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5 Plot Hacks That Just Might Save Your Novel

Photo by Ron Lach

Today’s post is by regular contributor Susan DeFreitas (@manzanitafire), an award-winning author, editor, and book coach. On Thursday, Oct. 31, she’s offering a free masterclass on plot, The Bones of the Thing: The Truth About Plot (and the Most Common Plot Problems Writers Face).

I’ve said elsewhere on this blog that plot issues are the number one reason people come to me—and people like me—for help with their creative work.

And I’ve shared in the same post that most of the time, these issues really aren’t problems with plot at all. They’re problems with character arc.

That said, sometimes the problem really is the plot. Which is to say, sometimes the problem with a novel really is what happens in the story, the order in which it happens, and the way that it happens.

And for real problems of this nature, there are real solutions. Solutions that I have seen writers apply in revision that produce changes that feel nothing short of magical.

Struggling with the plot of your current work-in-progress? Maybe one of these tried and true solutions will do the trick for you.

1. Shorten the time frame

Some novels really just have to be big, sprawling epics that take place over a long period of time—perhaps even over generations. But most stories? Don’t.

If you have a novel that feels slow in places, a novel that chronicles a long period of time in the protagonist’s life, or a novel that chronicles a whole historical period … my best advice to you would be: See if there’s a way you can tighten the time frame overall.

Because when you tighten up the time frame, oftentimes those slow sections just somehow magically disappear. I believe this is in part due to the fact that when events occur close together in time, you get a stronger sense of cause and effect even if one event isn’t leading directly to the next. For instance, maybe your protagonist is still angry from her conversation with the antagonist the day before when he talks to his love interest later that day. If a week passed between these interactions, it wouldn’t feel like there was any connection between them.

But when you tighten up the time frame, that second interaction might feel like it’s invested with a whole lot more tension, because of the residual emotional effects of the first one.

For a novel that chronicles a long period of time in the protagonist’s life, you’re almost guaranteed to strengthen the sense of storytelling if you focus in on a shorter time frame—say, a turning point time in the protagonist’s life, which will still allow us to imaginatively fill in what happens in that longer span of time without having to plow through hundreds of pages of it.

Same thing for a novel that’s meant to chronicle a longer historical era: Focusing in on a turning point (or two or three) within that longer span of time will almost always have the effect of strengthening the story. Turning points have a lot of power, in that they give readers an opportunity to understand both what the situation was before as well as the new reality that’s coming into being.

2. Get rid of events (and characters!) that do the same work

If you’ve written a novel that’s waaaaaaay tooooo loooong (and you can determine that pretty quickly here if you know your genre—and you should!), then this may be a hard one to hear, because people who write novels that are way too long tend to feel rather attached to absolutely everything that happens within that novel, and everyone it happens with or to.

But trust me when I say, you can take this one to the bank: If there are two different events in your novel that have both been included in order to show your protagonist lacking the courage to take a stand for herself in the face of oppression, it will generally strengthen your story if you cut one of those events (or even combine the strongest elements of both events into a single one).

Same thing with characters: If there are two characters in your story who are basically there to show us how the protagonist doesn’t tend to recognize when her friends aren’t really her friends, you can probably cut one of them with no real impact on the main storyline.

And really, that in and of itself is a good litmus test, when it comes to events and characters you’re considering cutting: If you can do so without having to do a TON of revision to the story as a whole, then that just goes to show that event or character wasn’t doing a whole lot of work for the novel anyway.

3. Add a subplot or consequence

On the other hand, maybe you’re one of those people who’s written a pretty straightforward story in a pretty straightforward genre, one you understand well—a mystery, for example, or a romance. And the issue isn’t so much that your story is overstuffed so much that it is too flat.

In cases like these, you generally have too direct a path from the protagonist to their goal, for better or worse—and not enough in the way of complications.

One way to get more of that in your story—and more of a sense that your story has the sort of depth and density of “incident” we expect from a novel—is to introduce a subplot. One of my mentors, Jennie Nash, frames a subplot as an instance in the story where someone other than the protagonist decides that this is their story and starts pursuing their own agenda in a way that complicates that of the protagonist. 

And if you’re wondering where in your story to introduce such a subplot, may I suggest the “break into 2” point of the story—basically, the end of the first act, if you’re working with three-act structure (or, a third of the way into the story, period).

I suggest this because it’s far enough into the story for readers to have gotten to know some of the characters in the protagonist’s world (and therefore to understand how their agendas might conflict with that of the protagonist) and far enough into the story for things to start moving in the right direction for that protagonist (meaning, it’s a perfect time to throw a giant monkey wrench in the gears).

You can also introduce complication by looking at the events you already have in the story and asking yourself if any of these events could have further consequences for the protagonist—consequences that introduce similar complications in the course of their quest.

4. Start earlier

I’ve written elsewhere on this blog about how to figure out whether you’re starting your novel in the right place—and in that post, I shared the fact that sometimes writers (especially newer writers) think they have to start off with the big conflict and fireworks of their story’s inciting incident. Which tends to feel more confusing for the reader than anything else.

That’s because starting that late in the story’s timeline doesn’t give us the opportunity to get to know the protagonist before that event occurs.

For example: Aliens landing on the lawn of a suburban homeowner is an inciting incident is a potentially interesting situation. But aliens landing on the lawn of a suburban homeowner who happens to be the sort of guy who hates everyone who’s in any way different from himself and the people he grew up with—which is to say, a xenophobe—is a story.

If your beta readers tell you that it took them a while to get into the story, or that they liked it but were confused at first, try starting your story just a beat or two earlier, so you give your reader time to get to know your protagonist and their world before the major events of the story are set into motion.

5. Create a real climax

I couldn’t tell you the number of manuscripts I’ve read that have no real climax. Sure, they might feature some sort of conversation toward the end of the story between the protagonist and his estranged father, for example, but that scene doesn’t feel all that much different from similar scenes earlier on in the story.

Moreover, if this story features a central conflict not just between the protagonist and his father but between the protagonist and his boss, who strongly reminds him of his domineering, unreasonable, demeaning father, then the climax point of this story should also in some way intersect with and resolve that conflict.

In this hypothetical story, maybe the resolution of the conflict with the boss originally took place “off screen”—meaning, it was rendered via summary, not scene—and then there was this resolution with the father in a dramatic scene that takes place on the father’s deathbed.

A stronger version of this novel’s climax might be one that consists of two parts (both dramatized via scene): first, the protagonist stands up to the domineering boss at work, and is fired but doesn’t regret it; and then second, that interaction gives him the courage, in part, to tell his father the truth about their relationship, and call him out on all the various harm he’s caused over the years—and maybe the father surprises the protagonist by doing essentially the opposite of what the boss did, which is listening and even acknowledging that there may be some truth in what the protagonist is saying.

A climax in which all the core conflicts of the novel come to a more or less dramatic head—whether it takes place in just one scene or a series of scenes—is just generally more satisfying to read than one in which one or more of those core conflicts seem to just fizzle out, off the page, like a dud firework.

And generally speaking, in order to actually resolve those conflicts, you have to “push them out” in scene—meaning, you have to let the conversations run longer than in previous scenes, and let that conversation go to deeper, more fraught, and/or more vulnerable places than in those previous scenes.

If you’re currently wrestling with the plot of your work in progress, I hope one or more of these plot hacks resolves them for you. Now it’s your turn to share: What’s the toughest plot problem you’ve faced in one of your novels? And what was the solution you arrived at to address it?

Note from Jane: On Thursday, Oct. 31, Susan is offering a free masterclass on plot, The Bones of the Thing: The Truth About Plot (and the Most Common Plot Problems Writers Face).

3 Bad Ideas for More Creative Writing

Photo by Tasha Lyn on Unsplash

Today’s post is by author and innovation speaker Jason Keath.

I’m ready—desk set, lemon water in hand, the morning light is perfect. And yet the empty Google doc sits there mocking me, and the words won’t come.

It reminds me of playing Zelda with my dad in the 1980s. We played the game so often that it refused to start half the time. The screen would flicker with static and settle into a chaotic jumble of glitchy colors.

So, like anyone who has ever owned a Nintendo, we would blow on the cartridge. A few quick bursts of air, a hopeful restart, and we crossed our fingers. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t.

Creativity can feel a lot like those unreliable game cartridges. You’ve got all the tools, the experience, and the energy, but some unknowable dust from the universe blocks the brilliant ideas.

Every successful writer develops creative habits to help them get their version of Zelda back on the screen. I’ve been helping people improve their creativity skills for over 15 years, and when I run into a writing block, I turn to bad ideas. Specifically, three main shortcuts help me start new projects or quickly break out of a creative slump.

Let’s look at each of these methods. The goal is to help you generate a wider variety of ideas more quickly. Test them out and choose the one that best fits your process.

1. The Bad Idea Method

Bad ideas are a shortcut to creative thinking.

The Bad Idea Method is simple. Give yourself 10 minutes to write down 25 bad ideas. Depending on the creative challenge you’re facing, these could be 25 bad opening lines for a novel, 25 bad character traits, or 25 bad article topics.

Writing down bad ideas can feel a little awkward at first. You may not make it to 25 every time, but that’s OK. Do what you can. One of the biggest barriers here is letting go of your quality filters. Have an idea that doesn’t seem bad enough? Write it down. Too embarrassing? Write it down. Too boring? You guessed it, pen to page.

The perfectionist inside all of us will try to be picky and come up with “the best” bad ideas (whatever that means) or the bad ideas that are secretly really good ideas.

Like most things the more you exercise this muscle, the more effective it will be. A helpful key is to define what makes an idea bad for you. Start with two categories: the obvious and the absurd. Both are valuable for brainstorming, though it can feel unnatural to write them down at first.

Great ideas exist between the obvious and the absurd.

Why does this work? How does the Bad Idea Method help?

It works because there are so many benefits:

Bad ideas are easier to come up with, so you get started fasterBad ideas open your mind, giving us a larger variety of connections to work fromBad ideas lead to good ideas (absurd idea A leads to interesting idea B leads to great idea C)Bad ideas augment other ideas (obvious idea A + absurd idea B = great idea C)Sometimes a bad idea is actually a good idea (A=C)2. Constraint Questions

Another way to jumpstart the sleeping artist in your brain is to question your assumptions. For this exercise, you will write down 10 constraints and question them one by one.

Write down the guidelines, requirements, and expectations that you think of when defining what you are trying to write. Use these questions to get started:

Creative: What are the story, narrative, character, or plot constraints?Cultural: What are the social norms, practices, or expectation constraints?Market: What are the external trends, competition, or ecosystem constraints?Policies: Are there any constraints from internal guidelines or orders?Technical: Is there a constraint from a lack of tools or expertise?Resource: What are the budget, materials, bandwidth, or time constraints?Rules: What are the laws, regulations, or science constraints?

If you’re writing a fantasy book, your list might include a magic system or the word count deadline your publisher set. If you’re writing the opening hook for an article, the publication’s audience details and your article topics might provide many of the constraints you write down.

One by one, for each constraint, ask yourself what you would write if you ignored that constraint. Then combine multiple constraints from your list and ask the same question.

Creative people do versions of this in their heads all the time. Writing down constraints will help you work through these thought starters more quickly.

My favorite example of questioning constraints is the first iPhone. Steve Jobs not only wanted to build a new type of phone, he wanted a leap forward in design and function. Apple challenged assumptions about what makes a phone and instead prioritized user experience.

Before the first iPhone launched in 2007, every phone on the market included:

Physical keypads/keyboardsExternal antennasRemovable batteriesSmall displays (<40% of phone)A focus on calling and textingCall-in voicemailExpandable storage (SD cards)7–9 function buttons or more (call, end, speakerphone, mute, volume, directional pad)

Apple questioned and ignored all of these as false constraints.

Before 2007, manufacturers (and consumers) saw the list above as requirements. After the iPhone launched, this became a list of options. It’s remarkable how different the iPhone was compared to its competitors.

Apple changed the public context of how we think about phones by questioning almost every mobile phone constraint.

Listing assumptions is a quick way to gain creative momentum. Make a list of constraints, question them, and let that thought exercise guide your writing.

3. The Fast & Ugly Draft

Anne Lamott’s idea of an ugly “first draft” from Bird by Bird permitted writers to put bad words on the page without judgment. Starting with an imperfect draft gets ideas out faster than waiting for the perfect phrasing to appear.

This approach mirrors startup culture—building in public, launching beta products, and “failing fast.” Sharing imperfect work builds momentum. No matter how rough your draft is, you can always improve it, fixing smaller pieces here or there is easier than writing perfectly from the start.

Even though I embrace the ugly first draft, I still get stuck at times. So, I’ve added three rules to help me work faster—not just ugly, but fast and ugly.

1. Set challenging deadlines
When I start writing, I estimate how long it should take me and then I cut that time in half to set an unreasonable deadline. For instance, an average newsletter draft takes me about an hour, so instead I give myself 30 minutes. This forces me into an outline mode, reducing pressure and allowing me to view my writing from a broader perspective.

2. Restrict research time
Research can be a major rabbit hole for me. Once I recognized that, I began setting strict time limits—30 minutes for smaller tasks, 60 for larger projects. This helps me make my research more focused and directly useful for my writing.

3. Bracket unfocused work
Anything that slows down your ugly fast draft, like research, premature editing, or getting stuck on a word, should be set aside. Instead of switching tasks or losing momentum, [add a quick note for yourself in brackets]. I find brackets are faster and less disruptive than using the comment feature in Word or Google Docs.

The quicker you put something down on the page, the more momentum you create. Creative ideas and solutions become easier. Don’t get me wrong, it is important to slow down and take breaks at times. But an ugly, fast approach does wonders for helping me get over those moments of creative fatigue.

The faster you get ideas on the page, the more momentum you build. That momentum makes creative ideas appear more easily. While slow work and breaks have their place, an ugly, fast approach helps me push through creative fatigue.

Next time you’re staring at a blank page or feeling stuck, try bad ideas. Challenge yourself to list bad ideas, question a list of constraints, or start with a fast/ugly draft.

Set a timer and let me know how it goes!

Murky Middles Begone: Ensure the Middle of Your Book Stands Strong

Photo by Filip Mroz on Unsplash

Today’s post is by author and book coach Kristin Melville.

Story structure promotes the concept that every scene of your story should serve a larger purpose—e.g., the inciting incident sparks the problem, and the climax eventually brings everything to a head. Your plot should act like a Rube Goldberg machine: an intricate design of turning points that need to be hit correctly. If a single domino tile isn’t in alignment with the hammer that will push the bowling ball onto the track, the machine fails.

Maintaining forward momentum is vital. No piece can be misplaced.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of countless theories about story structure, all with different names: Three Act Structure, Save The Cat, and Kishotenketsu, to name a few. No matter the name, all plot structures prescribe milestones of change your characters need to hit to fit into your genre.

Middles are especially hard because, even when you study structure, the beginning and endings are more regimented and obvious. Unfortunately, that can mean the larger—and just as important—middle is left sagging.

So what do you need to succeed?

The Stake Shift

Plot can be seen as a series of small problems that connect to the main story question. Set up clear milestones the reader can follow. As long as your characters aim toward a goal, your story has structure.

It helps to create a plot point roughly halfway through your manuscript that you can aim toward. Perhaps your middle sags because this does not exist in your story. Often referred to as the midpoint, I call this point the Stake Shift, because while the fundamental story question doesn’t change, the intensity and our understanding of the story (not necessarily the characters’ understanding) changes.

Take the original trilogy of Star Wars from the 1970s and 1980s. All three movies focus on rebels undermining the Galactic Empire, but the ending of the second film is littered with climactic shake-ups. Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite, Luke Skywalker loses a hand, and Darth Vader utters those five fateful words: “No, I am your father.”

Now that’s a stake shift.

Planning this shift as soon as possible allows you to become less blindsided by murky middle problems. Even if you’re not the type to work with an outline, try to plan a high point of meaningful change. Not only will this show readers you have good instincts for storytelling, but it can help you diagnose story problems later on.

What might a stake shift consist of?

Remove key players. Set up a seemingly insurmountable roadblock. Reveal the terrible consequences of the main character’s previous choices.

There are many ways to go about this shift, and the scope can depend on your audience and your genre. Start by brainstorming the most interesting or mind-boggling twist you can inflict on your characters. How can you pull the rug from under them without turning your plot topsy-turvy?

Here are two tips to help you find the best stake shift.

1. Provide new vital information

Introducing new information is a great way to keep your story on track while changing up the trajectory. Shatter your character’s expectations of how their future will go. Don’t knock them out of the sky yet, but kick up the turbulence.

What makes the Star Wars example so powerful is that it doesn’t change the overall story goal. They still must stop the Empire, but it’s become more complicated morally. Will Luke follow his father to the Dark Side? Are we at risk of losing our hero’s soul? Or will anyone find redemption in the end? This creates a new, troubling dynamic that shakes the faith of the cast while gripping your reader’s attention.

The new information can also be positive, such as a new clue in a murder mystery to reenergize the investigation. If you have multiple points of view, you can cut away to the antagonist making their move to undermine the hero’s efforts. Lots of tension comes from the reader knowing something the characters don’t.

So what shocking truth can you introduce to perplex your protagonist? Enrapture your reader? In fact, what kind of truth can you reveal to the protagonist about themselves?

2. Make the protagonist self-reflect

Another way to approach the middle is to find a way to shake up the main character’s worldview. Creating an inescapable moment of reflection will ramp up your story’s momentum. Does your protagonist like what they see? Are they increasingly hopeless or hopeful about their future? And most importantly, what will they do about it?

A fully fleshed-out character typically has some hang-up that’s holding them back, whether they’re aware of it or not. After all, what gripping story doesn’t have a healthy dollop of ego death? And if the midpoint doesn’t shake that up, we at least need to see the scales start to fall from the main character’s eyes. They may not be fully prepared to wrestle with the truth but their time is coming.

If your characters weren’t taking their problems seriously before, they desperately need to now. Everything after the midpoint should lead to your finale. Time is running out. No detour should stray too far from the plot’s throughline. Now instead of wandering, you and your characters are revitalized, rattled, ready to fight.

Don’t save the middle for last

While modern Western story structure often has the same format, the way this unfolds in each story can be different. Many milestones of change will hold up your story like tent poles. Allow your middle to hold up the heart of your story. Heighten the emotions, either with hope or fear.

But don’t change the scope of your story so much that it’s unrecognizable. It’s possible that a carefully planned twist can backfire on you, so foreshadow it enough that your readers can follow along, or not feel too disbelieving.

The sooner you pinpoint all the major moments of change in your story, the tighter your plot will become. The clearer your structure, the more powerful your writing.

Join My Free Email Course on How to Earn a Living as a Writer

A new edition of my book, The Business of Being a Writer, releases in April 2025.

To mark the occasion, I’m offering a free, email-based course. Every Friday until my book releases, I’ll send you a key idea and exercise from the second edition on earning a living as a writer today.

Here is part of what I have in store for you:

A look at common misconceptions about earning a living from writingWhy book sales is not a good metric for successWhat it means to have a business model as a writerWhy focusing on whether you have talent (or “have what it takes”) can be an actively harmful concept for earning a livingA no-nonsense discussion of platform (most writers don’t in fact land book deals because of platform, but it does affect earnings potential)How relationship building affects your careerWhat it means to “find” your readers when you’re not a marketer or publicistAn explanation of lead generation and building a funnel for your writing businessHow to make the most of any book launch even if your publisher is missing in actionA look at patronage, crowdfunding, and other methods of reader supportFirst steps every writer should take regarding their finances and taxes

Expect a few special perks along the way.

Sign up now and don’t miss a thing.

Romance Authors Thrive in the Self-Publishing Era

Today’s post is by Elizabeth Held, who publishes the newsletter What To Read If on Substack.

When I mentioned to Christine Larson, author of Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, that more than a dozen romance writers had donated to an auction to help my neighborhood bookstore make repairs from flood damage, she immediately lit up.

Larson asked if I had heard of a similar auction, Romancing the Vote, a 2020 fundraiser for Georgia voter organizations. The 2020 fundraiser, organized by authors Alyssa Cole, Courtney Milan and Kit Rocha, ultimately raised more than $400,000 and is a prime example of the kind of solidarity and collective support that defines the community of romance authors and readers, known as Romancelandia.

Larson, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, spent nearly a decade examining how the unique aspects of Romancelandia led romance writers to thrive in the self-publishing era. A survey Larson conducted found the genre’s authors saw their median income surge 73% between 2009 and 2014, while the median income of all authors fell 42%. In the same period, the median income of romance authors of color increased 150%, compared to 63% for white writers.

I spoke with Lawson over Zoom about the genre’s struggle with racism and efforts to make it more diverse, as well as how self-published romance writers make a living.

Elizabeth Held: You’ve called Love in the Time of Self-Publishing a labor history of romance authors. What drew you to the topic?

Christine Larson: The short answer is I didn’t know that it was a labor history when I started. All I knew was that romance writers were making a lot of money and doing things differently in self-publishing than any other authors.

Doing interviews with romance authors made me feel so much better when I was going through a divorce. One person led to another person for years, and it became a labor history. I realized the answer to the question about why romance writers were doing so well dated back 40 years. So, as I was trying to unroll that mystery, the labor history unfolded organically.

In the book, you argue that the Romance Writers of America, the genre’s organization for writers, created formalized structures, such as mentoring programs, that helped some authors succeed while failing to provide the right support to authors of color. Its commitment to collective support only went so far. In 2020, the RWA collapsed after years of racist actions. What was it like for you to write this book as the dissolution process was ongoing?

When I finished my dissertation in 2017, I thought, “Oh, this is great. It’s a happy ending.” But as I was reporting in 2015 and 2016, I saw more and more of the We Need Diverse Romance campaign. 

I’m white and it took me longer than it should have to say, ‘This is a deeper problem. This isn’t something that can be solved with ‘We need diverse romance’ buttons.’ Fortunately, I had done many interviews and had generous authors of color who helped explain the deeper dynamics of the publishing industry.

So, I became more aware of the issues in 2017, and I was writing about them, but things looked good at the time. There was a lot of push for change in the industry and for the RWA to get involved. I thought my book would end with Kennedy Ryan being the first Black author to win the RITA [the RWA’s award for best romance].

I sent out my book proposal and was talking with editors, and one of the editors asked me on Twitter in December 2019, “How will the book deal with the meltdown in romance land?” It took me another couple of years to wrap my head around that and watch what happened.

Editorial houses have made some progress in publishing more diverse romances, in part because they saw self-published romances featuring non-white and queer succeed. Is this is an example of the market working?

I think it is the market working because digital self-publishing allowed a certain democratization of publishing to take place. Traditional publishers vastly underestimated the appetite of readers for romance of all kinds, of all subgenres, for diverse characters, for a wider variety of tropes and more. There was just so much freedom in self-publishing.

When I started doing my research, I thought I would see a change in the superstar structure of publishing, but I did not see that. Superstar economics say that, for a bunch of reasons, in any entertainment industry, you have a few superstars who earn 99% of the money, and then the rest of the world earns what’s left. So, many people earn almost nothing. I found this still to be true.

In my analysis of the income of romance writers, it was a little bit better. In self-publishing, there are a handful of people—more than a handful—who make millions of dollars. But, the real story to me was how many authors were making $100,000—a living.

I was struck by a line in your book—“Perhaps more than any other group, romance authors take to heart Virginia Woolf’s admonition: ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.’” I regularly hear romance authors refer to themselves as businesswomen, something I’ve never heard from writers in other genres.

It struck me in my initial interviews that these are such savvy people. I was a business reporter. I love to follow the money, and so did all my interviewees. That lit the fire for me. But when I got to the RWA’s archives, I saw that every edition of its magazine for its first 20 years talked about these writers as businesswomen, as professionals. I love that.

Going way back in history, a lot of writers we still know today, such as Nora Roberts, started writing because they were in financial difficulties. Words were a way they could write their way out, to steal a line from Hamilton.

My academic critics kept saying, “You’re focusing too much on money. What about all the other reasons for writing?” And I had to say again, “They go hand in glove. If you are a committed professional writer, you have to be thinking about how do I keep the gas in the tank? How do I make a financially viable career?”

What can authors and other creatives learn from the financial success of romance writers compared to other genres?

The main thing I hope people take away from the book is that if you are a creative or independent worker, you need a community if to be treated fairly. But if you want community, you and your group have to treat everyone in it fairly. That’s what we saw with the collapse and bankruptcy of the Romance Writers of America. They didn’t adapt quickly enough to changing times and the needs of their historically underrepresented members. It’s sad that that community went away. But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story for other groups of creators.

With the collapse of the RWA, how optimistic are you right now about the future of the genre?

The future of the genre has never been brighter. Women have dominated The New York Times Top 10 for the last year. Most of that is driven by romance writers. This is unusual and I think it’s a sign that romance is coming into its own.

Amazon • Bookshop

Romance is where sci-fi was 20 or 30 years ago. When people first started writing sci-fi, it was often a disrespected genre. Then, the public began to realize that speculative fiction is the place where we can explore different worlds, realities and what-ifs. People began taking it seriously, and then we saw Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler saying important things in that genre.

We’re seeing people realize romance can be a place for that same kind of speculation—asking, what would it take to make the world better? Romance does it, or can do it, in a playful, joyful way. I think that’s fantastic.

Even if romance didn’t have this transformative ability, it’s still a time when we need joy, happiness and happily ever afters.

How to Handle Memory Gaps in Your Memoir

Today’s post is by writer and editor Lisa Cooper Ellison. Join her on Wednesday, October 16, for the online class Mastering Trauma Scenes to Improve Your Memoir.

How do you write about an event when your memories of it are scattered, shattered, or gone? It’s one of the most frequent questions trauma survivors ask me.

Before I share what to do, let’s talk about why traumatic memories are often fractured and how their disjointedness makes them difficult to work with. Under normal circumstances, the events our brain sees as important are processed and stored by the hippocampus. Situations associated with strong emotions get priority. They’re followed by things we’ve rehearsed throughout the day. Much of the rest gets scrapped. The memories formed from this process frequently play like short, relatively complete movies in our heads.

In life-threatening situations, stress hormones course through our veins. Early on, they intensify our awareness as the amygdala imprints the emotions associated with this moment into its database, along with what it feels are relevant details. That’s why so many trauma survivors have vivid sensory memories, especially of the earliest parts of a traumatic experience.

Eventually, the system overloads. Emotions shut down. The memory recording system short circuits. That’s why we might be able to conjure snippets of what happened but not their sequence, or we encounter irretrievable blank spots.

Here are three ways to handle those short circuits and blank spots in your memoir.

1. Admit the lapse.

Write the memory to the best of your ability. Then, acknowledge any lapses. Here’s a great example from Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club.

I don’t remember who we got farmed out to or for how long. I was later told that we’d stayed for a long time with the childless couple who bred birds. Some memory endures of the screened-in breezeway with green slatted blinds all around … but the faces of my hosts refuse to be conjured.

You can also use well-placed metaphors to write around a gap or through a dissociative moment—something Sarah Perry does in After the Eclipse, which takes place in the aftermath of her mother’s murder.

Memory recedes here, falling into a hospital-white mist, an inconsistent curtain that rolls over the hours, obscuring some moments, parting to let others through.

Mary Karr applies a similar technique in this reflective moment that sets up the journey she’s about to take us on:

When the truth would be unbearable the mind often blanks out. But some ghost of an event may stay in your head. Then, like the smudge of a bad word quickly wiped off a school blackboard, this ghost can call undue attention to itself by its very vagueness.

2. Do some research.

While the above strategies can let you off the hook, sometimes the facts matter. If this is the case, conduct some research. For missing events, interview eyewitnesses and find resources that might contain supporting details. Sarah Perry studied court records, police reports, and newspaper articles and completed dozens of interviews with people who knew her and her mother.

When selecting interview subjects, choose emotionally safe individuals who will hold your confidence and, ideally, are not in your memoir. That’s because characters in your story might be emotionally invested in how they or other characters are portrayed.

While I’ve already offered tips for dealing with dissociative moments, sometimes readers need more than crafty metaphors or reflective moments. That’s because memoir readers live vicariously through your story. Articulating the emotions underneath the surface can not only enrich your scenes, but also help readers understand their own experiences.

One way to “research” the emotions you might have suppressed is to pay attention to what comes up as you write. These feelings may begin as a tightness in the jaw, shoulders, or stomach, or perhaps a heaviness in the chest. If this occurs, pause and think of an organ in your body—ideally not your stomach or heart—that needs to speak. Don’t think too much about this. Just record your first choice, then ask what it has to say about the situation.

Afterward, check out this article on the emotions and five elements in Chinese Medicine to see which emotion this organ is associated with. Most writers I’ve worked with have discovered a surprising relationship between the organ and their scene’s central conflict.

Other prompts that can uncover feelings you’ve divorced yourself from:

On the surface, I felt nothing, but underneath, I felt …If I could’ve felt something, it would’ve been …

However, before going down this path, one red flag that you’re dealing with high trauma is a complete lack of emotions around an event that others might find deeply troubling. If you know or discover you’re writing about highly traumatic events, processing these emotions with a counselor or somatic experiencing professional could benefit you and your story.

3. Speculate.

If research doesn’t seem feasible, speculate. While memoirs can’t be made up, you can write speculative scenes that imagine what could’ve happened, provided you make clear that the scene is imagined.

In her memoir Playing with Dynamite, Sharon Harrigan signals speculation though the phrase, “It could’ve been like this,” as well as a shift in tense, as she does in the setup for this speculative scene about the night her father died in a car crash.

I was home asleep, but I’d always imagined that night this way. Like all Michigan winters this one’s cold. No snow though. Not yet…

You don’t have to stop at a speculative scene. Speculative memoir is an entire subgenre that can crack open your story’s form and function, something Matt Homrich-Knieling talks about in this post for Brevity. 

Parting thoughts

Crafting scenes from traumatic events is tricky. Writing about one traumatic event can easily beget more writing about traumatic events, especially for people diagnosed with PTSD and CPTSD. That’s because hypervigilant nervous systems can get stuck in activated states where they replay painful, scary moments as a way to stay safe. While some of this darker writing might be important for your healing, not everything we go through or write about is meant for an external reader. Sometimes, we write to understand or close a memory gap for ourselves, and, in doing so, we find our footing and discover what the reader truly needs from us.

It’s also possible your story isn’t about the memory itself, but why you can’t remember it. Then again, maybe what you’ve written is all you need. In that case, your framing of the material is what’s important.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on Wednesday, October 16, for the online class Mastering Trauma Scenes to Improve Your Memoir.

How to Outline a Gothic Novel

Photo by Jacob Mejicanos on Unsplash

Today’s post is by developmental editor and book coach Hannah Kate Kelley.

What is Gothic fiction?

Gothic fiction, also referred to as gothic horror, is a subgenre of Romantic literature born out of the late 18th century. These stories typically feature a hauntingly beautiful and dilapidated setting, suspenseful narratives, and dark themes like oppression, guilt, shame, and insanity. Typically, a morally gray anti-hero will enter a vast, isolated and old estate that’s housing a terrible secret or a horrendous monster.

Gothic fiction is firmly rooted in the horror genre, which is designed to evoke fear, dread, and terror in readers. However, Gothic stories differ from typical horror stories in three major ways:

More ambiguity and subtlety. The villain is not always explicit or literal in Gothic fiction, and readers often doubt whether the supernatural events are real or imagined. Characters are often morally ambiguous, too.Slower pacing. One of Gothic fiction’s biggest hallmarks is the slow-building, creeping horror. The true identity of the villain often unravels slowly. And there’s less gore and slasher scenes (at least upfront) than in other horror stories.Unresolved endings. In most horror stories, the antagonist is defeated by the end and the survivors achieve a semblance of safety. In Gothic stories, the antagonist may not be fully defeated, storylines may not feel fully resolved, and readers may never know the entire truth behind the mysteries.

The Gothic genre has its own subgenres, too, including Southern Gothic. These stories take place in the southern United States, leaning on irony and the macabre to explore the area’s social and cultural issues. Notable Southern Gothic writers include Zora Neale Hurston, Harper Lee, and William Faulkner.

A brief history of Gothic literature

Gothic fiction began in 18th-century England when both cultural upheaval and the public’s desire for spooky stories collided.

So much was changing so fast, and people were scared. Many readers turned to horror stories to cope. Sound familiar? Turns out horror fans feel more resilient in the face of fear than non-horror fans, just as a team of scientists discovered during the pandemic.

Readers also craved horror stories because mysteries of the natural world were shrinking with geographic exploration. Plus, Gothic fiction was suddenly trendy in a market saturated with novels focused on moral instruction and realistic, non-romanticized subject matter.

The first Gothic story is widely thought to be Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764. The story takes place in a medieval castle ruled by Prince Manfred who decides to divorce his wife and marry his son’s intended “virginal” bride to secure his lineage. She tries to flee the castle with a peasant boy, both pursued by Manfred. Battles in dark corridors occur. Romance ensues. Damsels in distress. And at last, a supernatural prophecy is fulfilled when the true heir to the throne is revealed.

Walpole was a Gothic architecture enthusiast, having renovated his home estate Strawberry Hill House into the medieval Gothic style with features like arched windows, stained glass, and castle-like turrets which evoked darkness, grandeur and unease. In true Gothic fashion, he drew inspiration for this novel from a nightmare in his renovated home.

Initially, the public found these stories campy and embarrassing. Even Walpole didn’t want to put his name on the first edition of The Castle of Otranto, claiming it was a recently uncovered 16th century Italian manuscript. But the public knew what they liked and, after a while, the genre became so widely imitated and innovated that it stuck.

Gothic stories, new and old, are still popular with readers today. While readers of yore enjoyed the subtle societal critiques in an era of unrest, modern-day readers similarly appreciate the genre’s creeping horror to reflect the issues and fears we face today.

9 Gothic genre conventions and characteristics

Every genre includes conventions and characteristics to satisfy reader expectations. Think of the popular Gothic action film Van Helsing starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale, which playfully leans into Gothic conventions, even drawing directly from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and of course Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Whether you choose to craft a Gothic retelling or an original tale is up to you, but writers must consider genre conventions to please their audience. While you won’t find every one of the following nine characteristics in every Gothic novel, you will typically find at least the first four.

1. Conflation of the past and present

The past plays an important role in the present story as if it is a living, breathing thing. The past becomes present through apparitions, prophecies, curses, familial secrets, and embodied trauma. Not only does this conflation add suspense, but it also warns readers of the dangers of unresolved cyclical trauma. It blurs linear timelines and makes the supernatural happenings feel more grounded in reality.

2. Supernatural activity

Gothic fiction features supernatural elements such as ghosts, apparitions, sentient houses, enchanted objects, vampires, and monsters. Whether literal or symbolic, magical or grounded in scientific explanation, the obscurity around the supernatural elements often makes them feel more realistic than they do in other genres.

3. Dilapidated settings

In Gothic fiction, the setting is immersive and has extensive description. The home often has an agency of its own, like how the estate High Place uses brain-altering fungus for psychological influence in Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The dilapidation is an important feature, too, as it often references the moral decay of a society and the mental decay of the characters who lose their sanity.

Common settings include Gothic-style castles with underground passages, graveyards, cathedrals, vast oceans, and creepy forests. Early Gothic writers thought medieval buildings referenced a dark and horrific period in history, with thrilling rituals, torture, and hidden corners where anything could happen.

In addition, Gothic settings arrived hand-in-hand with dark atmospheres, including dreary, ominous storms, rain, sudden cold drafts, and screeching winds. Just like Shakespeare, Gothic writers used turbulent weather to mirror their characters’ inner turmoil.

4. The sublime

These days, we tend to think of the sublime as fantastic and great, but back then the word was more akin to something both terrifying and awe inspiring, like standing at the foot of a massive, dark, violent ocean. In his influential 1757 work A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, writer Edmund Burke inadvertently developed the Gothic genre’s tonal recipe: in order to create the strongest emotion in the world (the sublime), Burke believed we must harness obscurity to create terror of the unknown, because terror most often evokes the sublime. Because the sublime is so closely tied to both horror and beauty, pain and pleasure, Gothic writers like playing up the duality in their stories.

Suspense and obscurity are huge aspects of Gothic fiction, too, given that much of the genre’s slow-burning build and ambiguity revolve around the unknown. Plot lines often feature familial mysteries, sudden vanishings, and strange objects—like the massive statue helmet that crushes Prince Manfred’s son to death at the start of the prophecy in The Castle of Otranto.

5. Archetypal characters

Some character types, like the virginal damsel-in-distress, didn’t age so well. Not only were many women characters depicted offensively, some 19th-century European and American writers were proponents of the racist pseudoscience called physiognomy, the idea that someone’s physical appearance reflected their inner character. That’s why many Gothic monsters like Dracula were often depicted with “evil” traits like dark and bloodshot eyes, hawk-like or aquiline noses, red mouths, hairy palms, and dark complexions. Many of the archetypal characters are reimagined by modern writers to suit modern readership and weed out offensive tropes.

Anti-Heroes. Known as the Satanic hero or the Byronic hero, the Gothic anti-hero is realistically flawed, lonely, and a social outcast—and traditionally depicted as a man. Lord Byron, a popular 19th-century writer, popularized this hero. Atypical protagonists and charming villains confused readers, adding to the suspense of determining the true antagonist. Plus, readers often enjoy relatable, morally complex characters.Tall, dark & handsome villains. Also typically depicted as a man, the Gothic villain can be conventionally unattractive. But to flip reader expectations and hide their true nature, villains can also be charming, though there are often hints at their supernatural monstrosity. The antagonist’s monstrosity usually represents repressed desire or societal fears. The antagonist is typically ancient and has been enacting the same cyclical trickery year after year, the truth of which is slowly revealed by the story’s end. This means the protagonist might not directly confront the antagonist late in the story.Damsels in distress. In the early Gothic novels, women characters were pure, innocent victims who fled corrupt princes and supernatural beasts until the protagonist men swooped in to save the day. You may have seen a pulp fiction novel cover depicting this very thing: a woman escaping a large castle on foot, her white dress billowing behind her as she screams in terror. Women writers as early as the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen began subverting sexist gender portrayals by including more active, complex women protagonists and critiquing the patriarchal society of their day.6. Secrets

Secrets can be kept by one character from another, as well as kept by a character from themself, kept by society from the individual, or kept by the individual from society. Secrets might involve concealed family ties, hidden incest and sexual assault (Gothic literature does not shy away from the taboo), buried events, and “shapeshifting” characters who hide their true nature.

7. Portents

A portent is a sign that something big and terrible is likely to happen, often revealed through curses, superstitions, and prophecies. The protagonist or a supporting character may have distressing dreams or visions—dreams and sleeplike states are often a vehicle for portents, serving as windows into a character’s subconscious fears and making it easier for the supernatural to infiltrate their minds. Dreams also blur the boundary between reality and the supernatural, confusing readers as to what is real and what is not.

8. Romance

Not just “Romantic” as in the era Gothic fiction derived from, but “romantic” as in love and desire. Romance plot lines feature passionate but troubled love. In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, protagonist Jane must navigate not only external threats but her relationship’s inner conflict before finding love. Some Gothic romance is motivated by obsession, lust, and coercion, just like the predatory Prince Manfred in The Castle of Otranto. In many modern Gothic stories, the love interests often work together to defeat the external supernatural forces that entrap them.

9. Dark Themes

Gothic fiction often examines the buried parts of our human nature and may focus on devolving characters and unreliable narrators. Symbolism is a common literary device used to highlight these themes, just as the ouroboros symbol (a snake eating its own tail) signifies death, rebirth, and inescapable cyclical oppression in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic.

How to Outline Your Gothic Story

Let’s use the standard three-act structure, with eleven key plot points. While you can go as in-depth or as abstract as you wish, I always recommend using this structure as a starting point— it works well for any genre.

As we move through each plot point, we’ll look at the corresponding examples from one classic Gothic romance novel: Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë and one contemporary Gothic action novel: Mexican Gothic (2020) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

If you’d like help plotting your Gothic story outline as you go along, download my free editable Three-Act Outline Workbook.

Act 1

The beginning act of your story introduces your morally complex protagonist (or protagonists), core cast of characters, unique world-building with an unsettling atmosphere, and central conflict—setting the stage for the story’s descent into literal and figurative darkness.

The Hook. A hook is a literary device meant to capture a reader’s attention, like a fish on a baited fishing line. Hooks come as early as the first sentence or first paragraphs, usually no later than the end of the first scene. Your Gothic story hook might introduce a compelling protagonist, a thrilling opening image, a haunting first line, or even a mysterious conflict the protagonist must solve in the initial chapter (though this shouldn’t be the main conflict just yet).

Jane Eyre hook: Young Jane Eyre lives in an oppressive environment with her cruel wealthy aunt and cousins, establishing her deep desire for independence and belonging. Readers are hooked by the intelligent, mistreated narrator and hints of supernatural forces as she’s needlessly punished in the eerie “red room.”

Mexican Gothic hook: Noemí Taboada, a glamorous playgirl socialite in 1950s Mexico, is summoned home from a costume party by her father’s pressing news. Readers are drawn into the story by a protagonist that might surprise some readers, given her penchant for smoking cigarettes, how she toys with her beaus, and her flippant, self-indulgent nature. Gone is the damsel in distress trope. In her place stands a wonderfully Byronic protagonist, this time a woman.

The Set Up. The set up establishes the protagonist’s ordinary world before the inciting incident strikes. The purpose of the set up is for readers to get their contextual bearings and care enough about the protagonist before the inciting incident disrupts everything. This groundwork can include an introduction to the protagonist’s harrowing background, a brief showcase of their greatest desires and motivations, their fatal flaw, hints of the story’s central theme, important world-building details and story context, and the story’s eerie tone. The set up begins on Page 1 and encompasses everything (including the hook) until the inciting incident, ranging between one chapter and several chapters. Even if your protagonist’s primary story goal is yet to be established, the protagonist should still be active in the set up, not waiting for life to finally happen.

Jane Eyre set up: As tension escalates with her cruel foster family, her aunt sends Jane away to the disciplinary Lowood School, where she faces harsh conditions but forms friendships, highlighting her resilience. Though Jane is sent to Lowood, this moment is not the inciting incident, as she is not yet facing the story’s main conflict: her romantic relationship with Mr. Rochester. Therefore, this send-off is a mini-inciting incident that is setting the protagonist on her path toward the story’s catalyst.

Mexican Gothic set up: Because the inciting incident occurs in Chapter 1, there is only about a chapter’s worth of set up before Noemí sets off for her new home. Readers learn Noemí struggles with her impulsivity (in love and in life), wants to get her masters in anthropology, loves to play the piano, and is a popular socialite. This brief set up works for this story because part of Noemí’s flaw is that she is flighty and doesn’t have much direction.

The Inciting Incident. The inciting incident is the life-changing event that disrupts the protagonist’s ordinary life and pitches them into the main conflict of the story. This moment of no-return should be the first time the protagonist faces the primary antagonist/conflict. In Gothic fiction, this event often involves encountering something strange like a sudden disappearance, a mysterious message or invitation, an omen or prophecy. It might involve meeting an alluring and handsome love interest, or encountering an inexplicable event. Though the inciting incident can fall at the recommended 10–12% mark of your story, this catalyst can also occur a little after this mark if the set up is engaging enough like Jane Eyre, as early as Chapter 1 like Mexican Gothic, or even in the backstory before the story begins.

Jane Eyre inciting incident: After completing her education at Lowood eight years later, Jane accepts a governess position at the isolated Thornfield Hall, where she soon encounters the mysterious owner Mr. Rochester. In a story where romance is the primary plot line like Jane Eyre, the first meeting of the two (or more) love interests is most often the inciting incident.

Mexican Gothic inciting incident: Noemí’s father receives an eerie, disturbing letter from her cousin Catalina claiming her new husband Victor and his estate (High Place) is killing her. Not only is Noemí motivated to help her cousin, but her father finally grants her permission to attend university for her anthropology degree, if she agrees to go to High Place. After the inciting incident, she arrives at the dilapidated estate where the family and servants act strangely, the windows in her room won’t budge open, and she has strange dreams about the house’s mold-covered walls.

Act 2

The middle of your story is where the mystery deepens, the stakes rise, and the pacing quickens. In Gothic fiction, this act often focuses on the protagonist’s gradual immersion into the unknown as the antagonist or conflict slowly comes to light. The protagonist faces both external challenges and internal fears.

The First Turning Point. By the first turning point, the protagonist is well past the inciting incident and faces a key decision to either further combat the central antagonist or conflict or step away. The protagonist might drag their feet or develop a clear strategy before moving forward. This moment can close out Act 1 or fall within the initial chapters of Act 2. The first turning point could involve discovering something supernatural, encountering the villain, or suddenly realizing that there’s no easy way out of the situation they chose to enter. Often the conflict becomes personal for the protagonist, increasing or more clearly defining the stakes.

Jane Eyre turning point 1: Jane begins to develop romantic feelings for Mr. Rochester. Meanwhile, Thornfield Hall is littered with strange happenings like mysterious laughter and the housekeeper’s dodging answers, suggesting dark secrets are at play.

Mexican Gothic turning point 1: Noemí solidifies her decision to save Catalina at the end of Chapter 8 because she is beginning to suspect the root of her cousin’s illness is not actually tuberculosis but rather something dangerous, perhaps airborne, hidden at High Place.

The First Pinch Point. The first pinch point is a moment of tension or pressure that reinforces the central conflict’s power, whether the conflict is external or internal or both. In Gothic stories, this plot point might take the form of a supernatural event, a terrifying vision, or a revelation that heightens the sense of dread. The protagonist feels the weight of the unknown bearing down on them, deeply urging them to face their fears, though they are not yet ready to fully confront those fears. While the central antagonist or conflict might not be obvious, there are hints as to what the true threat is.

Jane Eyre pinch point 1: Jane saves Mr. Rochester from a sudden, inexplicable fire in his bedroom, deepening their emotional connection. However, she is puzzled by Mr. Rochester and Grace Poole’s explanations of the fire, suspecting they are not being fully honest with her. Though she does not yet know Mr. Rochester’s hidden, mentally ill wife Bertha Mason is behind the mysterious happenings, Jane is getting closer to uncovering this major conflict in her relationship with Mr. Rochester.

Mexican Gothic pinch point 1: In terms of external conflict, Noemí experiences increasingly vivid dreams that warn her High Place is a danger until she finds herself dangerously sleepwalking into a series of visions. In terms of internal conflict, Noemí is faced with her fatal flaw when she regrets callously insulting her newest love interest, Francis.

The Midpoint. During the midpoint, several big things happen: the stakes rise because the protagonist gains new information or insight, the tone becomes more serious, and the protagonist transitions from a reactive role to a more proactive role. In Gothic fiction, the midpoint often also reveals a hidden truth or exposes what the antagonist wants and why. The midpoint can mark a false high or false low in your protagonist’s journey. If they encounter a false high, the protagonist’s goal will feel closer than ever, whereas a false low will manifest as the character losing faith in ever reaching their goal. Either way, mounting conflict will still stand in their way as they approach the second half of the story.

Jane Eyre midpoint: Mr. Rochester proposes to Jane and she gladly accepts to wed the man she loves. This is a false high because underlying tensions linger, and she still has not uncovered the truth behind the eerie happenings at Thornfield Hall.

Mexican Gothic midpoint: Noemí still cannot identify the antagonistic force and refuses to believe in the supernatural, though she is beginning to better understand that something airborne is affecting her and Catalina’s mental health. Francis warns her in secret to leave High Place before the haunting or the family hurts her, though he still will not disclose what the true antagonist is or what it wants with her.

The Second Pinch Point. Like the first pinch point, the second point serves as an even stronger reminder of the looming conflict. Perhaps a terrifying occurrence threatens the protagonist’s safety or sanity, or sheds light on the protagonist’s internal conflict. This second pinch point tightens the suspense and pushes the protagonist closer to a final confrontation.

Jane Eyre pinch point 2: As the wedding date approaches, Jane believes she dreams up a monstrous creature towering above her bed. When she “wakes,” she finds her wedding veil torn. Mr. Rochester tells Jane once again it was his maid Grace Poole, and though Jane still doesn’t quite buy it, she appeases him by letting the matter go. This is similar to Bertha Mason’s fire at the first pinch point but now the attack feels more personal as it is directed towards Jane. In part, this moment reveals the “villain” because Jane sees Bertha’s face (even though she still believes it was all a nightmare).

Mexican Gothic pinch point 2: Noemí’s trance-like sleepwalking finally draws her out of her private bath and into Victor’s bedroom, where he waits with predatory intentions. She imagined he lured her there, but still has no proof he is the antagonist behind her cousin’s failing health or the supernatural events—all she knows is she cannot trust him and that she now wants to leave the estate.

The Second Turning Point. The second turning point is the final major event that propels the protagonist into Act Three. The worst possible thing finally happens to the protagonist, what they’ve been dreading perhaps all along, and they step into their hour of greatest darkness. Perhaps even literal darkness. The protagonist uncovers the darkest part of the mystery, or makes a crucial discovery. The end of this plot point will feel like a gut punch or a cliffhanger.

Jane Eyre turning point 2: On her wedding day, Jane discovers Mr. Rochester’s secret—the existence of his legal wife, Bertha Mason, who Mr. Rochester keeps hidden because of her mental illness. After their marriage, his wife proved dangerous and violent, so he hid her to protect herself and others. He thought his love life was doomed until he met Jane Eyre. Devastated by this betrayal, Jane decides to leave Thornfield Hall forever, choosing her moral integrity over her love of him.

Mexican Gothic turning point 2: Noemí plans her escape from High Place with Catalina, but they are physically trapped at the last minute by the cruel family’s supernatural abilities. Noemí finally uncovers what the family wants and why: to use Noemí as a living host for the forced insemination of their supernatural rebirth, so they may live forever. With the estate’s fungus, they poison her into submission, and she fears they will never escape now.

Act 3

The final act usually brings the protagonist into direct and final confrontation with the central antagonist or conflict. Readers need their big questions answered: Will the protagonist find love at last? Will the protagonist defeat the villain? The tension peaks as the protagonist must make critical choices, often involving moral dilemmas and facing the darkest parts of themselves. The Gothic climax is intense, and the resolution, while offering closure, may still leave lingering unease or ambiguity. The protagonist might escape, defeat the antagonist, or resolve their conflict—but they rarely emerge unscathed.

The Crisis. This might feel like an “aha!” moment for your protagonist. Or they may dig deep down to finally uncover the lesson of the story or the secret to defeating the villain. Either way, your story needs this crisis plot point or the climax will fall flat. Readers want to see how your protagonist has grown and changed throughout the story before they conquer the central conflict. The crisis moment can occur over a string of scenes between the end of Act 2 and the climax, or it can occur during the climax itself.

Jane Eyre crisis: Some time passes after Jane flees Mr. Rochester and Thornfield Hall, and she finds refuge with clergyman St. John and his sisters. After inheriting a fortune, Jane finally gains independence. When St. John asks her to marry him, she mostly protests the marriage because they do not love one another and she doesn’t want to do missionary work in India with him, yet he nearly convinces her to accept the proposal—until she strangely hears Mr. Rochester’s voice calling out to her in a supernatural manner. She debates accepting St. John’s proposal or going to see if Mr. Rochester is well. Both men seemingly need and want her, but which man does she want?

Mexican Gothic crisis: Noemí is struggling not to succumb to Victor’s brainwashing, though she is growing weaker every second. As much as she hates Victor, his power over her appeals to her greed and impulsivity. At last, she is able to break free of his mental holds and realizes how to defeat the dangerous spores and her captors by burning down the source.

The Climax. The climax is the final, decisive confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist/conflict. This often involves a battle against both external threats and internal fears. A Gothic crisis often includes the protagonist overcoming the supernatural or oppressive forces, or finding love at last. This moment could feel like the ultimate showdown between the protagonist and their villain, including gore, violence, and flashy action. By the end of the climax scene or cluster of scenes, readers understand whether the protagonist will achieve their primary story goal or not.

Jane Eyre climax: Jane returns to Thornfield Hall and is shocked to find it in blackened ruins. Bertha Mason is now dead from suicide and Mr. Rochester blind and disabled because he attempted to save his wife’s life. Jane finds Mr. Rochester at his other home, still unmarried and in love with her. When he proposes marriage again, she agrees, now on equal terms where she can finally balance her sense of self-worth and independence with her love of him. (And convenient, too, that his poor first wife is now out of the picture.)

Mexican Gothic climax: In a series of final high-action events, Noemí, Catalina and Francis finally destroy the supernatural powers and evil family of High Place. She tosses her lantern’s flame against the source and it catches fire. As the estate burns down, the three characters narrowly escape the fire alive. At last, she has saved Catalina, found a worthy lover, and overcome her external and internal conflict.

The Resolution. The resolution ties up the loose ends of the story and gives the reader closure, at least in part. A Gothic denouement often leaves readers with a lingering sense of ambiguity or unease, in keeping with the genre’s tone. Even if the ending is a happily-ever-after or happy-for-now, the characters rarely emerge physically and emotionally undamaged.

Jane Eyre resolution: Ten years later, Jane is happy in her marriage with Mr. Rochester, who regains some sight in one of his eyes after a few years. They have a son, St. John’s sisters visit her often, and she and St. John remain on good terms (though he will soon die from overworking himself).

Mexican Gothic resolution: Noemí, Catalina and Francis are safe for now. Though the threat is mitigated as far as they know, much is still unknown about the supernatural powers of High Place. Noemí cannot be sure she or Francis will ever truly escape its influence. They are happy for now, though they wait for the other shoe to drop.

Next steps

If you get stuck plotting your Gothic tale, don’t panic. Tweak your story’s events and characters until the plot points and pacing feel suitable, drawing on support from a trusted reader or editor whenever you need one.

If you’re looking for a step-by-step walkthrough for your Gothic novel planning process, don’t forget to download my free Three-Act Outline Workbook.

On Writing and Shame

Today’s post is by Jennie Case.

When my essay, A Political Pregnancy, came out in The Rumpus, I was so frozen I spent most of the day stiff in a chair, the room swirling. It took a good week for me to unthaw, and nearly a year for me to share the piece publicly on social media. To be sure: I was proud of the essay, which explored my painful, conflicted responses to an unintended pregnancy during the 2016 election. I was also confident that the piece rang true. Yet the thought of people I knew (especially my mother and Catholic family) reading it and judging me, or knowing how complicated that period of my life had been, was a psychological whirlwind I could not easily travel through.

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I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I gear up to publish We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood, a collection of essays that includes that Rumpus piece. Amongst the book’s broader exploration of feminism and evolutionary biology, it addresses unplanned pregnancies, reproductive justice, maternal mental health, and my own complicated reactions to early motherhood. I am proud of these essays, and I hope they help shift the conversation on reproductive justice or offer insight and comfort to readers. Yet part of me is also terrified: that there is some flaw in the manuscript—or flaw in me—that the book will reveal, and that at some point I’m not going to look at it with pride, but with embarrassment and shame.

Shame, evolutionary biologists tell us, has a purpose. When we act in a manner that threatens our relationships with others, shame pressures us to apologize and repair the connection. Despite our current culture’s valorization of individualism and hyper-independence, human survival has long depended on community cooperation. Expulsion from a family or group thus threatens survival, so human emotions that prevent expulsion have a critical purpose.

Yet, there is also something such as “toxic” or “chronic” shame—the kind that often starts at a young age and becomes so ingrained that the person believes they, themselves, are bad. Such a child will grow up to minimize and silence themselves—to hide themselves from the world in order to protect familial connections. This, I can sometimes recognize in myself, as well as in the creative writing students I teach. Although I give my students free rein to write about whatever they’d like, many choose to explore fraught family relationships or moments when their lives came in conflict with social norms. The drafts they turn in are beautiful, moving, and fruitful, yet it isn’t uncommon for me to receive a panicked email right before class workshop, as the student quakes from vulnerability and suddenly questions their subject matter (much as I quake before my book’s launch). When we make ourselves visible or push against social dictates—especially when we come from rigid family backgrounds where certain stories aren’t allowed—there can be an eviscerating psychological toll.

Lately, I’ve become interested in how writers navigate such shame—and grateful for the writers who’ve spoken openly. Stephanie Clare Smith, author of the beautiful memoir on childhood neglect, Everywhere the Undrowned, has acknowledged that the publication process was at times excruciating. “Most [press and readers] just expected me to be overjoyed, healed, and ‘feeling the love,’” she said. In reality, the lead-up to her launch pained her “on an intense cellular level,” requiring her to better care for and reassure her younger self.

Novelist and writing coach Sarah Stone has described the phenomena in a similar way, and her words resonate with me. “When we publish our books, we go out naked into the world,” she says. “It’s one of the reasons that [supportive writing groups are] so important. Who else understands just how vulnerable we are, how all kinds of childhood selves emerge just at the moment when we need to be more grown-up than ever? But overall, it can be very nurturing, and the hard parts illuminating. With every book, when we stay open, we make wonderful new friends. I think that’s the best part, no matter what does or doesn’t happen in a worldly way.”

I am no expert—on human emotions or psychology—but I find comfort in Smith’s and Stone’s words, and their insistence that pre- and post-publication shame doesn’t mean our work is actually shameful—or that the emergence of childhood selves means we shouldn’t have published it. On the contrary, publication can help us soften and grow.

I also find comfort witnessing the practices of my students. When I see my students working on their essays—trying to find meaning and art in complex realities—what I see is beauty. Their essays don’t have to be fully processed for me to admire them. Their conclusions don’t have to be perfect. It is the act of writing, and the act of reaching for understanding that appeals to me most, both in the students I teach and the published works I read.

This is what I will try to remember this fall, during those inevitable moments when a poor review or critical response (or no response at all) triggers my own childhood shame, and I begin to think it would have been better for me to stay silent and small. Art has meaning, I will remind myself. What we do is meaningful. When it comes to our humanity, there is nothing to be ashamed of.

Writing Lessons from Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility and Structure

Photo by Book Hut

Today’s post is by book coach Robin Henry.

As noted in a previous post, 2025 is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. It’s worth taking a moment to think about what makes her novels stand the test of time.

In my work with writers who are revising, we focus on six pillars of revision: Story Question, Structure, Cause and Effect, Character, Curiosity, and Language. In the first part of this series, we looked at how Austen used story questions in Northanger Abbey. Now, we will focus on the second pillar by dissecting the structure of Sense and Sensibility.

Sense and Sensibility was the first novel Austen published and straddles the Romantic Period and the Enlightenment. The story questions in the novel have to do with whether feeling or reason is best, leading the reader to the conclusion that perhaps some balance of the two is the answer.

Originally published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility was begun by Austen in 1795 and titled Elinor and Marianne. She wrote it in the epistolary form, but discarded that form later when she revised it and changed the title to Sense and Sensibility. The Romantic wave, which brought with it, among other things, Frankenstein and the Shelleys, was on the rise in England. The Sorrow of Young Werther by Goethe, considered a major influence on Romanticism, was published in 1774, and made its way to England in translation in 1779. Almost immediately, it was considered a bad influence and an apology for suicide, even though as Goethe himself pointed out, English poets were already writing about melancholy.

Within this context, Sense and Sensibility arrived on the scene and offered readers a novel with what modern readers would recognize as plot structure. For the purposes of this article, structure will refer to plot structure, though in some contexts it may also refer to the way a writer chooses to tell the story, or form.

Austen chose to use many letters in the narrative, but the form of the novel is a linear telling in third person POV, with an occasionally intrusive narrator. Austen pioneered “free indirect discourse,” which is a form of third-person narrative in which the narrator’s voice is “mixed” with the character’s thoughts and speech. Austen’s use of this style marked the beginning of what modern writers would consider third-person limited POV.

In addition to being in the vanguard of writers who were developing new styles for telling stories, Austen also gave her plots shape, while many of her contemporaries were still writing episodic adventures steeped in coincidence and deus ex machina. Now, gentle reader, we will see how Sense and Sensibility uses plot structure.

In this analysis, the plot structure will include the following plot points: Stasis, Inciting Incident, Complications, Midpoint, Crisis, Climax, and Resolution.

It is, of course, possible to break down the plot in further detail or to use other naming conventions, but our intent is to discuss what a writer may learn from Austen about how to place the major plot events and decision points in a narrative. Because the narrative is a parallel story, with two almost equal protagonists, some parts of the plot structure are joined for them and some parts are split. It is also important to note that the stakes continue to rise and the complications to accumulate in the chapters between these events. 

Chapter 1—Stasis, or life before the inciting incident. In this chapter, the reader meets all the players and the main conflict of the novel: women have no power when they have no money; male relatives control what their life choices will be. The story question, feeling v. reason, is hinted at by character reactions to the main conflict. The antagonist of the novel, Fanny Dashwood, is brought on stage to cause immediate conflict for our heroines. Notice that the main conflict appears early in the novel. The reader does not have to wade through a lot of backstory to find out what it is.Chapters 4 and 5—Inciting Incident, or that which leads the characters to make a decision that will determine the rest of the action in the novel. In chapter 4, the Dashwood ladies decide to move to Devon in reaction to their apparent unwelcomeness in the home of Fanny, wife of the heir to the estate. They have been offered a cottage. In chapter 5, the move takes place. This move leads to all of what happens next. Because they have moved to Barton Cottage, they meet Willoughby. Because they have moved to Barton Cottage, they will meet the Steele sisters. The wheels are in motion, the dominoes are tipping.Chapters 22 through 25—The Midpoint, with run up. In 22, Elinor learns of Lucy and Edward’s secret engagement, which she decides to keep a secret at Lucy’s request, in the next chapter. This decision leads to additional consequences, including Marianne’s misunderstanding of her. In chapter 25, the sisters are invited to London, and it is clear that each has her own motivation. Marianne wants to go in hopes of seeing Willoughby, Elinor doesn’t want to go, as she is nursing a broken heart, but she decides to go. Elinor is aware that Marianne will not cope well with being denied the trip and cannot be trusted to go alone, not least because without Elinor as a buffer, Marianne will not pay enough respect to their hostess, Mrs. Jennings. Chapter 25, therefore, offers a big change in the story—a change of location, a change of situation for both sisters, one of whom is on a down arc and the other on an up arc at the time of the change. It is also the exact middle of the chapters, since there are 50 chapters in the novel, a fact both interesting and enlightening for students of story structure.Chapters 28 and 34—Crises for both Elinor and Marianne. Two party scenes provide the backdrop for the sisters’ crises. If you are keeping score in the Romantics v. Reason department, notice that Marianne’s crisis is public. Her humiliation is public when Willoughby basically gives her the cut direct in chapter 28; her reaction is public, the consequences are public. By contrast, Elinor’s crisis in chapter 34 takes place at a private dinner party. All the players have been gathered—Fanny and John, Brandon, the Ferrars, the Steele sisters. Elinor has to be careful; she cannot show her true feelings or risk giving away Edward’s secret. In bold Romantic fashion, Marianne speaks without knowing all, inadvertently adding to Elinor’s pain. In the chapter after this party, Elinor decides to “get over” Edward and let it go.Chapters 42 and 48—Climax, by turns. After continuing complications and revelations—Willoughby is just as big a cad as Elinor suspected, but wished him not to be—the sisters are on their way home. Marianne indulges herself in some grief wallowing by walking in a storm while they stay with the Palmers in chapter 42. Shocker, she becomes ill with a raging fever. Again, her actions are public and bombastic. In chapter 48, the reader experiences one of the most satisfying twists in all of fiction, when Edward comes to visit at the cottage and disabuses the whole family of the notion that he and Lucy have been married. Lucy is indeed Mrs. Ferrars, Mrs. Robert Ferrars. Cue tears. Elinor’s moment is private.Chapter 50—Resolution by the slightly intrusive narrator. All’s well that ends well. Edward and Elinor are married by the Autumn, and no less than two years later, Marianne finds herself doing the opposite of what all her opinions had been at the beginning of the novel, and in so doing, making Brandon the happiest of men, as everyone around him knew he deserved. Perhaps it is because Brandon, as the reader knows from his history, is actually the Romantic hero Marianne was searching for, despite wearing a flannel vest. The sisters settle not too far from their mother and the elder Mrs. Ferrars has been spellbound by Lucy, getting the daughter-in-law she so richly deserves.

As one may see from this, Austen places the “big” plot events at the places where readers, even modern readers, expect them to be. She also balances the opening and closing. The break into Act II happens in chapter 5, when the Dashwood ladies move to Barton Cottage, 10% into the novel. At chapter 45, 10% from the end of the novel, Elinor and Marianne are back at Barton Cottage after their adventures for the climax and resolution, arguably Act III.

It is not a rule that all novels should follow this exact pattern. In writing, as in any art, there is subjectivity and fluidity in the model. But there are clear turning points in the novel at the chapters identified. Act I and Act III are balanced. A big decision with consequences happens at the midpoint. The other decisions, as well as the Crises and Climaxes for Elinor and Marianne, are spaced to provide rising stakes and continuing complications as the reader approaches the final big twist.

Some writers object to applying quantitative measures to writing, because art is creative, and should not be bound by such limits. I would submit that all great art has an underlying structure. The ability to use the structure creatively to engage with and ask questions of the consumer of the artwork—that is the mark of a great artist.

Writing exercise: Write the synopsis for your work in progress using the plot points outlined in this post. Is the shape of the story clear? Do you have the necessary decision points? Are the dominoes tipping? If yes, great! If not, how can you make adjustments to tell your story?

3 Suggestions for New Writers Navigating a Turbulent Industry

Today’s post is by Brian Rendell.

Entering any new field is challenging but breaking into today’s writing profession is a daunting proposition. Publishers’ budgets are stretched, indie and traditional models appear to be colliding, AI is disrupting norms, and agents are overwhelmed with submissions.

I recently set sail on these choppy waters, hoping to find a safe haven for my historical fiction manuscript-in-progress. While still a newcomer, I have learned some lessons over the past eighteen months to help chart a course.

I offer three suggestions to assist new writers: Embrace It, Try It, and Maximize It.

1. Embrace it.

Thirty years in business taught me that opportunities abound during periods of turbulence. If everyone is feeling unsteady, then newcomers who haven’t yet gained their sea legs are at less of a disadvantage than they would be during a time of stability. Embrace this time of upheaval and jump in; you just might have something unique to offer.

First, take a deep breath, and accept that you are a writer. If you write regularly and want to achieve the dream of being published, you simply must be prepared to tell the world you are a writer. If you don’t take yourself seriously, how do you expect others to do so?

I received this advice during the first year of my MFA. I confess it took me a while to accept it. I had spent thirty years establishing myself in the finance profession, so it was hard to park that former identity and adopt a creative persona. I experienced the disquieting feeling of being an imposter and a dreamer. But I knew if I wanted to pursue my dream, I had to embrace it.

This advice was reinforced during a recent writing retreat-of-a-lifetime aboard the Queen Mary 2. I swallowed hard and took the advice of Jane Friedman and other instructors to heart. I no longer refer to myself as a “Retired Financial Professional & Aspiring Writer”—far too lengthy a handle on social media—and have accepted that I am indeed a writer. It was liberating to put myself out there.

The good news is that I have the support of my former colleagues, who are watching me with interest and curiosity, and the encouragement of writers and industry members from a wide range of backgrounds and experience: fellow MFA students, mentors and lecturers, participants on writing retreats and webinars, local authors and members of writing groups across North America and the UK. This encouragement gave me the confidence to submit essays and articles such as the one you’re reading today. This has led to further connections and supporters.

I recently heard two insightful writing podcasters and agents (CeCe Lyra and Carly Watters) say “Book people are good people”—I love that! My experience has confirmed this.

After embracing the title “writer,” I reached out via email to three well-established authors expert in the history my manuscript explores. To my pleasant surprise, all three responded promptly to my outreach and provided answers to my questions with genuine encouragement. This confirmed for me that I was a writer who could engage with those more experienced in the field, as a peer.

Rather than feeling too inexperienced to deserve a seat at the table, I’ve embraced my place as a member of the writing community. Do I have a lot to learn? Of course. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have something to offer.

2. Try it.

A benefit of being a newcomer in turbulent times is you can take risks. You don’t have anything to lose and who will notice if it doesn’t work?

The first risk I took was enrolling in an MFA program. An MFA is not a prerequisite for success in the writing world, and not the route for everyone, but I recognized my need for structure and foundational building blocks. It was difficult, humbling, and intimidating going back to school in my mid-fifties, especially in a field in which I was inexperienced. But I was willing to be open minded, accept feedback, and work hard. In addition to learning writing craft and the business of publishing, it’s given me a supporting network of writing colleagues, expert instructors and valuable mentors. Most importantly, it’s given me confidence.

After a year of MFA experience, I embarked on a research trip to London. I walked its streets searching for locations relevant to my manuscript, including a townhouse in Belgravia. I was thrilled to find it and stood outside on the sidewalk for ten minutes taking photos and trying to absorb its surroundings to help me write from my character’s perspective in 1916. The building looked like it may be open to the public, but I wasn’t sure. I longed to go inside but imposter syndrome reared its head. I thought, “Who do you think you are? What will you say if you walk into a private residence? You’re not a ‘real’ writer.” I began to walk away when my fledgling writer’s confidence stopped me. I said to myself, “Who knows when I will be in London again? What do you have to lose?” I went back and approached the entryway.

To my surprise, the imposing black door automatically opened inward revealing three well-dressed attendants standing behind a desk, likely watching me via CCTV taking photos of their building.  After a few awkward moments, I introduced myself (as a writer, of course), and explained how the building related to my manuscript-in-progress. Curious, they invited me inside and introduced themselves as employees of owners of a group of luxury townhouses. Rather than rebuff me as I feared, they were genuinely interested in my work and shared more details about the history of the building. After exchanging emails, one of the employees took me around back, past security, and provided more information about the building’s historic mews in the back lane. He gave me fascinating details about the neighborhood, including directions to a classic pub that was tucked away, down a narrow cobblestone lane. I visited the Grenadier, first built in 1720, for lunch, had a great chat with the manager and now have a new authentic location, new scene and a story twist for my manuscript.

It was exhilarating to step forward and walk through that door. My takeaway is to seize opportunities when they arise. You will never know what’s behind a closed door unless you take a risk and give it a try.

3. Maximize it.

When I began to prioritize writing in my fifties, I knew I’d be behind other writers in terms of reading and creative writing experience; I had forsaken those activities during my finance career. While I’m trying my best to make up for lost time, I know I can’t close the gap for having spent thirty years adrift in a corporate sea with few novels in sight.

What I learned, however, is the experience from my former career gave me skills I can transfer to the writing world. For example: meeting tight deadlines, maintaining focus and stamina, networking and being open to critical feedback.

In his book, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Tom Rath suggests identifying, honing, and maximizing your strengths. One of the identified strengths for me was “ideation”; I’m intrigued by connecting disparate phenomena. That’s a skill I didn’t use extensively in my previous career but one I find myself using a lot in my research and writing.

Undoubtedly, you too have unique skills and strengths that make you stand out. Discover what those are and maximize them to help in your writing.

Embrace that you are indeed a writer and enjoy the thrills and opportunities that come with that. Naturally, there will be setbacks and disappointments but that’s to be expected when you attempt something new; it’s part of the learning process. There’s no better time than now to dip your oar in the water while writing and publishing is in a state of flux and traditional paths are disappearing. 

Try new things and look for opportunities. There isn’t a singular course to success in this field. Understand what makes you unique and maximize your strengths to navigate your own route.

And, as we say in Newfoundland and Labrador to wish someone positive wind in their sails, Long May Your Big Jib Draw.