South Surrey, British Columbia, is by most estimates upscale. While townhouse developments are spreading like weeds, single family homes are the norm. They are not cheap. They are large, with impossibly green lawns and fresh haircut landscaping. There are winding streets and cul de sacs that do not invite through traffic. Kids are driven to school in luxury cars. Shopping centers have spas and the furniture for sale in home décor stores looks like it was built for a race of giants. There are no dive bars, only a wine bar and microbrewery. You get the idea. A nice place. Quiet. Conformist. Voted Conservative in the last election.
Which is why one morning last August, it was shocking to learn of a shooting at the drive-by window of the Starbucks at the Southpoint Exchange shopping center, a few scant miles from where I live. Yellow police tape? At my regular Starbucks? My wife and kids drove into the Southpoint Exchange parking lot not an hour later to see a fleet of police cars flashing their red and blue disco lights. Two suspects were quickly apprehended and on TV the story behind the shooting was also quickly reduced to two words: Hell’s Angels.
Things like that don’t happen here.
Which, in a way, is a factor that plays into writing a story: normal people with relatable lives and feelings are thrust into situations that are not normal, are not experienced by the rest of us, and which are extreme. It can’t happen here.
In genre stories, we’re used to that. Dead bodies. Future cities and far away planets. Vampires in warehouse night clubs. Sure. The extraordinary is normal and, for readers, safe and fun. Things like that don’t happen here. But whether an intentionally unreal genre story, or a story grounded in a recognizable world, the job of the storyteller is to relate a tale about what doesn’t normally happen.
I mention this because writers with whom I work and whom I teach sometimes get stuck. They say things like, I don’t know what should happen here…something…I’m just not sure what. Well, okay. If you think in terms that are realistic, or make rigid story rules, or create characters who “wouldn’t do that”, then you may well hit a point where story events grind to a halt.
Sometimes imagination just plain stalls, as well. You don’t know how to move forward, can’t think what a character ought to do, or feel stymied because the options feel small or not dramatic enough. You know something big is needed but what? Friends’ suggestions are good but don’t fit your novel. Your story world isn’t like that.
Things like that don’t happen there.
The Place Where Things Happen
Lately I’ve been reading novels set at lakes. I like lakes. They make me think of summer, cabins, canoes, Sunfish sail boards, suntanned kids, ice cream stores, farm stands, book barns, long evenings and short romances. Ordinary stuff. Feel good stuff. Lakes have a summertime appeal, a halter top allure. The pleasures in store are lemonade sweet and barbecue safe. I want to go to lakes, which probably is why I am reading novels set at them.
However, novels are not about the ordinary. Not ordinary events. Not ordinary people, with ordinary pasts. The calm surface of lake stories belies their cold depths. There are secrets sunk in lakes. Their very charm and ease invite disruption. What’s dangerous about lakes can be as much the people as the water.
The premise of J.P. Smith’s The Drowning (2019) is self-explanatory. A boy at a summer camp in the Berkshire’s drowns, but not under ordinary circumstances. An arrogant counselor, Alex Mason, left him on a raft in the middle of the lake, only to scare him. Teach him a lesson. Twenty years later, Alex is a successful real estate developer with a beautiful family. You probably can see where this is going. The water in Alex’s swimming pool is dyed red. When the swimming pool is drained, words are chiseled on its concrete bottom: “Remember Me.” Pictures of Alex with his mistress are texted to his wife. Every guest room in one of the hotels that Alex owns is filled with rats. Someone IM’s Alex’s daughters.
Joey is back—or is he?
The creep factor in The Drowning is high. So, let me ask you this: In your WIP, how creepy are you willing to get? How weird? How scary? Not your kind of novel? Maybe so, but your WIP has a mood. It’s intended to invoke a certain feeling in your readers. Excitement. Anticipation. Mirth. Dread. Anger. Resolve. How deliberately do you provoke those feelings? Are you okay with letting your readers off the hook?
In Sarah J. Henry’s Learning to Swim (2011), Troy Chance witnesses a small child tumbling off a ferry on Lake Champlain. Troy dives in and pulls the little boy to the surface…only to see the ferry sail away. She swims a mile to shore with the boy, saving his life, but instead of gratitude she is met with mystery. No one claims the boy, who speaks only French. He doesn’t know his name. A freelance writer, Troy sets out to learn the truth. She quickly locates the boy’s father, Philippe Dumond, in Ottawa, who tells her the boy, Paul, was kidnapped five months before, but the story is suspicious. When she suggests he bring favorite clothes or toys to his son, he has already boxed them up as if not expecting the boy to return. Troy reunites the father and son, but pieces of his story do not add up. His wife was shot by the kidnappers—or was she? As Troy grows more deeply involved with Philippe, is she safe or sinking into peril?
Learning to Swim is driven by twin forces: Troy’s care for the boy, Paul, and a mystery which is spun out until the story’s final pages. So, let me ask you this: In your WIP, how much mystery are 
you building? How much are you withholding from your readers, and for how long? Not your type of story? That’s fine, but what is any story if not a mystery; a raising of questions which require answers?
People are mysteries. The past is a mystery. The truth of things is never certain. You can use back story to explain your characters’ motivations, or you can save that. You can explain everything about your story’s location to your readers, or you can withhold that knowledge. What’s going on in the story and why can be obvious, or it can be a puzzle, it is all a matter of your intent—and skill—as a storyteller.
Sarah Addison Allen’s Lost Lake (2014), centers around a lake of that name in southern Georgia, where widowed Kate Pheris escapes with her daughter, Devin. The lake and its visitor cabins are wholly owned by Kate’s great aunt Eby Pim, whom she has met only once as a teenager. The lake has been a beloved retreat for many, but the property has fallen on hard times and Eby has at last decided to sell it to a developer. In the last summer former guests return each, like Kate, looking for something they have lost. This being a Sarah Addison Allen novel, you can expect a good deal of warmth, healing, Southern charm and a hint of magic.
What makes Allen’s novel stand out is the richly imagined cast of characters, beginning with Eby herself who when young married a rich man and honeymooned with him in Paris long past the point of propriety. However, one foggy night they witnessed a heartbroken girl fling herself from the Bridge of the Untrue. Upon returning to America, they gave away their wealth, bought Lost Lake and distanced themselves from their families. In the present, Eby’s husband George has passed but she still shares the place with Lost Lake’s mute cook, Lisette…who was the girl who long ago flung herself from the bridge in Paris.
Interested? How can you not be? There is nothing at all ordinary about Eby or any of the others at Lost Lake. There’s Jack Humphrey, a podiatrist who has been in love with Lisette for years. There’s Selma, who possesses eight charms to marry the man she wants, and has used seven of them. There’s Wes, a Lost Lake neighbor, who has been crushing on Kate since her one summer visit long ago when they were sixteen. There are the alligators said to live in the lake, which fascinate Devin. Then there’s Kate’s manipulative, ice cold mother-in-law, Cricket Pheris, who is famous for her heart-warming and utterly phony real estate TV commercials. The last summer of Lost Lake will for each of them be a final farewell to the past…and for each the beginning of a new future.
So, let me ask you: How eccentric and unexpected are your WIP’s secondary characters? Does each have a quirk, an interesting back story, an impossible desire, or a built-in contradiction? Why not? When fascinating people are around, fascinating things happen. People who aren’t ordinary don’t act in ordinary ways. They can’t. That goes for protagonists too.
Making Things Happen Here
Let’s turn all that into practical ways to get your story unstuck. Here are some prompts…
What is the dominant mood of your novel? Romantic? Terrifying? Mysterious? Magical? What the most romantic, terrifying, mysterious or magical event you can imagine? Make it happen here.
What do you want your readers to feel? Anticipation? Dread? Desire? Sorrow? Hilarity? What, for you, would make you feel that way? Make that happen here.
What is your protagonist’s darkest back story event? Elevate it. Make it bigger. Make it worse. Give it a name. Now bury it. What behavior is a clue to what is buried? How can that cause trouble? Make that happen here.
Pick a secondary character. Give that character a celebrated or notorious past. What is true about it? What is exaggerated? What is pure myth? Build that in, then expose the truth.
What has happened in your story world that is fabled, legendary, peculiar or horrific? Make it happen again.
Pick a character to make eccentric. Pick another to make tragic. Pick another to handicap. Pick another to fall in love, especially if the match is unlikely. Make it happen here.
What can your protagonist do next that is intuitive? Unexpected? A huge risk? An over-the-top gambit? Dangerous? Shrewd? Foolish but brave? Out of character? An action that will be recounted as legend? The hardest possible thing to do? Make that happen here.
If you are stuck and asking what should happen next, head straight for what cannot happen. That’s the direction you want to go. The goal is not to play within the rules, but to break them. Story is not about what is realistic, reasonable, safe and ordinary. It is about the extreme things that happen to people who are not ready. It’s about the dramatic things that people like you and me might do—but do not—under duress.
Story is what we can’t imagine, but which you can. Make it happen here.
What will you make happen in your WIP that doesn’t happen ordinarily? What will your protagonist do that us regular people do not?
About Donald Maass
Donald Maass (he/him) is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. He has written several highly acclaimed craft books for novelists including The Breakout Novelist, The Fire in Fiction, Writing the Breakout Novel and The Career Novelist.
Don, your story about the shooting is terrifying. We had something similar happen a few miles from here two years ago. It brings things home in a visceral way when you can get in your car and drive past the scene of a horrible crime. And if I read you right this morning, you’re reminding us that so does well-crafted fiction. I’m working on a first draft and at the front of my mind is ‘rate of revelation’ combined with narrative drive. I’m looking for this in the fiction I read. And I’m adding your lake books to my TBR list. Thanks!
“The rate of revelation”. Wow, that’s an awesome story structure concept. May I steal that? No wait, may I use it and credit you?
I can’t lay claim to it. Someone trotted it out in a workshop and I jumped on it, so its up for grabs. If you want, you can give me credit for recognizing its value! :)
I learn something every time you post. Thank you for the reminder to break from the ordinary and the expected to keep readers engaged!
You got the point, bravo.
Good stuff, Don. I recall a conversation we had some years ago, about Harlan Coben. After chapter 1 or 2 you’re going What? What! I think I mentioned the writer who did that better than anyone, before or since: Cornell Woolrich. And then there’s so much of Hitchcock, esp. North by Northwest. Ordinary man or woman, normal life, hit with a W?W!
And on minor characters, I’d add pick one or two to make us laugh, esp. in thrillers or dark mysteries. Shakespeare and Hitchcock both understood the value of comic relief to enhance ultimate suspense. (See, e.g., the two old mystery-reading buddies in Shadow of a Doubt egging each other on about the best ways to commit murder).
Cornell Woolrich is a god. Man could not write a bad story if he tried. And yes, the comic relief character! What an old-fashioned idea, unjustly neglected, and a great way to relieve suspense.
My favorite comic relief moment in North by Northwest is when Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are clinging by their fingertips to the face of Mount Rushmore. Saint says to Grant, “You never told me why your first wife left you.” He replies, “She said I led too dull a life.”
Hitchcock was a monster in some ways, but should we cancel his movies? Hmm.
Your first Wednesday posts always give me so much to work with and think about. And may I suggest another “lake” book, Mary Lawson’s CROW LAKE, her debut novel.
“Centerstage are the Morrisons, whose tragedy looks more immediate if less brutal, but is, in reality, insidious and divisive. Orphaned young, Kate Morrison was her older brother Matt’s protegee, her fascination for pond life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now a zoologist, she can identify organisms under a microscope but seems blind to the state of her own emotional life. And she thinks she’s outgrown her siblings—Luke, Matt, and Bo—who were once her entire world.”
Reading always stimulates creativity. And for some writers, lakes do too. As always, thanks.
Crow Lake is a favorite of mine, too. A lost gem.
Wow, I can’t believe I have missed Crow Lake–it was published in 2002! It sounds like the quintessential back-story-revisited novel. I’ll definitely read it now, thanks.
Awesome, Don. Just what I needed to get my mind OFF track. LOL.
Dee
Off the rails…good place to be…as a storyteller, I mean.
Great stuff.
Thank you
You’re welcome.
Hey Don—Good stuff today. And good timing, as usual. I’ve been thinking a lot about “it doesn’t happen here” versus, actually “going there.” Particularly in response to my latest read, The Rage of Dragons, by Evan Winter. In epic fantasy circles, TROD is… well, all the rage. And story gods abounding, does Winter “go there.” Rage’s hero, Tau, is sent spinning from the ordinary world by the murder of his father (sound familiar?). Tau is set on what seems an impossible course, striving to become an Ingonyama (A Chosen warrior elite, even though Tau is from a caste that cannot achieve this status). He does so seeking vengeance (of course, nothing too unusual there). But, wow—each step of the way is off-the-charts difficult and fraught. Tau actually learns to entrance himself, to send himself to Isihogo—a parallel-dimension demon-realm, where he draws skill and power by fighting demons and dying hundreds of deaths, only to be repeatedly reborn as an increasingly heartless and lethal killer. The first two acts are like a rollercoaster that has nothing but death-drops and corkscrew spins.
There’s even a forbidden romance angle for Tau, with one of the Gifted—females born with the power to Enrage, or lend power from Isihogo to a warrior in battle. It’s so perfectly aligned with Tau’s goals, and yet Winter “goes there” again, shattering expectation with a shocking twist.
After all of that: the amazing (and applicable) world-building; the fantastical elements that took me to storytelling eleven; the rollercoaster series of action scenes; the topsy-turvy surprises that never pulled punches; I felt… Surprisingly little.
In fact, I’m not sure I care enough about Tau and his fellows to read on when book two arrives. (Ah, who am I kidding? I’ll read on just for the immersive world-building—it’s really that good!)
Which has me wondering. Throughout the time spent reading TROD, I had mad author-crush and envy. All the way to resolution I was fretting about what I might be lacking as far as fantastical “going there.” I realize that it’s still on me to take it to another level, and to find a way to surprise and delight and devastate (ergo keep the pages turning). But I think I’ve come to see that it takes much more than a kickass rollercoaster to move readers and leave them feeling and thinking.
Say, this storytelling is a darn tough gig, isn’t it? We’ve not only got to keep lots of balls in the air, we’ve got to make the audience truly care about whether or not we’re going to drop each and every one. If only there were a book or five that might help us out. Particularly with that darn tricksey emotional craft of fiction.
Thanks, Don, for always “taking us there.” Or at least patiently guiding us to the jump. Hope from now on the stuff that ‘can’t happen here’ stays clear of your coffee joints, at least. Makes it easier to keep it on the page. Cheers.
Holy crap! How have I missed The Rage of Dragons? Just ordered it, thanks.
Terrific! I’ve been meaning to ask you about it. Looking forward to your take.
Stop. Don’t touch. Go tell an adult.
It doesn’t matter if you live in the city, suburbs, or out in farm country every kid needs to be told that rule. Popular fiction has moved away from the 80s Schwarzenegger/Stallone walking arsenals with their one-liners, but kids will always be curious about guns. A little discussion might prevent a tragedy.
Please excuse this digression. Your opening story hit my parent button this morning.
An important comment, James. There exists a gun tragedy in our widespread family. And it’s exactly that–they touched. And it could be a lake, a pool…
Mine as well, Beth.
*Condolences*
Oh, yes. Guns. For stories only. It’s a kid fascination in our house too, and I hate that. That said, in this safe space we speak of story, the enactment of the worst that can happen and the processing of our fears. As storytellers, it’s good to be…
…(I was going to say “triggered”. Oy. Horrible. I’ll think of something better.)
Thank you for the assignment at the end of this post. I’m an ordinary person, living an ordinary life, in the middle of ordinary Kansas.
In the space of seven years, four members of my family were murdered, one by strangers and three by a family member. Nothing has been ordinary since.
Because of my position in the family, I had to bottle my emotions. I find it difficult to get into the emotional roller-coaster that good novel writing requires. Your assignment will be printed, posted, and used.
Thank you.
Whoa. I’m so sorry. That is in no way ordinary, I wish in your case it was only story and not real. If you can turn it into story, though, perhaps that will, a little bit, redeem what you’ve been through? I hope so. Thank you.
Thanks. I am in the process of building a book, the second in a series. Considering the books and your questions at the end helped me to fill in an important hole in the story.
Perfect! Glad to hear it. That’s exactly why I write these posts.
My imagination is now fired up for March. (Am writing!) Thanks, Don.
Faster! Faster! We are waiting impatiently.
A well-timed post for me, Don, as I begin the next book. In a way, the idea for the book came out of what did not, could not happen when I cast someone unexpected in a college production of CAMELOT. Years later at a reunion, the student told me that his social group had told him not to audition, that I’d never cast him, and that it was a bad idea anyway. Made me wonder what might have happened that didn’t, and that wondering inspired me to start writing.
In the one I recently completed, there was a moment I knew something had to happen that I desperately didn’t want to happen. I followed that feeling and made it happen, but I don’t always do that. It’s all too likely that instead I’ll make it easy on the protagonist, and not too upsetting for the reader. Then I have to go back and rewrite. A lot.
I’m glad your wife and kids came along later to the shopping center…
It’s natural to go easy on protagonists, but also good to remember this: They’re not real. You can squeeze them through the wringer. Indeed, stories are better when you do.
As always, wonderful examples and tips to elevate our stories. Thank you, Don.
Most welcome, Vijaya.
Hi, Don:
As you can imagine, given my constant harping that “Backstory is Behavior” that I found this particularly compelling:
What is your protagonist’s darkest back story event? Elevate it. Make it bigger. Make it worse. Give it a name. Now bury it. What behavior is a clue to what is buried? How can that cause trouble? Make that happen here.
By “make it worse” I’d add specifically: make it particularly crippling to their sense of worth, sense of purpose, self-confidence. The behavior that should reveal itself should be some form of “Pathological Maneuver,” a way of thinking, reacting, and/or acting that seeks to bury that crippling event while at the same time making sure the individual never falls into that trap again. Then — find a way to shove them into that trap. (This conforms with the “repetition compulsion,” by which we are always unconsciously seeking to revisit past traumas to figure them out, heal, or simply pick at the scab.) Not only will leading them into the trap be a great way to create drama and surprise, it will create an opportunity for the character to change, to transcend the past.
I also have become increasingly attuned to “trickster” characters, looking at how they can change a story’s direction on a dime simply because of their contrary, mercurial natures. There’s a particularly compelling one in the British crime series GIRI/HAJI (Duty/Shame). A Japanese cop has to go to London to find his criminally connected brother and bring him home. The cop meets a half English, half Japanese “rent boy” who is devious, manipulative, cruel, and needy — but also insightful, wounded, playful, and funny (he has the show’s best lines by far). His capacity for both treachery and kindness keeps you constantly wondering what he’s going to do next — which means the story can at any time spin in a new and surprising direction any time he steps into a scene.
As always, delicious food for thought. Thanks so much.
To “make it worse”, we can add “make it personally devastating”. Yep, right there with you.
It’s a good day for me when I hear from both Mr. Bell and Mr. Corbett!
I always find your posts eminently shareable, Don. Thank you.
The main character in my WIP moves into a uniform factory breakroom to live with her newborn baby. That’s out of the ordinary. She’s a poor, teen who doesn’t want to move into state housing because she feels safer on the third floor of the factory above the owner running her business on the first floor unaware of her boarder. I was a teen mom and would never have moved into a factory with a newborn. Thank you for the post. Always good stuff.
Hello, Don. I do hope you and your loved ones are safe amid this current crisis facing the country/world today.
I always enjoy reading your posts and find so many valuable nuggets to apply to my own writing projects. Your book, “How to Write the Break-Out Novel” is a terrific guidebook into building an exciting story – as is this current post of yours.
My dilemma is this: I submitted a couple of my books to a Books-to-film competition and received wonderful critiques and feedback. They found my prose is well-written, the story well-sculpted and highly ambitious, and my passion for the story I’m telling is palpable., etc. However, one thing they highlighted that I do in multiple books is called a “too complex plot.” Meaning, lots of characters, multiple twists and turns, etc. They suggest I simplify for the purposes of film submission. I did reply that many a complex book has been adapted to film by skilled screenwriters, but readers seem to enjoy stories that keep them guessing and hold the suspense all the way to a surprising ending. This is how I like to write and your advice seems to bear that out.
Am I off base? I have a WIP that is a really juicy suspense fiction with all of those elements that you suggest and I love to write. I want to eventually catch the eye of an agent and want to be on the right track as I polish the manuscript. Is it possible to “simplify” and yet still “pile it on the protagonist,” have multiple back stories that are imperative and a variety of characters that are interesting and essential? I always thought so.
Sorry to go on so long. I value your insights.
Warm regards.