V. Moody's Blog, page 90

Question Time

It’s Q-day in the A to Z
Challenge and as is traditional here at Moody Writing, I'm opening the floor
to any questions you might have about the writing process. I can’t promise you
a good answer, or the right answer, but hopefully I can offer you a new way of looking at the problem.





Writers can often get locked into one way of doing things. This character acts in this way, in this world. When things don't work, this can lead to a lot of options getting overlooked.



In cases like these a new perspective can help. That's where I come in. Hello! 



So, if you have any questions,
either regarding writing in general, or specific to something you’re working
on, please leave it in the comments section below and I’ll copy and paste it into the
main body of the post, along with a link to your blog or website (a little free publicity never hurts).



And if there are no questions,
then I’ll happily put my feet up and have a day off. You don't have to ask a question, by the way. You can just say hello or comment on one of the other  questions.



Alex from Alex J Cavanaugh (perhaps you've heard of it) asks:

Can I ask one about you? How did you develop your writing expertise?



All self-taught, no credentials or scout badges to my name. I read a lot, listen to what others have to say, make up my own mind about what's useful. Hopefully people who read this blog will do the same.



Al Diaz from over at Father Dragon Writes asks:

Many times I've read from the experts that it is important to know your
genre, your audience and your market. Honestly, I have absolutely no
idea what they are talking about or where to learn about it. Can you
give me some directions? 



Generally, they mean keep an eye on what's selling in your genre; read the kinds of books you want to write to see how long they are, what kind of language they use; and check out sites where readers review and complain about books to see what pleases them and what doesn't. Which is fair enough, but you'll find a lot of conflicting info.



We have more access to that sort of information than ever before, but it's important to remember that publishers have all the latest data and they still fail to make money with 90% of the books they print.  



Most industry analysis is done after the fact and is out of date almost immediately. It tells you how it happened in the past, not how to do it in the future, same as movies. That's why you see a lot of the same sorts of stories shoved down people's throats. They can still make money that way using marketing and shutting out any competition. Much harder for a lone author to break in and get noticed that way.



Diane Carlisle at Are We There Yet? asks:

Have you an opinion on mixing genres, specifically a suspense thriller with a notion of romance?
Example:
My
protagonist is a detective out to solve a crime. She has a new boss and
he's a bit of a puzzle. He's going to end up being her mentor and
helping her, but what damage might I do if I leave a hint of internal
conflict, maybe passion, that never comes to be? In other words, I'll
leave it up to the reader to wonder about the romantic interest, but
never fulfill the intimacy.



Romantic Thrillers a la Nora Roberts are big business, but there's usually a strong emphasis on the romance (with follow through, if you know what I mean). Suspense, danger, passion. if your story is more a thriller with a hint of unrequited love or something like that, the danger is if readers prefer the lovey-dovey stuff, you may frustrate them. If you get the balance right, there's nothing wrong with a sense of 'What might be...'




Gwen from Gwen Gardner, YA Fiction Author asks:

How important is it to stick to writing rules? I sort of feel like breaking them sometimes :)



It isn't important at all. What matters is how to get across your story in the most effective way possible. For most people this means using conventional methods. Others have done it before you and they've found certain ways work. But other ways work too. Understanding rules and why they're recommended, though, usually helps writers see why people might not be connecting with their work.



Sarah Foster at The Faux Fountain Pen asks:



I've been obsessing over symbolism lately so I'd love to know your
thoughts on that. How can it be effective and how much is too much? 



More important is theme. If you have a strong idea of what your story is about (what it's really about), and if that theme carries weight (i.e. readers respond to the theme), then symbolism will help enhance that feeling. But you need to know your theme, not sprinkle in crucifixes in various guises and  hope it means something to someone. In general, I'd say symbolism comes in late and tends to appear by itself, or you notice it and maybe shape it a little, rather than plant it into a scene or build a scene around it. You can do both those things, but it will probably stick out a bit, which can be distracting more than enhancing.



Maria from First Draft Cafe asks:

What is your view on finding a writing partner, someone who can help to spur you on to the finish line with a project?



If you mean a fellow writer to buddy up with on your own separate stories (so you both sit sown at the same time to work on your individual projects), then that's hugely helpful. It's like going to the gym or on  a diet with someone going through the same thing, makes it a lot easier. But they have to be doing it too, just offering encouragement can end up making you resentful.



Michael from Michael Offutt, Speculative Fiction Author asks;

My question is about you. Are you a guy or a gal?



I'm a guy, although Alex always refers to me as female, which I don't mind.




 

Persuading Readers

You can write a story and present it as, Here’s some stuff I made up — hope you like it! 




Or you can present it as, I’m
going to tell you what happened — I know because I was there. 




Even though fiction is obviously all lies, and the reader knows that,
you can make a big difference in how they receive a story simply by how you approach
the telling of the tale.




In order to persuade the reader that they are getting the skinny from
someone who knows, you have to create a sense of authority. A sense that
they can’t get this story from anyone else, because no one else knows the story
the way you do.




This is true of any genre and any style. But you can’t just claim to be
the person with the inside knowledge, you have to back it up.




You do this by being specific and detailed. You give the reader
information that only someone on the inside would know. And it has to be
convincing. This can be because the information is true. Or it can be because
you’re a good liar. Doesn’t matter.




Let’s say two characters meet at an airport. I can create a sense of
authority simply by describing the airport in a way that demonstrates I really
have been to this airport.




You may say, What has that got to
do with anything? Just because they meet in this particular place doesn’t mean
it’s relevant to the story. 




I agree. But by establishing your credentials on one subject, it
persuades the reader that they are in the hands of a writer who knows what they’re
doing. It doesn’t have to be the location, it can be a job, an object, a
method...




You may say, Sure, I get the
idea, but just because a writer can come up with ten bits of information about
Heathrow Terminal 4 doesn’t mean the reader’s going to be interested by them.
What’s the point in proving your authority if you send your audience to sleep? 




I couldn’t agree more. It isn’t just a matter of showing you know your
stuff, you also have to keep it entertaining. If you gather ten bits of info on
Heathrow, they may all be things most people wouldn’t know, but some are going
to be more interesting than others. Which are interesting enough to share is a
matter of personal judgement. You also have to take account of the sort of
story you’re writing and the kind of character you’re writing about. You have
to be selective.




You may say, Okay, that’s fine if
I’m writing some story set in an airport on the outskirts of London, but what
if I’m writing about a space port on the planet Tiktak, or a forest in the
magical land of Jellybean? 




It doesn’t make any difference. The kind of detail you would use in a
real setting is the same you would use in a fantasy one. You’re not trying to
educate the reader or showing off your personal knowledge of airports, you’re
establishing your firm grasp on the information you’re relaying.




If I was writing about a character who worked at McDonald’s I might
tell you something about working in the kitchen that would fascinate and
horrify you. If the character was working in the castle kitchens of Henry VIII,
the details might differ, but the intention would be the same: I’m going to
tell you something you didn’t know, but now that you do, you aren’t going to
forget it. 




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Objectives Provide Story Momentum

 

When the objective is clear and the character is
moving towards it, the reader will stay with the story, at least until they reach
a natural break in the narrative.




But ever be reading a book and you find yourself in
a section where not much is happening, no great action or set piece, but you
can’t stop reading?




You go from one line to the next and it’s like
you’re leaning forward as you’re going down a hill and it would almost be more
effort to stop than to just keep going.




That’s the power of momentum.


Any time you give a character a specific objective
you have the opportunity to create momentum. But if can string all the
objectives together, then you can keep the reader perpetually in the flow of
the story.




It may feel like it will be obvious that whatever
the character does it will be in pursuit of their main objective, so you don’t
have to keep mentioning it. But this isn’t about the story making sense or characters
behaving in plausible ways, it’s about creating a sense of forward movement
that the reader will find hard to escape from.




For example, let’s say our characters are off to a
big violent showdown and get in their car. But on the way they decide to stop
off at a bakery to get a doughnut.  It
turns out that this bakery is actually a front for a weapons dealer and our
characters are actually going there to get hold of some serious firepower. Only
the reader doesn’t know that.




You could quite easily decide that the surprising
nature of why they’re going to the bakery will be a cool thing for the reader
to discover, so you don’t make it clear why they’re headed there.




If the time between deciding to go to the bakery
and revealing the real reason for going there is quite short, you won’t lose
much momentum.




If the characters go to the bakery and check out
the different cakes and have a long chat with the woman behind the counter
before the real reason for going there is revealed, then even though you may be
able to recapture the reader’s interest, you will still have lost a lot of the
momentum you built up.It's a trade off, and only you can decide if what you gain is worth what you lose.




If you reveal up front what they’re doing—There’s only one place to buy a anti-aircraft
missile around here: Ma’s Old Tea Shop—then that will keep the momentum
going, although the surprise will be gone.




But the aim here is to provide a connection to the
main story, not necessarily explain it. So the important part is to
bring up the connection. The above example does that, but you could also do it
like this: 




“First we
need to stop off at Ma’s Old Tea Shop”.





“This is no
time to get yourself a doughnut.”





“Oh, Ma sells
more than doughnuts.” 




Just letting the reader know this is not an
arbitrary left turn in the story, even if it’s just a hint, is enough to keep
the momentum rolling.




Finding small ways to remind the reader this is all in pursuit of that ultimate goal (whatever that might be in your story) is all it takes to  keep things rolling.




Bear in mind, the reason I made it an unusual place
to get weapons is because if they went to a gun shop to get tooled up, it would
be self-explanatory why they were going there. When the link to the main story
is clear, the momentum will automatically be there.




Having said all that, if you write deep enough in
the character’s POV, it’s possible to hold the reader’s attention purely by
maintaining a strong enough focus on the character’s needs. He’s angry and
pissed off with the bad guys, and he’s going to the goddam tea shop. If we know
the kind of guy he is, we’ll know there must be more to this tea shop then just
cakes and Earl Grey.




But it’s also worth remembering that when you’re in
deep POV, we should know what the character knows, and when he does something,
we should be aware of why he does it. That won’t make his actions less
intriguing, it will only make the bond between character and reader all the
stronger.






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Number Of Stories: Infinite

Girl meets boy. Cop catches killer. Knight defeats dragon.




There may only be a limited number of types of story, but each is made
up of a series of connected goals.




In order to get from A to Z, you first have to get from A to B. Then
from B to C. How the character reaches
each goal requires a choice. When you string enough choices together not only
do you end up with a story, but you also create a pattern to that narrative.




In order to get the most out of this process, though, you need to be
aware of what options are available to the character at each stage.


The most obvious and familiar ways to deal with a problem, both from
real life and from other works of fiction, are going to pop into your head
first. But if you dig a bit deeper, you will find a variety of alternatives.




That doesn’t mean you should choose one bizarre event after
another—unless that’s the kind of story you want to write—but putting a
character on a set path and then seeing them through from one end to the other makes
it feel predictable.




It’s easy as a writer to reduce the process to the final decision. You
know what he’s going to end up doing so why not cut to the chase? But it’s
seeing the character make the choice that’s the interesting part for the
reader. Why did he have to make the decision? What were the options? How did
it go over? What were the consequences? These are the things that turn a
predictable journey into a story.




Here’s an example of what I mean. Tim is a journalist and he’s going to
get sent to Glasgow to cover a story. The scene I write to show this is in Tim’s
editor’s office where the editor tells him his assignment and sends him off.




That could be an okay scene, showing us where Tim works, some banter
between boss and employee, some set up as to what the story is going to be
about, and so on.




But ultimately the reader is told what is going to happen and then it
happens. I want you on a plane to Glasgow
tonight... and then he’s on a plane.




There’s no room for making choices here. However, if I know that I want
my character to go to Glasgow in this story, then what if his editor sits him
down and tells him he wants him on the first plane to Dublin?




Now he has to think of a way to get himself off that story and onto the
one he’s interested in. He could ask the editor nicely, he could trick an
ambitious rival into demanding the Dublin gig, he could lie, he could beg, or
whatever.




You have the character’s personality (what he’s capable of) and you
have all the ways you can think of to get him on that plane.  Every time he makes a move, an array of new
moves and counter-moves come into play.




It’s like the road splitting into ten paths, choosing one, and then
that road splitting into ten branches and so on. Only, instead of ten paths,
you actually have however many you can imagine your character considering.




Even though he’s still just going from A to B, there isn’t just one
route to take. That’s what creates the feeling of it being his story, even
though what he’s doing isn’t new or unusual. But it’s important to show the
choices being made, not just their outcome.



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Motivation For Writers

As a writer you need someone to be honest to your face (even if it’s
just your online face). You may feel you can take criticism as long as it’s
constructive or sensitively worded or if it comes from someone you respect, but
trying to influence how a reader reacts to your work is never going to yield
good results.




Constructive doesn’t mean polite or supportive, it means something you
can build on. That’s not to say you can’t be those things when putting forward
critical opinions, but if you’re asking for constructive criticism, be aware of
what it is you’re asking for.




Having said that, it also helps greatly to have someone to encourage
you. 




Wait, didn’t I just suggest that helpful feedback didn’t require a cheerleading
section? Yes, I did. But there’s more to writing than getting the words in the
right order and nicely polished.












If I tell you what you’ve written is brilliant and works on every
level, that may be nice to hear, but it isn’t constructive, except perhaps to
your ego. But then the occasional ego boost can work wonders when you’re in a
slump. And we all get that way from time to time.




Would Stephen King be where he is today if his wife hadn’t taken the
first draft of ‘Carrie’ out of the bin and said she thought it was good?  I doubt she meant it would be a worldwide bestseller
and the road to becoming a millionaire, she probably just meant it was good
enough to get published. And that was enough to get him back at the typewriter.




And encouragement doesn’t have to be pat on the back and sweet words
whispered into your ear, it can be a kick up the backside and a rant about not wasting
your life watching True Blood repeats. 




The thing to remember is that the person who tells you what’s not
working with your manuscript in no uncertain terms, and the person who tells
you you’re great and they’ll take the kids down to the park to give you an hour
because they believe in you, they don’t have to be the same person.




Trying to expect the perfect mix of good and bad, black and white,  hope and fear that suits your particular temperament
on any given day is always going to leave you feeling unsatisfied. 




Take the useful part of whatever you’re offered and train yourself to
ignore the rest. I know that can be tricky. When a loved one tells you it’s all
great when you know it isn’t, when a stranger online trashes everything you’ve
been working on, it can feel demoralising.




But you’re getting everything you
need to make the finished product.  Don’t
waste the opportunity because it didn’t come in the packaging you’d hoped it
would.





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Leave In Everything

As you write the first draft of your story, you may come to a point
where you wonder if you need to add more stuff, take stuff away, go into depth about
this or that.



My advice is go deep. Add as much detail as possible, all the
explanations and explore as many tangents as occur to you.






The reason I say this is twofold. First, there should be no editing in
the first draft, just an emptying of your brain onto the page. Once you’ve got
it down, you can mess around all you want, but having too much description or
exposition in an early draft is never a problem. You can always cut it out.



Secondly, and more importantly, 
there’s this thing that happens when you write a long-form piece. At
some point you will get stuck. Something will be missing or not working or in
need of a moment you hadn’t realised you needed.



The thing to do when this happens is to ignore it and keep going. Leave
a note for yourself, a place marker, reminding yourself there’s a hole that
needs filling but don’t bother filling it.



Then, when you have a more or less complete story, go over it from the
beginning to get a sense of what you have on your hands (it won’t be pretty,
but it never is).



As you go over it, reading it aloud if you can bear it, keep in mind
that there was that hole that needs filling. A reason for Tony to have left
England, a secret that Mary never told her daughters, or whatever. And a
strange thing will happen.



There will be something in the early part of the story that fits the
bill perfectly, giving you just what you need.



It often isn’t easy to spot.  The
subconscious is a sneaky bastard. It won’t be in plain sight. It will be tucked
away somewhere. And the thing is, if you really empty your brain onto the page
it will be there in a much more obvious way.





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Knowing What To Do Next

In life, sometimes you come to a point when dealing with a problem
where you don’t know what to do next. Either there’s no obvious solution, or it’s
in somebody else’s hands and you have to wait.




In fiction, characters can face this same issue. Leads can dry up,
tests have to be waited for, procedures followed.




However, in fiction, taking a break from the story isn’t really a
viable option. Waiting six to eight weeks for the blood tests to come back from
the lab isn’t going to be very interesting if you approach it realistically.


Or, if the character has come to a dead end, having them go to a
woodland retreat to thinks thing over isn’t going to be received well, although
it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do when faced with a complex problem.




Even if you have some entertaining stuff planned for what they get up
to, the loss in momentum and general disconnection from the main plot is going
to pull most readers out of the story.




And while the kind of character who always knows what to do and how to
do it makes life a lot easier for a writer, that may not be the sort of
character you want to write about.




If you want your characters to come to conclusions in a natural and
realistic manner, you can’t rely on gung ho leaps of faith all the time, but
you don’t have the time to let them slowly mature to a point where they
understand life a little better (which is how most of us deal with what life
throws at us).




Finding ways to keep the story moving forward without resorting to
impulsive acts that conveniently pan out every time can be quite tricky. There
are various ways to deal with this.




You can just skip ahead in time. Three
days later the boss called a meeting...  Nothing wrong with that if it fits the story, although
if nothing of note happened in those days it may raise questions about the importance
of the matter at hand.  Or it may
interrupt the flow and momentum of the story.




Another approach is to make sure the set up makes it impossible for the
character to sit on their hands. If the bank says they’ll be in touch about the
loan in 10-14 business days, and the gangster wants his money by tomorrow, the
character will obviously have to make other arrangements.




The problem with forcing the issue like this is that it can affect the
tone since most of the time in order to leave the character no choice you have
to raise the stakes pretty high, and you may not want to put your character
into panic mode at this point in the story.




You can also have the character seek advice. Going to a ‘wise old man’ allows
your character not to have to act rashly but still move forward.  The thing to watch out for here is to not let
the character become too passive. Being told what to do and then going and
doing it isn’t particularly engaging to read. 




Which is why those sorts of ‘helpful’ mentor types tend not to offer
easy answers. They make life harder for the main character, setting them tasks
that force them to work things out indirectly.











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Just Get On With The Story?

If you ask a reader whether they want answers immediately, or do they
want to wait a while, chances are they’ll want to know right now.



But that doesn’t mean you should give them what they want.



They might complain if you
seem to be taking too long getting to it, but the more you build up the tension and suspense, the higher you raise
the stakes, the more they'll enjoy the journey.



But human existence is all about knowing what’s best for you and not
doing it. Or knowing what you shouldn’t do and doing it anyway.



We can’t help ourselves. 







How you delay the reveal, though, is not as straightforward as just
holding back information or inserting a subplot. If it’s too obvious you’re
adding elements purely to slow things down it’s going to feel like padding.



In order to make the story feel like a cohesive whole it’s important to
make the separate elements all work together. No matter what a character decides to do it has to feel like it's part of the same story. 



One way to do that is mention up front something that will happen
later, or foreshadow.



So, if George is on a quest to liberate the Holy Grail from a well
defended castle and on the way someone asks him for help with a rogue dragon
terrorising a village, you can make that feel less arbitrary to the reader by
having some discussion earlier concerning the dragon situation, or even start
the story with George having to deal with a pesky lizard.



Even if you don’t think of the dragon subplot until halfway through
writing the story, going back and inserting the seeds earlier is worth doing.



In addition, if George goes off and sorts out the dragon problem and then
comes back to the Grail storyline in exactly the same place as he left it, then
it’s going to feel like you stopped one story to start another.



However, if something happens during the dragon subplot that
changes the way George approaches the Grail storyline, then you're still moving the main story forward.



What you have to be careful of is knowing that the separate storylines are going to come together but not letting the reader know. It may seem fine that they'll figure it out eventually, and what a wonderful surprise it will be for them, but it's important to give the story a sense of cohesion.



So it's better to have George suspect there's a connection between the dragons and the castle early on than it is to just suddenly reveal it at the end of the story. 



That's not to say you can't have surprises, but going off in different directions and then suddenly realising everything's connected all at once will make the story seem contrived. 



Avoiding that feeling can be as simple as having a character voice their suspicions or make a connection that doesn't provide answers, but just brings the possibilities to light. It will make for a more satisfying read.







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Inventing New From Old

What people like to read about is something new and different.
Something they haven’t experienced before.



What people also like to read about are things they recognise and are
familiar with and know well.



Herein lies the problem for writers. 
Go too far from what people are used to and they don’t want to risk
wasting their time on something they may end up not liking.



Stick to what’s been done before and get treated like a hack and
imitator.













It’s difficult because while most people will say they’re interested in
exploring new areas and giving a chance to risky propositions, the truth is it’s
the clichéd and the predictable that top the bestseller charts.



The same thing dressed up slightly different is what sells. That’s
probably true of most art forms at the moment. Truly original and fresh is how
we’d all like to be successful, but those successes are rare, and for every one
that makes it, there are hundreds that failed.



Trying to satisfy the reader’s desire for something unique yet
familiar, and creatively satisfying for the writer is no easy task.



At its most crass it can seem very one note. It’s Die Hard on a
hovercraft! Wuthering Heights with werewolves! But I’m not talking about big
conceptual ideas—whatever the premise of your story it should be something that
appeals to you.



What I’m talking about are the basic building blocks of a story. How do
you make those seem fresh and original even though they aren’t the main focus
of the story.



For example, if I’m writing a big love story that lasts a hundred years
and features alien visitors from another dimension that will all seem very
exciting and different I’m sure. But if one of the scenes within that story shows Diane,
my main character, going into a meeting wanting to impress and get the
promotion she knows Sally is being lined up for, how do I make that feel less
familiar and obvious?



Because even though the overall story may have lots of exciting and
innovative concepts to it, people only read one chapter at a time, and each
scene has the power to send the reader to sleep.



Often what I see when reading a WIP is a realistic depiction. Diane
works for a company that sell a rival to iPhones and she goes into the meeting
and talks in marketing jingo and when Sally points something out she shuts her
down. Typical boardroom scene.



The obvious way to make that sort of scene feel less familiar and
predictable is to have Diane come up with a truly impressive and revolutionary
idea for selling phones. Not very easy. In fact, if you could come up with
something like that you should probably stop writing and contact Samsung.



But there are plenty of other opportunities in a scene like that for
adding something different without having to do too much. You could change the
thing they’re talking about. Instead of mobile phones, maybe the company sells
unicorn horns. Obviously it would have to be something that fits into the story
you’re writing, but my point is that one small change can make a big difference
to how the reader will react to what was a fairly standard set up.



Or you could take the meeting out of the boardroom and have it on the
roof. You can’t do these things for no reason, you have to provide believable
explanations, but that’s completely within your power as a writer.



Perhaps the meeting is all women, or the chairmen is twelve, or a
there’s a cage with a tiger in it. These examples may seem random or requiring
more explanation than you would like, but I’m using extreme examples to show
the way the brain works.



If you look at a familiar painting and one thing stands out, that’s the
thing your brain will focus on. But the important thing isn’t to note what that
thing is, it’s that the brain is focused. The shift from “taking it all in” mode
to “trying to work it out” mode is a change in the level of engagement, and
once you get the reader in that state of mind the fish is on the hook.



Simply by adding small unexpected details you can add enough newness to
a familiar set up. Of course, you still have to make the rest of the scene
entertaining, but with the reader already engaged, you have a much better
chance of keeping the their attention.



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Handling Story Problems

A story is about a character dealing with a problem of some kind.  But is it just any problem?




What makes the task a character faces interesting to the reader?




Is it the risk involved? The difficulty? Does it vary depending on
genre?




If Mary decides to start selling cupcakes, it is certainly no easy task
running a business in the current financial climate. But will her journey towards
financial success be story worthy?




When it comes to problem difficulty, the objective difficulty is not
the issue. Climbing a mountain is a very difficult thing to achieve, but if the
person undertaking the climb is trained and experienced, then even though
effort is required the story doesn’t seem worth telling.




On the other hand, a character who has no training and no experience
who has to climb the mountain presents a much more intriguing prospect.




It isn’t the objective difficulty that counts, it’s the specific
difficulty for the character. We can test this by using a reverse example.




If Mike has to make a sandwich, a pretty easy task for most people, but
in his case his wife is being held at gunpoint and Mike has to make the gunman
his favourite sandwich by guesswork, or the wife dies, then Mike’s unique
sandwich-making problem makes the scenario interesting where under normal
circumstances it wouldn’t be.




Similarly, Mary and her cupcake store wouldn’t be interesting simply
because opening a shop is a difficult thing to do in general. But if Mary
doesn’t know how to make cupcakes, then her personal problem is what the story
is judged on.




There are two things to bear in mind here. First, some problems are
more interesting than others. You will have to use your own judgement when it
comes to deciding if a character’s abilities (or lack of) are enough to warrant
writing about. The way to judge this is easy: do you find it interesting?




The other thing is to make sure the motivations for a character are solid.
Why would Mary open a cupcake shop if she can’t make cupcakes? Why would a guy
with no training try climbing a mountain?




Once you have a situation your character finds very difficult but is
forced to deal with, chances are that‘s a problem worth writing about.



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