or filing papers? She couldn’t admit such a thing to her boss, could she? But her secret dislike has the potential to cause complications. She might procrastinate the filing until papers pile up and important documents get lost. She might put off phone calls until the last moment, adding stress to her life and creating emergencies that wouldn’t have occurred if she’d made the call when her boss first requested the information.

Can you see how a detested task will both ratchet up the tension and make your characters more interesting?

Make it authentic: The key is to find something in their temperament or background that gives a ring of authenticity to their particular dislikes. In my case, avoiding the telephone is a common attribute of introverts. Any character with an introverted temperament could believably suffer from the same “the-telephone-is-the-instrument-of-the-devil” mentality.

Make it plausible:  Readers might wonder why the introverted character who hates phone calls is working as a secretary to begin with. So the character needs not only a chore to hate, but also a valid reason for not avoiding it. It may be the secretary is a whiz at administrative tasks, so phone calls are a necessary evil in a job she otherwise enjoys. Or maybe her dread of phone calls makes her hate her job, but expectations or necessity have forced her into a career as a secretary.

Same dislike, two very different stories.

What story are you trying to tell? How can an onerous task enhance both your plot and your character?

[bctt tweet=”Give your character something to hate. Your readers will love it. #writing ” username=””]