In a new post, Janice Hardy says that giving your protagonist small problems can elevate your story by creating more conflict and verisimilitude. “Think about the bad days you’ve had, where nothing went right, and how that escalated into you snapping and yelling at someone who didn’t deserve it,” she says. “Or caused you to do something you wouldn’t have ordinarily done had you not already been stressed by stupid little things.”
You can find places for problems with worldbuilding, your characters’ jobs, their friends and families, health, and mechanical objects like their cars or home appliances. Those small annoyances can cause your hero to act out of character, make a bad choice, drive away an ally, or simply make their life a bit harder.
Use these kind of small moments to ratchet up scenes where conflict occurs, particularly around turning points. “Find those moments and then go back a few scenes (or even chapters) and look for places where the protagonist’s day/goal/problem would be worse if one more thing got heaped onto their To-Do List,” Hardy suggests. “Slow scenes can benefit from adding small problems, so check any spots that drag and look for ways to make things a little more difficult.”
However, don’t add problems simply to add them, but make sure they connect to the plot or character. Hardy suggests using these annoyances to put stress on an existing problem, add a ticking clock, push an emotional button, exacerbate a character flaw, or set your protagonist up for failure. “Things happen in our lives all the time, so it makes sense to let our characters experience that same chaos and uncertainty,” she says.
