Chapter Nine

Plot the Tension and Conflict

Conflicts are serious disagreements, arguments, opposition, clashes, battles, disputes, problems, squabbles, and dissension between two or more disparate parties. Conflicts in stories cause characters to feel threatened (physically or emotionally, or by the potential loss of power or status) and to react to protect their needs, interests, concerns, and well-being.

A situation with an uncertain outcome, in which two or more characters are in conflict, creates tension. Tension is the mental or emotional strain caused by conflict. When characters who are at odds are involved in ongoing relationships, they struggle, discover they are incompatible, dispute various issues, differ in opinion, collide, contrast, and generate tension between each other.

In fiction, conflicts rivet the reader’s attention and create tension, suspense, and curiosity about the outcome. It’s the unknown that carries the reader deeper and deeper into the story. Every time you satisfy the reader’s curiosity in a scene or plotline, her attention wanes. To avoid this, continue introducing new or foreshadowed conflicts. Like a game of leapfrog, you will move your reader from one major conflict to the next.

Avoid Making It Too Easy

If you love your protagonist, you may be tempted to make it too easy for her to get what she wants, find success, snag her lover, or solve the mystery. If this is the case, your story might begin with her overcoming every conflict and squashing every opponent. Your reader will quickly understand that in the hands of the protagonist, there is nothing to fear and all will end well. Continue in this way and by the middle of the story, your reader will become distracted and bored.

On the other hand, if you love your readers and are eager to make fans, make it hard for your protagonist to succeed. Trip her up, embarrass her, humiliate her, scare her, intimidate her, and challenge her to the point that the reader is never quite sure what will happen next in the story and has to turn the pages faster in order to find out.

The protagonist may have started the story believing she can achieve the life she’d always dreamed of. No matter how prepared she may have been for the challenges ahead of her, she has no idea to what extent she will be stretched, of the conflicts she will face, or of the risks involved. If she did, she may not seize the chance to achieve something great in life, as she is too frightened to take the initial leap.

As with any risk, there is always something at stake. Risk implies that along with great riches, the protagonist also stands to lose greatly—her money, time, and/or reputation are threatened. Risk also implies tension. The reader is forced to read on to find out what happens next.

The Benefits of Taking Risks

Forcing your protagonist to take risks opens him up to new challenges and opportunities to learn a new skill, language, belief, or way of living.

Readers may do everything they can to prevent risks, upheaval, loss, bad times, tension, and stress from entering their own lives. Yet they’re quite satisfied to read about conflicts and to vicariously experience the characters’ drama. They read to live on an edge and in a state of heightened tension they’d never risk in their real lives.

Taking risks empowers the protagonist to break through limited thoughts and beliefs, which in turn has the potential to challenge readers to ponder those same limits in themselves. When a character has a misconstrued vision of what he thinks he deserves or is capable of accomplishing, he’ll never know the reality unless he risks the chance of failure to venture out into new territory.

Risk creates tension—as well as reward. When a character takes risks and goes out on a limb, the reader is better able to assess his natural problem-solving skills under tension, to learn more about his strengths and weaknesses when confronted with obstacles, and to invest emotional energy in him by worrying about his welfare and safety.

Taking risks helps the protagonist more clearly define what he truly wants. Is the reward worth taking the chance? Is there something else he’d rather work toward? Those same risks allow the reader to predict the best course of action for the protagonist and read further to measure the outcome.

Tension is created in not knowing for sure if the risks the character takes will eliminate negative thinking in the end and lead him to excel even beyond what he initially set out to achieve. Whether the character ultimately succeeds, fails, or experiences something else entirely is a question that draws the reader deeper into the story.

The more and greater risks the protagonist is willing to take, the greater the potential conflict and tension as he breaks from his usual way of living and thinking. Instead of resisting the struggle, ignoring the antagonist, and fighting to stay safe, he accepts what comes and gains the momentum and confidence needed to face his antagonists and his fears.

With your scenes plotted on your Plot Planner, now turn your focus from the protagonist to the goals of the major antagonists.

Add Antagonists to the Plot Planner

Antagonists are simply characters whose goals interfere with the protagonist’s goals. Keep in mind that the antagonist has his own goals and makes his way, step by step, toward them. In so doing, he either deliberately or unknowingly creates obstacles for the protagonist.

There are two primary methods for plotting the antagonist’s plotlines:

1. If the antagonist is a major character and/or a villain, give the character her own Plot Planner line, positioned below the primary Plot Planner line.
2. If the antagonist is a minor important character, give him his own colored sticky note to plot his scenes on the main Plot Planner line.

With either method, plot the antagonist’s plotline in much the same way you did for the protagonist’s plot.

As you move forward, consider goals for the antagonists that directly or indirectly hinder, hamper, stall, prevent, or delay the protagonist from moving easily toward his own goal.

In the middle, use as many antagonists as you need in order to prevent the protagonist from achieving his long-term goal. In other words, use the protagonist’s family, friends, co-workers, enemies, and lovers to thwart his progress. When appropriate, throw in a natural disaster or a physical disability to slow down the protagonist’s quest. Let the protagonist’s religion or government or customs forbid him from continuing. Have the protagonist’s car break down at just the right moment, or have a motorcycle skid to a stop at just the wrong moment. Have the protagonist’s inner life, past mistakes, fears, flaws, doubts, moral choices, or lack of willpower constantly get in his way. Introduce a time limit to amp up the pressure. Present a sense of danger.

Whatever it takes, create middle scenes to slow down or even stop the protagonist’s journey toward his goal. Set up anticipation on the part of the protagonist and the reader, and then drag out the suspense—will he or won’t he achieve his goal? Prolong the tension (though be sure to provide an equal payoff). Plot the antagonist’s scenes on your Plot Planner using each of these techniques to ensure that the stakes escalate in each subsequent scene.

As the protagonist pushes toward something, see that forces both internal and external interfere with his progress. It is in the struggle between the protagonist and all the antagonists, all the conflicts, and all the tension that creates action on the page. This, in turn, forces readers to read faster in excitement and expectation, spurred onward by their morbid curiosity, trepidation, anticipation, and intense longing.

Look at the scenes you have placed above the Plot Planner line, and ask what is causing the tension and conflict, scene by scene. Is it another person, an animal, nature, machines, or perhaps society? Is the placement consistent with the flow of energy from scene to scene as you build to each major turning point? Does the tension drop off afterward, only to build even higher as the protagonist moves further into the story?

The Antagonist’s Climax

As you plot the antagonist’s plotline, watch how it influences the protagonist’s plotline in the buildup to the crisis and during the crisis. During the buildup, antagonists often grow in power and control, and create more tension and intense conflicts as the protagonist slips or fools herself into believing she’s near the end. Think of the crisis, which generally occurs around three-quarters into the entire project, as the climax of the antagonist’s plotline.

That’s not to say that the antagonist crushes the protagonist and then departs in victory. Whatever happens to the antagonist at this point in the story fuels his passion to continue for more or greater influence, control, possessions, power, accolades, and attention. Thus the conflicts and tension build. This means that when the protagonist enters the end of the story, she’s moving forward to face an even more powerful force.

There are two other ways to look at the crisis of the story:

1. The crisis is the protagonist’s moment of truth; afterwards nothing is ever the same. In other words, she is confronted with a twist in the action she had not anticipated. For instance, the alleged murderer she has been pursuing becomes a victim, and she realizes that the cold-blooded killer is still at large.
2. In the crisis, the protagonist has a breakdown that leads to a breakthrough. In other words, she is confronted by her personal demons and is forced to face the truth that no outside force landed her in the mess she’s in—her own stubbornness, naiveté, anger, carelessness, or procrastination did.

Introducing Plot Twists

Plot twists engage readers. Twist the dramatic action in an unexpected (and carefully foreshadowed) direction so the protagonist is forced to define new goals and perform difficult tasks while pointing the reader in the direction of her true goal.

At each of the major turning points in your story, imagine and list five horrible antagonists that create five horrible events for the protagonist. Look for people and actions that feel the most thematically true to the protagonist’s ultimate transformation and that twist the story in a new (and carefully foreshadowed) direction. The Plot Planner guides the direction and degree of the story’s intensity and provides a place for expansion. Each horrible thing broadens the reader’s appreciation of the protagonist’s sense of self beyond the limitations of what was currently visible in the story.

Horror writers penetrate our deepest fears and bring darkness to light. In real life, most of us run from or at least avoid the dark. We’re afraid of the unknown and always looking for the light. We deny our negative feelings and deny our protagonists their shadows. We attempt to navigate the straight and narrow line of the Plot Planner, afraid of losing control of the story and falling into an abyss.

The braver you are, the bigger your story. Rather than confuse the reader, use each plot twist to spin the story deeper into the darkness of what haunts the protagonist, urges him to take heart and gather his courage for his next defined test of initiation, and, in the end, brings to light his true personal power.

At each major point of conflict, name the protagonist’s emotion as she anticipates the conflict, as the conflict is happening, and in the aftermath of the conflict. Search for the truth in her emotions. Convey that step, that emotion, in an active, energetic, and meaningful way that fulfills the three major plotlines:

• character emotional development plot: defines the emotion
• dramatic action plot: shows steps taken and resistance met
• thematic significance plot: defines that action and the meaning of her emotion

The straight and well-defined line of the Plot Planner is an attempt to control the twisty and often blurry reality in stories. Each dark twist and turn defines the protagonist’s next specific short-term goal. Imagine the next horrible thing, obstacle, challenge, or demon your protagonist meets. Foreshadow and twist the forward action in yet a different direction that affords a new view of him. Show emotions that are thematically true to his character.

Each time an antagonist twists the story in a new direction, the protagonist defines a new goal like an arrow flying in the direction that brings forward her true purpose, releases power, and provides her the freedom to conquer her fears and align with the final confrontation in her willingness to transform.

Intensifying the Conflict and Tension

As you consider the placement of your middle scenes either above or below the Plot Planner line, ask yourself the following questions at the overall plot and story level:

• Where are the major conflicts?
• Who are the conflicts primarily between?
• What is causing the conflict?
• How much tension is caused by the conflict?
• Does the tension in your story as a whole agree with the expected tension in your genre? For instance, the tension in a suspense novel should skyrocket to the climax. In women’s fiction, the tension will simmer but won’t match the intensity of the suspense genre.