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Here's a little thread about an issue I'm trying to fix in revisions right now, and a new-to-me technique I'm trying that's working well for me!
The problems I'm trying to fix have to do with needing more urgency & agency.
The techinque I'm dubbing...the Oh Shit Chain.
The problems I'm trying to fix have to do with needing more urgency & agency.
The techinque I'm dubbing...the Oh Shit Chain.
So okay, my problem is that I have all these events happening that are pretty intense and high stakes, but they're very character-driven. The central plot thread holding them togetherâthe through lineâis still too weak. There's not enough urgency carrying you to the next scene.
So even though all these intense, high-stakes things are happening, between them it can feel like the characters are sitting around going "Whew, that sucked, let's just have some coffee until the next big thing happens," and the tension isn't building properly.
I need to line up the dominoes better, so I have a chain of action-->reaction where my characters face problems, actively do things to fix those problems, and create a new situation where circumstances/the antagonists generate MORE PROBLEMS in an escalating cycle, wheeee
Luckily, this is surprisingly easy to fix without really needing to make big changes, given that I've already got all these character scenes that should in theory be capable of punching pretty hard. It's the connective tissue I need to fix. How?
The Oh Shit Chain!
The Oh Shit Chain!
I'm making a list that basically goes like this:
Oh shit, [problem]
--> Solution!
Oh shit, [new problem that flows naturally from solution]
--> New solution!
And so on. Where by "solution" I mean an action my characters are taking to try to fix the problem, which may not work.
Oh shit, [problem]
--> Solution!
Oh shit, [new problem that flows naturally from solution]
--> New solution!
And so on. Where by "solution" I mean an action my characters are taking to try to fix the problem, which may not work.
In general, I'm finding that mostly my existing plot events work just fine for the "Oh Shit" moments, and I just sometimes need to tweak what exactly my characters are trying to do that lands them in the next Oh Shit moment to give them more agency & up the stakes.
Sometimes I'm also finding that I need more of an antagonist response to the previous solution. A reaction that ups the stakes and drives the urgency, forcing my characters to respond with another action. (A missing or weak Oh Shit link in the chain.)
It's working surprisingly well to point out the places where I drop the through line, and it makes coming up with fixes easier because I can just ask myself "Okay, so what would they* do next?"
(* They = my characters or the antagonists, depending on whose turn it is)
(* They = my characters or the antagonists, depending on whose turn it is)
This obviously works best in a case where there's a direct protagonist-vs-antagonist plot dynamic going on, and might not apply to all stories...it's definitely not meant to be a formula! But in this case, it's proving a very useful tool that I'm glad to add to my kit. 
