Hello and welcome back to my blog.

When writing your story you want to make your characters work, and work hard for what they’re trying to accomplish. This makes the story more interesting, builds anticipation in the reader. Makes them wonder not just whether or not the character will succeed – after all in most fiction the hero of the story usually does – but how.

After all, you need a villain who is hard to defeat, not one who can be brought down with a hangnail or a case of the sniffles.

An example that I use when writing the first draft of Burned, the book I wrote for NaNoWriMo, I have the main character Ryan Foster, in a car chase – two of them actually – and then caught in a blizzard when his car crashes into a blizzard. He also has to save the girl and keep her safe from bikers (a cliche maybe that a girl needs a man to save her).

Walking through the forest in the blizzard they have to find shelter, when they do they go through a few other problems as well. Sorry but I can’t give away too many details, if you want to find out what happens read the book when I publish it.

To make your characters work for what they have to accomplish, write down five to ten things that can throw a wrench into their plans. For example:

1. Their boat engine breaks down in the middle of a storm and they have to abandon ship to a life boat.
2. He or she is kidnapped and locked in a box
3. The man who was going to rescue her is killed and she has to rescue herself
4. The woman who is her boss was also her tormentor in high school
5. They need to start a fire, but their cigarette lighter is broken, their matches are water logged, and they’ve never started a fire using any other method so they have to learn quickly or risk dying of exposure to cold.

These are a few things that I came up with in a few minutes. Ideally you would want to spend thirty to sixty minutes doing this exercise.

I hope this helps you, make it a great day.