In a new blog post, Kristen Lamb offers advice for adding drama to your story. “Drama needs to be in everything we create if we hope to get so much as a passing glance,” she says. “Drama can make ANYTHING more interesting (providing we have the option of being mere observers).”
Lamb suggests three ways to drive the tension and keep pages turning.
- Give your characters struggles and failures. “We don’t connect with other people because of the crazy amazing things they are/do/accomplish,” Lamb says. “What about a mom with a toddler who won’t stop screaming in the store? A woman who’s crying in a bathroom stall because she can’t deal with her mom who’s suffering dementia?” Those people are relatable and bystanders – i.e. readers – are more likely to get involved.
- Give your characters good intentions and bad decisions. As an example, Lamb notes that in murder mysteries, character withhold helpful information, often for good reasons. They don’t want to reveal a secret or say something that might cause another character trouble that’s unrelated to the crime at hand. Sometimes, a character may do a favor for another, not knowing the repercussion of their action. Have you ever hidden something so you could easily find it later, only to have someone else move it to a more secure place, so that it’s not there when you need it? People can screw up your life even when they aren’t trying.
- Make everything more difficult than it needs to be. “Make it worse until you make it weird,” Lamb says. Characters need to pay a price to get what they want, and Lamb says the price should be both high…and awkward.
