When you set out to write a novel, often it becomes almost like the beginning steps of Dramatica (which I haven’t used in 4 years and probably should get back into using). You think of an idea, and you think of a character, and now your novel has 16,528 options in directions it can take.
What must happen is you must make deliberate choices, and we tend to write them in ways that writers like to say: “What’s best for this novel?”
The new writers don’t understand what this means yet, or think they do. But I’ll translate it – “What will increase conflict?”
Every writing book will tell you that conflict is the interruption of a desire, or something like that. I boil it down even further – your protagonist needs something or needs to do something – and your job is to deny it in every way possible for as long as possible.
And so your novel writing becomes a series of deliberate choices – will this increase tension? The problem is, we tend to get too connected with our protagonists, and we want to remove the obstacles in their way too soon.
You can’t. Once you do that, the novel is over.
So, when planning your novel (I’m really opposed to pant’sing, as I’m sure you’ve noticed), you make the deliberate choices of – will making my protagonist this or that increase the conflict, reduce it, or not matter? Will this situation increase conflict or decrease it? As you start planning, you add sub plots in the form of other obstacles showing up that you have to defeat before things go even worse.
This is the bottom line! Do this and your novel shall thrive!
Do it not… and your novel will perish.
