Margaret is trying to erase a painful memory, and one way to do that is to jump into marriage with a man she doesn’t know all that well. She does love Douglas, although not with a burning passion. He seems safe and respectful, and he goes along with what she asks, so she can’t find a reason not to marry him. She believes her life will get back on track if she gets married and has a child because she’ll be too busy to think about all the unresolved trauma she carries around.

Since Margaret is quite beautiful, Douglas can’t believe that she’d even go out with him, much less marry him, but she does. This should make him more confident, but instead it raises doubts. He can’t see inside her head, and he doesn’t know how to ask her what he’d like to know—such as, does she really love him the way he loves her?

Radically Different Views of the Same Marriage

If you’ve read Lauren Groff’s amazing Fates and Furies or watched Marriage Story with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, you’ve seen great examples of how two married people can have a radically different view of the same relationship. As in those works, my characters have no idea what the other person is thinking, and they would be shocked if they knew. Telling the story of their marriage in both voices is a way to fill out the relationship and tap into the inherent drama, since the reader is aware of the misunderstandings each one has about the other.

This passage is the first time Douglas compares marriage to a shelf packed with too many things.

Douglas felt lightheaded from the paint fumes, hemmed in by the small room and the low ceiling and the clouds that kept intercepting the sunlight, his sunlight. Inside his chest, a weird syncopation began. Their marriage rested on her answer. This could be the moment where the screws came out of the wall and the packed shelf of their lives came down in a spectacular crash, or it could be nothing. He had no idea what Margaret would say.

As the novel progresses, Douglas keeps coming back to the packed shelf and how the screws sometimes loosen, and plaster dust coats the floor. At one point, an editor said she didn’t like the repeated references to the shelf at first, but toward the end, Douglas realizes that his marriage to Margaret isn’t a shelf at all, it’s more like a sweater that would pill and fray until they decided they couldn’t wear it anymore. The editor said that brought it back around for her, so that’s a lesson right there: if you torture a metaphor just enough, it might survive the editing process.

Marriage is a fascinating subject because it’s such a strange ritual when you think about it. Here’s what Margaret thinks when she’s about to get married:

It was a mistake, all of this. They shouldn’t have rushed the wedding. She looked back toward the vestibule, seeking an exit. This could be her excuse to leave, call it a postponement and then gently explain things to Douglas. People shouldn’t be allowed to meet at a party, eat some overpriced restaurant meals together, and then sign legally binding documents that braided their lives and finances together, unbraided only by costly litigation. That this happened all the time makes it no less bizarre.

An Outsider’s Perspective of a Marriage

There are two other significant marriages in The Liability of Love. One is that of an older couple, the parents of Margaret’s college friend Fitz, who is secretly in love with Margaret. Hamish and Arlene’s relationship plays a key role in the story, and there are some significant parallels with what’s happening in Margaret and Douglas’s marriage. 

But the reader only sees Hamish and Arlene from an outside perspective, mainly that of their son. Fitz doesn’t really know what’s going on inside his parents’ heads, or what they truly think about each other, so neither does the reader.

The other marriage is that of Ollie and Tiffany, who live next door to Margaret and Douglas. They’re raising six children, and, at first glance, they seem out of their depth and almost ridiculous. But I loved these characters so much. They came to me almost fully formed, and I knew the reader would grow to sympathize and fall in love with them, even Tiffany, who has some issues.

The Potential for Imbalance

In this novel, I tried to focus on the idea that if one partner is more in love than the other or keeping secrets of any kind, the balance of the relationship tips very quickly into dramatic territory, and that shift can seesaw back and forth many times. The potential for that imbalance makes marriage a very rich subject for fiction.

A great exercise would be to write the story of your parents’ relationship from each of their perspectives and see what kind of drama arises. 

Susan Schoenberger is the award-winning author of A Watershed Year and The Virtues of Oxygen and her latest book is The Liability of Love (She Writes Press). With a linotypist as a grandfather, she has ink in her blood and worked as a journalist and copyeditor for many years, including The Baltimore Sun and 12 years with The Hartford Courant. She currently serves as Director of Communications at Hartford Seminary, a graduate school with a focus on interfaith dialogue. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her husband Kevin. They have three grown children and a small dog named Leo. Learn more at www.susanschoenberger.com.

The post How to Write about Marriage appeared first on DIY MFA.

Cherae Clark graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA and was a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. In addition to writing, she has had various jobs as she’s traveled the world, including: personal trainer, English teacher, editor, or some combination thereof.

When she’s not writing or working, she’s learning languages, doing P90something, or reading about war and post-colonial history. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in FIYAH, PodCastle, Uncanny, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies and she is now one of the co-editors at PodCastle and editor of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) Blog.

In this episode C.L. and I discuss:

• How to identify which character is the protagonist and whether there can be two.
• The relationship between magic, religion, and technology and how she uses it.
• Different ways to handle conflict and the approach she takes in her writing.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About C.L. Clark

Cherae Clark graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA and was a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. She’s been a personal trainer, an English teacher, and an editor, and is some combination thereof as she travels the world. When she’s not writing or working, she’s learning languages, doing P90something, or reading about war and [post-]colonial history. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in FIYAH, PodCastle, Uncanny and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Now she’s one of the co-editors at PodCastle and editor of the SFWA Blog.

You can find C.L. Clark on her website or follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.

The Unbroken

Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.

Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.

Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 354

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 354: Character, Conflict, and World Building in Fantasy – Interview with C.L. Clark appeared first on DIY MFA.

Sixty-four days later, on August 2, 2020, the Crew Dragon capsule returned Behken and Hurley to Earth. They splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico, not far from Pensacola, Florida.

The mission, called Demo-2, certified that Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 could be used to deliver future astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk dubbed it the dawn of a new age of space exploration.

Hurley called the journey from the shuttle program to the public-private collaboration between NASA and SpaceX an eight-year odyssey and described his feeling of accomplishment upon landing as unbelievable. It’s truly an unprecedented achievement in the midst of an unprecedented year.

How can this collaboration inspire your own creative projects? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

A Little Help

Knowing that the shuttle program was ending, NASA made a deal with Russia to launch missions from Kasakhstan using Soyuz rockets. They’ve depended exclusively on this assistance for most of the last decade despite political differences and conflicts.

Application to Your Writing

Regardless of whether your space program is planet-bound or intergalactic, there are going to be times when your astronauts will have to have to depend on friends, friendlies, frenemies, or even outright enemies for help. It’s an opportunity to create meaningful conflict in your story.

Competition Fuels Conflict

As early as the 1980s, American entrepreneur Peter Diamandis founded the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) program. In the 90s, Diamandis upped the ante by offering the X Prize for radical breakthroughs that benefit humanity. Paul Allen won the Ansari X Prize with his White Knight One, which was then licensed by Richard Branson and used as the basis for Virgin Galactic.

Today, Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Starshot form the “Billionaire Space Race.” While each has specialized to a degree, they all grew out of the SEDS program and the X Prize competitions. Off-loading this next phase of innovation to private interests allowed NASA to focus on longer-term projects.

Application to Your Writing

Competition is a conflict generator. Just think of the possibilities for corporate espionage and sabotage.

It’s All about Succession Planning

It doesn’t seem to be coincidence that SEDS and X Prize extended the drive for space exploration to private investment at around the same time that the shuttle program was aging, experiencing increasing technical difficulties, and outright tragedies. I’m confident that negotiations with Russia for use of their Soyuz rockets started long before the last shuttle flew in 2011.

This is a matter of succession planning, of anticipating difficulties, transferring knowledge, and securing alternatives or backups. There were likely several other alternatives that were explored before NASA settled on Russia.

Application to Your Writing

Problems should be anticipated by your characters. Though the plan to address those problems may not be something you choose to put in your novel, you, as the author, should know what that plan is so that your characters can execute it competently, before you throw the next crisis into their paths.

Logical Next Steps

What’s next for public/private collaboration in the space program? Astronaut Christina Koch thinks it’s great and that there should be more partnership in the future. By offloading the launch of satellites, the transportation of astronauts, and even research and development to SpaceX or other private corporations, NASA is effectively freed up to use its resources to focus on the longer term goals of returning to the moon, exploring Mars, and visiting other planets and moons in our solar system.

There are mutual benefits to public/private partnerships. For example, while NASA benefits from the development of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy (formerly teased as the BFR–I’ll let you figure that one out) rocket in terms of being able to launch longer-term missions, SpaceX benefits from having NASA invest in and use their technology.

Of course, some things don’t turn out as planned. What would happen if your private tech corporation invested millions only for your public space administration to elect to use another company’s innovation?

Taking It to the Page

I’ve already mentioned a few opportunities to create interesting plot points or conflict in your space-faring tale, but you don’t have to stop there. Similar dynamics will occur even in far future settings. Extrapolate from the current into your futuristic story.

There are also issues I haven’t touched on. If you’re writing alternate history or alternate reality stories, how does your altered timeline affect the drive to explore space? Are we still stuck in an era in which women and people of colour are denied opportunities to contribute to space exploration? Is there political interference? Is your world one of mega-corporations rather than national governments? If humanity evolved differently, what impact would that have on our desire to reach the stars?

Brainstorm possibilities and you’ll probably think up even more interesting ideas. I sincerely hope that this real-world news will spark your next creative project.

Until next time, keep speculating and see where it leads you!

References

• https://www.nasa.gov/specials/dm2/
• https://www.tpr.org/post/astronauts-view-spacexnasa-partnership
• https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Spacebound/2020/0525/SpaceX-and-NASA-unite-to-return-Americans-to-space
• https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-boeing-nasa-commercial-crew-program-launch-astronauts-2020-1

Melanie Marttila creates worlds from whole cloth. She’s a dreamsinger, an ink alchemist, and an unabashed learning mutt. Her speculative short fiction has appeared in Bastion Science Fiction Magazine, On Spec Magazine, and Sudbury Ink. She lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, where she spends her days working as a corporate trainer. She blogs at https://www.melaniemarttila.ca and you can find her on Facebook and Twitter.

The post How the NASA-SpaceX Collaboration Can Inspire Your Writing appeared first on DIY MFA.

Today, it’s time for the “how”. The case study hints at this with five keys for exploring family in our writing. This post, however, goes even deeper. So if you’d like some new techniques or exercises to help you practice this literary theme, grab a pen (or open a new word processing document) and let’s begin!

Demonstrating Relationships through Dialogue and Interaction

When writing about family, the relationships within your focus family will be front and center. Many of your story’s scenes should show these family members—your characters, in other words—interacting in expected and unexpected ways. For example, they might bond over preparing meals, keep secrets from one another, or express jealousy over a relative’s accomplishments.

However these interactions play out, they should make sense for the characters in each relationship. They should also be influenced by the relationship’s complexities and the history between the characters. Do they openly show each other affection? Are they distant or abusive (either physically or emotionally) to one another? Who is the decision maker or authority figure, and how do they demonstrate their power? Understanding these relationships will help you accurately and effectively create them on the page, and allow the reader to experience the unique emotions or conflicts of each one.

To illustrate family relationships in a scene, keep these six elements in mind:

• Purpose: What happens during the scene? Are its events an everyday occurrence or an extraordinary circumstance? Why is it important to the plot/story?
• Subtext: What is the relationship between these characters? What attitudes do they have toward each other? What opinions and fundamental beliefs do they share or disagree on? How do these underlying factors influence their interactions?
• Dialogue: What do the characters say? How clearly do they communicate their thoughts and feelings to each other? How does this interaction evolve as the scene progresses?
• Behavior & Body Language: How do these family members behave toward one another? What body language do they use throughout the scene?
• Emotions: What emotions are revealed in each character’s dialogue, behavior, and body language? How do these emotions impact the interaction’s outcome?
• Outcome: How does this interaction end? What impact does it have on the characters’ relationship? For example, are they angry at each other? Do they come to a mutual agreement? Are both characters satisfied, or did one bend to the other’s will?

Exercise #1: Write a scene where two family members from your story discuss a responsibility or commitment (household chore, miscommunication on a school pick-up time, late bill payment, etc.) that one of the characters has neglected. How does this scene reveal their relationship’s layers? How do the outcome and the emotions expressed affect the characters and their relationship? Make sure you consider the six elements listed above as you go along.

Also, feel free to try the exercises in our post on using dialogue to demonstrate literary themes.

Cultivating Conflict through Opposition and Antagonism

Every family relationship has its challenges. Even if two siblings or a parent and child usually get along well, they’re bound to disagree on something. It could be over an everyday occurrence (a sister borrows clothes without asking, or a son is late for school) or a life-changing event (a spouse admits to infidelity, or parents disapprove of an adult daughter’s fiancé). In this way, family members can act as antagonists, either in a minor role or as the main adversary.

This is NOT to say that an antagonistic family member is a villain. Yes, a villain is a type of antagonist, but a villain typically has malicious or harmful intentions toward the protagonist and/or her goal. But what if a parent, sibling, or other family member is a good person, even if their motives or desires don’t align with the protagonist’s? Recognizing this crucial distinction and developing your characters accordingly can help you keep any conflicts within your story’s family grounded and realistic.

What does it look like when family members experience conflict despite their good intentions? Here are two examples:

• Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale: Vasya’s family loves one another deeply, but their bond is fraught with tension. For example, Vasya is constantly scolded by her father and older siblings for her adventuresome, impulsive behavior. And when father Pyotr brings home a stepmother, most of his children aren’t excited about a new woman taking their deceased mother’s place.
• Markus Zusak’s Bridge of Clay: Life for the Dunbar brothers is anything but conflict-free after their mother passes away and their father abandons them, leaving the eldest son, Matthew, in charge. They argue about unwanted pets sleeping on their beds, engage in fistfights, and disagree about staying in school—and that’s just for starters.

Exercise #2: Make a list or table of your protagonist’s family relationships and the tension within each one. Which of the protagonist’s attitudes, opinions, or fundamental beliefs differ from those of her mother, father, significant other, etc.? How does each character act toward one another when a conflict arises? Consider each character’s unique personality, motives, and behaviors as you work on each relationship.

Reflecting and Contrasting Family Dynamics with “Mirror Families”

Stories often feature mirror characters to reflect differences in personality, circumstances, and much more. In family stories, this technique goes a step further by using entire families as mirrors to one another. Giving your protagonist a second family—maybe a friend’s family, or another group of characters that acts as a family—to observe and spend time with can give her a new perspective on the function or meaning of family and motivate her to make other changes in hopes of improving her own family situation.

Typically a mirror family and its impact on the protagonist falls into one of three categories:

• Bright: This mirror family demonstrates more love, trust, or other qualities that the protagonist finds desirable, usually because her own family lacks these qualities. It therefore shows the protagonist that positive examples of families, or more positive ways of being a family, really do exist.
• Broken: This mirror family shocks or horrifies the protagonist (who comes from a happy family or views her family as boring or unbearable) with power struggles, abusive behaviors, and other harmful dynamics. As a result, it teaches the protagonist to be thankful for her family and to change her attitude for the better.
• Distorted: This family appears to be a Bright mirror until the protagonist learns a shocking truth or secret about the family that explains the tension or awkwardness she’s witnessed within their unit. She then realizes that no family is perfect and readjusts her perception or behavior toward her own family.

Exercise #3: Create a three-column table, with headings for “Bright,” “Broken,” and “Distorted.” Then, list any fictional families who act as a mirror to the protagonist’s family in the appropriate column. If it helps, write down why you believe each family is Bright, Broken, or Distorted. How many of each type can you identify? Which categories do you have an easy or challenging time identifying?

Exercise #4: Free-write about your protagonist and her family, including any stressful circumstances that will impact this family during the story (a divorce, moving house, abuse, etc.) and the protagonist’s attitudes toward each family member and her family as a whole. Then brainstorm a second family who could act as a mirror. What kind of mirror family would work best? How does this family differ from the protagonist’s? What will she learn from them? Make sure you consider the mirror family’s purpose in the overall story, how the protagonist meets this family, and what events make it necessary for her to spend time with them.

Using Major Life Events to Heighten Conflict

Weddings, divorces, birth of a child, death of a loved one—these and other major life events can change a family forever in profound and sometimes surprising ways. Such moments are also prime opportunities for highlighting the theme in question.

The key with these milestones is that they’re high-stress events. This stress will lead to extreme emotions (joy, exhaustion, grief, etc.) that rely on the nature of the event and on each character’s attitude toward these circumstances. It can also increase any existing tension between the characters involved. So while it’s normal for a bride and her mother to argue about wedding-planning details, any ongoing conflicts between these characters (for example, if the mother has control issues, or if the daughter is careless with her finances) could exacerbate their situation.

Don’t be afraid of complicating things for your story’s family. Conflict gives a story momentum and enriches it with emotion. Plus, it’s a part of family life, no matter if the family is biological or “found.” By building conflict naturally into relationships, everyday occurrences, and major events, you’ll ensure the family you’re creating will function just as any real-life family would.

Exercise #5: Create a grid or table that outlines how each member of your story’s family would feel toward or act during different major life events and any strains this would place on the family as a whole. For example, would the older sister be jealous if her younger sister got engaged first? Which child would be more emotional over the loss of their father? Does the mother go overboard when planning parties for these milestone? Will certain characters remain clear-headed and even-keeled in these situations? Then, write a scene using one of the scenarios you’ve brainstormed, using the questions and elements from Activities #1 and #2 above.

How have you explored family in your own stories? What other writing prompts or exercises would you recommend to help nurture this theme?

Sara Letourneau is a freelance editor and writing coach based in Massachusetts. She’s currently taking clients with manuscripts in speculative fiction, literary fiction, or YA, though she’s open to other genres as well. She’s also a poet whose work has appeared in Amethyst Review, Canary, Muddy River Poetry Review, Soul-Lit, and elsewhere. A Massachusetts resident, she can often be found performing her poems at local open mic nights, reading good books, and enjoying a cup of tea. Learn more about how Sara can help you with your writing at Heart of the Story Editorial & Coaching Services. You can also connect with her at her writer website, Twitter, Goodreads, or Instagram.

The post Exercises for Exploring the Theme of Family in Your Writing appeared first on DIY MFA.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying conflict isn’t important. It’s absolutely essential. But giving broad labels to the types of conflicts a character may face does little to help a writer understand the utility of conflict to a story.

And what is that utility? Well, there’s what conflict means for a character and what it means for a reader. For the character, conflict is the catalyst for character transformation—be it a small change or a large one. But I’d argue that the conflict that really matters is the one the reader experiences subjectively.

Writers need to examine conflicts for their effect on readers even more than for their effects on the characters within the stories. So, I present five situations writers can craft in order to create conflict within the reader.

1) Classic Conflict

I like James Scott Bell’s definition of conflict: “a clash between at least two incompatible sides,” one of which “must be personal, that is, having the ability to exercise conscious will.”

Examples abound, of course. Katniss battles the other tributes, Harry battles Voldemort, Elizabeth Bennett argues with Darcy. Climax scenes usually fall back on this most tried and true method of engaging readers, but you’ll find smaller conflicts throughout every story.

Readers observe the conflict, uncertain about the outcome. Will the character we’re watching “exercise his will” to triumph or lose? Our minds mirror the conflict in the story as we can see the outcome going either way. It’s that uncertainty, that conflict within readers, which keeps them reading.

2) Threat

But you don’t need actual conflict to occur to the character in order to create that uncertainty within readers. You can create threat, which is the potential for conflict or trouble.

For example, have a protagonist navigate a menacing setting on the way to a destination. Fill it with darkness or shadows or creepy-crawlies or some other ultimately harmless atmospherics and you’ll have readers worrying.

It’s not even necessary that the character worries. You know all those scenes in horror stories that have characters innocently going to the basement for some menial errand? Those characters need not worry. Nor is it necessary that they encounter a murderer in the basement.

It’s enough just to have the readers crawling out of their skin.

3) Mystery

Threat brings up a very important concept: that the reader may have a different understanding of story events than the characters. Writers can capitalize on that concept by creating mystery.

Mystery occurs when the reader knows less than the characters. And in an effort to make sense of the mysteries presented them, readers experience a small struggle to synthesize the new information.

Thus, when we read that “The drone arrived at 11:00 with the red box,” we formulate some nascent theories about the world and the plot of the story, theories that are then put to the test, challenged, and revised as we continue reading.

Story beginnings are particularly well-suited to mystery. We often don’t know enough about the context or the characters to be engaged in the outcome of a classic conflict in the first paragraphs of a story. But mystery is like a toddler tugging at our sleeves for attention. Take, for example, the first line of Madeline Miller’s Circe: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.”

4) Surprise

Any time readers meet with the unexpected, they experience surprise. That unexpected revelation may or may not be a conflict for the character. It is in the case of Luke finding out that Darth Vader is his father.

But heist stories, for instance, (like Oceans 11—or 12 or 13 or 8) often have revelations about what clever mechanism or behind-the-scenes plot got the heroes to their current success.

Such revelations are not conflicts for the characters. But they create conflict as the reader has to re-evaluate assumptions. The ending of Carmen Maria Machado’s short story “The Husband Stitch” has exactly that effect on readers. The final revelation is not a surprise for the protagonist, but it forces the reader to grapple with the new understanding.

5) Expectation

We can think in broad terms about how reader anticipation provokes a sort of conflict: a prediction is formulated and then tested, challenged. Threat is a form of negative anticipation, in which readers predict problems. But readers can feel some subjective conflict from an opposite, positive anticipation.

We’ll call it expectation: when we predict success or good fortune for the character.

The protagonist meets a very cute romantic interest, for example. They hit it off. No clash, no conflict. Eventually, sure, there may be complications in the romance plot. But even at the first uncomplicated meeting, the reader experiences that subjective conflict in daring to hope.

Any time change is possible for characters, readers will feel tension in weighing what that change might mean.

So there you go. Five ways for writers to make the most of conflict in stories. Not all of them portray conflict experienced by the characters. But all five create conflict for the reader. And that’s what we’re after.

T.D. Storm is an award-winning writer and teacher whose work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, and Literary Hub. His passion for storytelling and its inner workings informs his teaching, editing, and mentoring. He runs an online writing school (stormwritingschool.com), which offers articles, worksheets, and courses geared toward helping writers hone their craft of engaging and moving stories. You can also connect with him on Facebook and Pinterest.

The post #5onFri: Five Ways to Create Conflict Within Your Reader appeared first on DIY MFA.

I keep reading online about readers not being invested in a story because the stakes are not high enough. I feel these people are saying your conflict isn’t interesting unless someone is at risk of dying or something.

My question is, is this true? Do I really need to up my stakes to the max, even though it wouldn’t really make sense in my story? Does someone’s life or the world need to be at stake in order for a story to be considered good?

Kind regards,

How Do I Raise the Stakes?

Dear HDIRtS,

When people say they’re not invested in a story because the stakes are not high enough, it’s possible they’re saying they’re not interested in a conflict unless the characters are at risk of death, blood, and world-ending mayhem. But depending on the type of story you’re writing, your stakes may not be tied to death, blood, and mayhem. Believe it or not, someone could write a story that includes explosions and the possible annihilation of the human race and still not have high enough stakes. Why? If your character doesn’t stand to lose anything by those events, then they don’t actually do anything to raise the stakes of the story.

So What Are The Stakes?

What readers likely mean when they say that the stakes aren’t high enough is that they can’t connect with what your character stands to lose if they fail to achieve the story’s goal. Your job as a writer is to show them why they should care about what happens, by showing them why your character cares.

So how do you identify your story’s stakes? Let’s take a look at your character’s goals and motivations to answer that question. Here are three questions you can ask to figure out the stakes in your story.

1. Who or what does your character care about most? (motivation)
2. What are they trying to achieve through the plot? (goal)
3. What will happen if they do/don’t achieve their goal? (stakes)

The more clearly defined your answers to these three questions, the easier it will be to figure out when and how to raise the stakes in your story.

Much Ado About Nothing

Try to avoid setting your stakes too low. You have to convince your readers that the consequences of your character failing to achieve their goal matters to them. But more than that, you have to convince the reader that the consequences are something that could actually happen, and would be painful to endure. At the same time, don’t set your stakes at the highest they possibly could be at the beginning of the story. Your reader wants to know that your characters are going somewhere.

A good story arc includes a change in the motivation, the goal, or the stakes in order to keep the plot rolling forward. Sometimes the easiest way to show the stakes is to set a shortened time frame. The ticking clock naturally raises the stakes with each minute/hour/day that goes by. For example, in How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, protagonist Andi Anderson has 10 days to meet a guy, get him to fall for her, and then get him to leave her (goal). If she does this she will earn prestige at her job (motivation). If she doesn’t do it, she may lose her job (stakes). When Andi realizes on Day 8 that what she wants most is to win Ben instead of lose him, the change in motivation and the limited timeframe raises the stakes: instead of worrying about losing her job, she’s afraid of losing someone she loves.

Reader Expectations

Whether the stakes of your story are high enough comes down to setting your reader’s expectations early in the story and then following through. Show your character’s wants, their needs, and what they’re risking in order to achieve those ends. If your character isn’t risking anything, your story’s arc will fall flat. But you don’t have to threaten to blow up the world in order to raise the stakes. You just have to threaten to blow up your character’s world.

How to “Ask the Editor”

Send your questions to ekauffman@writingrefinery.com. Limit yourself to a few paragraphs to introduce yourself and the problem at hand. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” after all. And keep an eye out for opportunities to send in longer submissions for critique.

Elisabeth Kauffman is a freelance editor in California. Her favorite genres are YA fantasy, sci-fi, and romance. She regularly obsesses over board games, Doctor Who, and Harry Potter. Come share your ideas with her on Facebook and Twitter and on the web at www.writingrefinery.com. Also, check out her author website and her author page on Facebook.

The post Ask the Editor: How to Raise the Stakes appeared first on DIY MFA.

Robin is the author of two dark, sexy, romance novels, and is a super advocate for the romance genre. Her next series, of three dark stalker suspense romances,  releases this summer through St. Martin’s Press Swerve, beginning with Stranger.

In our interview, Robin and I dive into the rarely spoken of domain of sex in romance writing, and tease apart the numerous craft elements of this complex and often overlooked genre.

In this episode Robin and I discuss:

• Why sex should or should not be included in a romance novel, and how to craft sex scenes the right way.
• How to create tension and faster pacing by switching back and forth between the hero and the heroine.
• How to craft a sympathetic anti-hero your readers will want a happy ending for.
• How to use the inner conflict within a character—the wanting and not wanting—to create steamier love scenes.
• What the business and legal aspects of romance writing entail, and how organizations like the Romance Writers of America (RWA) champions the genre.

Plus, Robin’s  #1 tip for writers.

About the Author

Robin Lovett writes dark, sexy contemporary romances, and her next series releases this summer through St. Martin’s Press Swerve, beginning with Stranger.

Robin enjoys writing romance to avoid the more unsavory things in life, like day jobs, housework, and personal demons. When not writing with her cat, she’s busy embracing untamable curly hair and adventuring in the outdoors with her husband.

She’s a super advocate for the romance genre and co-host of #RWChat, a weekly Twitter chat for romance writers. You can check out her monthly writing column on DIY MFA. She is represented by Rachel Brooks of the L. Perkins Agency and can be happily reached on Twitter @LovettRomance. To learn more about Robin and her books, visit her website at www.romancelovett.com

Stranger

Warning: This book is a scorching, intense romance novel featuring an anti-hero out to get revenge against the trust-fund woman whose family destroyed his life.

This isn’t supposed to be a love story. She doesn’t want him to sweep her off her feet, and he is far from her knight in shining armor. He wants to ruin her life. But even the simplest plans for revenge can go wrong.

Check out this teaser…

I like the way he watches me, this man I don’t know. It’s something I’ll never confess to, never tell a soul. But with one look of those penetrating eyes, I feel as if he’s unwrapped me, turned me inside out, rubbed away at my trust-fund-holding, good-girl exterior until I’m raw and exposed.

He looks like he wants to destroy me. Like he wants to obliterate me and my shallow, perfect life until there’s nothing left.

And once I meet Logan, I want him to.

I hate Penny Vandershall.

I hate her money and her family and her privilege. I hate her innocence and her smile and her shine. I want to annihilate her lightness and consume her with my darkness, my anger, my red-hot rage until there is nothing left of her.

I know the truth about her, the truth that will make it easy to bring her down. To ruin her for good. But through the blinding haze of my hatred, my burning need for revenge, she’s starting to get to me. She looks at me in wide-eyed fear, like a girl approaching the tiger’s cage. And yet she refuses to walk away; edging closer until she can meet the beast who wants to rip her apart.

And even though I set out to ruin her, she may be the one to destroy me.

If you decide to check out Stranger—or you’d like pre-order Deceiver and Keeper—we hope you’ll do so via these affiliate links where if you choose to purchase DIY MFA makes a small commission at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 151

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 151: Let’s Talk About Sex (in Romance Novels) — Interview with Robin Lovett appeared first on DIY MFA.

Today, we’ll study the protagonist-antagonist relationship as part of our ongoing series Developing Themes In Your Stories. This post also features brainstorming and writing activities that can help you during any stage of the writing process.

Know Your Antagonist As Intimately As You Know Your Protagonist

Antagonists are no different from other characters in our stories. We should know them inside and out – even as well as we know our protagonists – so we can make them believable and (as crazy as it may sound) sympathetic. It’s sensible and fair, since both characters will oppose each other throughout the story.

Before you start writing your story, spend some quality time with your antagonist. What are his goals and desires? His strengths and weaknesses? His fears and vulnerabilities? How did his childhood or any traumatic experiences influence who he is now? The questions in this DIY MFA post by Becca Jordan and Activity #1 of Part 1 of Developing Themes in Your Stories (The Character Arc) can also help.

Activity #1: Free-write for 30 minutes about your WIP’s antagonist. Examine as much about this character as possible, from qualities and flaws to goals for the future and traumatic experiences from his/her past. If you’ve already explore your protagonist’s arc themes, use the questions you explored then for this exercise as well.

Pit the Antagonist’s Goals Against the Protagonist’s

If the protagonist and the antagonist are going to spend so much time at each other’s throats (both figuratively and literally), they should have conflicting goals. What those goals are will depend on which element acts as your story’s seed:

• If you think of plot / external conflict first… Consider what needs to be resolved by the end of the story. What will the protagonist need to do to achieve this resolution? How would the antagonist’s role conflict with this? Why?
• If you think of characters first… Consider what the protagonist needs or wants to accomplish. How could the antagonist prevent this from happening? Why?

In either case, remember to ask “why.” Why does the antagonist want what he wants? Why doesn’t he share the protagonist’s goal? Understanding the root of the antagonist’s desires will inform other aspects of the antagonist’s character, including the measures he’s willing to take to reach his goals and his potential reaction if his worst fears come true.

Don’t forget that different types of antagonists exist. Usually they come in the form of other characters. However, the environment, the government or an organization, or even the protagonist’s darker self can also play the role. In all cases, the antagonist’s goal or function should hinder the protagonist’s ability to reach her goal. Here are two examples:

• William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: Romeo and Juliet (protagonists) want to be together, but they come from rival families (antagonists) who won’t approve of their relationship. (Antagonist = other characters)
• Scott O’Dell’s Black Star, Bright Dawn: Bright Dawn (protagonist) takes her father’s place in the Iditarod sled race so she can win the prize money for her family. However, the wintry Alaskan wilderness and Bright Dawn’s fellow sledders (antagonists) stand in her way. (Antagonists = other characters, environment)

Activity #2: Using the antagonist from Activity #1, compare his goals with those of the protagonist from the same WIP. How and why do these goals conflict with one another? What is the antagonist willing to do in order to get what he wants? Once you have these answers, write an opposition statement for your WIP that’s similar to the sample statements above.

Ensure There’s a “Why” to Their Interactions

Not only should the antagonist and the protagonist have opposing goals, but their conflict needs to play out on the page. These scenes should also have a reason for occurring. In other words, why these characters interact is just as important as how those interactions unfold.

Consider the “how” first. What kinds of scenes do the antagonist and the protagonist share? What do they talk about? How do they behave toward one another? Then, determine the “why.” What do these characters want from each other right now? Why do they act toward one another the way they do? It’s also possible to start with the “why” and then determine the best way of portraying it through a scene.

This can be tricky if the antagonist is abstract (environment, the self) instead of human (other characters, an organization). In this case, you may want to look from the protagonist’s perspective and understand why she’s struggling. Take a look at the Black Star, Bright Dawn example below. Even though nature doesn’t “choose” to make the Iditarod treacherous, it still forces Bright Dawn to make difficult decisions.

• Romeo and Juliet: Romeo’s and Juliet’s relatives provoke each other to frequent public duels (action) because their families hate one another so strongly (reason).
• Black Star, Bright Dawn: The other racers quickly become the least of Bright Dawn’s worries. She and her dogs must constantly fight for survival (action) thanks to the countless natural obstacles – sub-zero temperatures, blizzards, and wild animals, for starters – along the way (reason).

Activity #3: Review any scenes in your WIP that feature the antagonist and the protagonist. What happens in these scenes? What dialogue do the characters share? What actions do they take? How do they act and react toward one another? Most importantly, why do their interactions play out in this manner?

Get to the Heart of Their Conflict

Why should we know the reasons for the antagonist’s and protagonist’s interactions and conflicting goals? Believe it or not, those reasons represent your story’s themes.

Our working definition of “theme” reminds us that themes a) are high-level concepts that recur throughout a story, and b) tie in with the protagonist’s “driving forces” (goals, fears, and desires). Since the protagonist’s goals impact the antagonist’s and vice versa, it makes sense that the antagonist’s “driving forces” would also influence theme. After all, the protagonist-antagonist relationship is part of the blood that fuels a story’s heart.

Once you’ve examined how the protagonist and antagonist affect one another, see what themes rise out of their relationship. Review each character’s motivations and the reasons for their actions and reactions. What are they individually fighting for? Do their fundamental values differ? Or, are they more similar than the characters – and you – had originally thought?

Which themes emerge from our two examples’ protagonist-antagonist relationships? Maybe you’ve already guessed some of these based on our previous exercises:

• Romeo and Juliet: Love, family, marriage, hate
• Black Star, Bright Dawn: Man versus nature, competition, family, perseverance

Activity #4: Revisit your answers to Activities #2 and #3. What high-level ideas or concepts emerge from the protagonist-antagonist conflict? How do they reveal themselves through the characters’ competing goals and their interactions?

If you like to use the three-act story structure, then our next installment of Developing Themes In Your Stories should pique your interest. Come back in August, when we’ll discuss the plot point at the end of Act I.

What are some topics you’d like to see featured at Theme: A Story’s Soul? Share your thoughts by commenting below or tweeting me at @SaraL_Writer with the hashtag #AStorysSoul

Sara Letourneau is a Massachusetts-based writer who practices joy and versatility in her work. In addition to writing for DIY MFA, she’s revising a YA fantasy novel and reviewing tea for A Bibliophile’s Reverie. Her poetry has appeared in The Curry Arts Journal, Soul-Lit, The Eunoia Review, Underground Voices, and two anthologies. Learn more about Sara at her personal blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

The post Developing Themes In Your Stories: Part 7 – The Antagonist-Protagonist Relationship appeared first on DIY MFA.

• “Decorating” the living room with shredded articles of mail
• Skulking atop the fridge and swatting at our heads as we pass by
• Pouncing on and harassing the other feline inhabitants of the household, and…
• Using the hand that feeds him as a chew toy.

The job of the antagonist is to make life difficult for the protagonist, and those difficulties occur because the antagonist becomes an obstacle blocking the protagonist from what he or she wants.  If heroine needs to escape from the tower, the antagonist is the dragon that blocks her way.  If sleuth wants to solve the crime, the antagonist is the criminal who’s masterminded the dastardly plot, making it (nearly) impossible to crack.  If the hero wants something as simple as a glass of water, the antagonist becomes the drought that keeps him parched.

But not every story has a villain, but regardless of style or genre, there is always an antagonist.  In fact, villains are a subcategory of antagonists so while all villains are antagonists, not all antagonists are villains.  Here’s a quick rundown on the difference between the two.

Antagonist

The antagonist is a force, entity or person that gets in the way of the character getting what he or she wants.  The antagonist does not have to be human, nor must it even be a sentient being.  Antagonists can be “bad guys” but they can also be natural disasters, an oppressive society or even the protagonist himself.  The antagonist is the protagonist’s worst enemy within the context of the story.  This means that someone or something that is an antagonist in the story may not necessarily be evil or even all that antagonizing in another context.  For instance, the storm in The Perfect Storm is the antagonist for the men on the boat, but for the people on shore, sure it’s a big scary storm but it’s not really an antagonist.

Another example is the book Wicked by Gregory Maguire in which the story of Oz is told through the point of view of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.  In the original story of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is the protagonist and the wicked witch is the antagonist.  In Wicked, Elphaba becomes the protagonist, the character we root for and the Wizard (among others) become the antagonists.

There are six basic types of antagonists.

Notice that of all these options, only the first one constitutes an actual villain as the antagonist.

• Protagonist vs. Another Character (villain)
• Protagonist vs. Nature
• Protagonist vs. Society
• Protagonist vs. Technology
• Protagonist vs. Supernatural Forces
• Protagonist vs. Self

Villain

The villain is a character who is at odds with the protagonist.  This character specifically wants to prevent the protagonist from getting what he or she wants.  While it’s tempting to paint villain characters as pure evil, it is far more compelling when a villain has a streak of good.  Even more so, when the author shows the motivation behind the villain’s actions, the reader is able to understand why the villain is in conflict with the protagonist.  Villains are not usually all-bad, they’re just misunderstood.

Just like the Bad Cat, whose behavior has vastly improved after some treats and playtime with the mouse-toy.

The post Villains vs. Antagonists appeared first on DIY MFA.

Back in January, I had the opportunity to hear Donald Maass speak at the Writer’s Digest Conference, and it was in listening to his talk on building strong characters that I discovered what I now refer to as the “opposite attracts” theory.  According to Maass, there are 3 basic types of protagonists: the Everyman, the Hero/Heroine and the Dark Protagonist (or what I like to call the Misunderstood Character).  I had heard similar categories mentioned in writing workshops so this concept was not entirely new to me.  What was new, though, was Maass’ approach for getting to know your protagonist.

In getting to know a character, the first most obvious step would be to figure out who the character is, right?  Wrong.  Actually, Maass suggested the exact opposite.  For each of the three types of protagonist, he said we should look at who the character could be, not necessarily who the character already is.

Everyman Character:

For the Everyman character, this means trying to figure out what makes this character inspiring, what pushes him to rise to the occasion.  Instead of focusing on how “normal” or ordinary this character is, the writer needs to pinpoint this character’s ability to be extraordinary, even if it’s only in a small way.  Sometimes all it takes is a little push, one button that you press to send your character out of inertia and make him or her respond.  For example, remember the movie Back To The Future?  The protagonist, Marty McFly, often resists getting into fights but all it takes is for somebody to call him “chicken” and he springs into action.  With Everyman characters, you often have to find the equivalent of calling them “chicken,” that breaking point that makes your character go from ordinary to extraordinary.

Examples of Everyman Characters: Frodo, Dorothy from Wizard of OZ, Harry Potter

To make an Everyman character come to life, ask yourself the following questions:

• What would it take for this character to “rise to the occasion”?
• What kind of situation can I put this character in that would make him or her go above and beyond?
• What’s this character’s breaking point, that button you can press to make him or her take action?

Hero/Heroine:

With the Hero/Heroine, the goal is a bit different.  Sure, this character is extraordinary–maybe even superhuman–but what makes him or her normal?  How can the writer show us a hint of this character’s humanity?  It’s up to the writer to give the Hero/Heroine character a soft spot, something that brings him or her down from the pedestal and lets the reader think: “I can relate to that.”  Movie-makers call this the pet-the-dog moment.  The pet-the-dog moment is where tough tough guy protagonist pets a stray dog in the alley, smiles and says “Better get outta here, little Fella.  There’s gonna be trouble.” That small action shows us the character’s human side and makes him sympathetic to the audience.

Examples of Hero/Heroine Characters: Superman, James Bond, Harry Potter

When dealing with a Hero/Heroine, ask yourself:

• What is this character’s soft spot or vulnerability?
• How can I create a pet-the-dog moment for this character to show this quality?

Misunderstood Character: (AKA Dark Protagonist)

Finally, with the Misunderstood Character, you need to show a glimmer of light.  This character is wounded, lost, or condemned to suffer (or maybe he’s just whiny, we’re never quite sure), but we have to see a moment where he or she can find hope.  This is true for Dark Antagonists as well as Dark Protagonists; in fact, many Misunderstood characters are actually antagonists in the story.  Remember, it’s important to give our villains depth and not just do that for our protagonists.  After all, if a villain is totally evil to the core, then that makes for a flat character, but if we see a hint of goodness in the character it makes the villain come to life.  With misunderstood characters it’s all about seeing that moment when the clouds part and we see a little bit of hope, even if things still end up going down the tubes in the end.

Examples of Misunderstood Characters: Darth Vader, Severus Snape, Holden Caulfield, Harry Potter
(Notice that some characters–ahem, Harry Potter–can fall into more than one category.  Interesting…)

If you’ve got a Misunderstood Character on your hands, try these questions:

• What will it take to bring this character out of that dark, dark place?
• What’s this character’s source of hope?

Why does the “opposites attract” writing exercise work?

Because it shows the reader the character’s potential for change.  We’ve all heard writing teachers tell us that our protagonist needs to change, but rarely do they ever tell us how to do it.  By using Maass’ character archetypes and showing hints that they could be the opposite of what they are, we give our characters the chance to change.  In other words, the ordinary character needs to have the potential to do something extraordinary, the superhuman character must become at least a little bit vulnerable, and the condemned character must discover a glimmer of hope.

Sometimes it’s scary when our characters turn around and do the opposite of what we want them to do.  I know when that happens to me, it seriously makes me question my sanity.  But the truth is, when our characters misbehave or surprise us, that’s when we know that they’re becoming real.

The post A Simple Writing Exercise That Will Bring Your Character to Life appeared first on DIY MFA.