How Could You Do This to Me? When Characters Betray Other Characters

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

This week's Refresher Friday takes an updated look at writing character betrayals. 
The always fabulous Donald Maass wrote about reversals over at Writer Unboxed a while back, and there was one tip he gave that I actually had to disagree with a little. (I know, I was shocked too.) He was suggesting various ways you can shake things up in your novel, and one of them was:

What’s the worst betrayal this character could do? Do it.

But in 2011 (when I first wrote this), I’d been seeing the unexpected betrayal everywhere. It had gotten so bad it was verging on cliché. Instead if a betrayal surprising me, I was playing the “I wonder which one of these allies will turn on the hero in the third act?” game. I knew it was coming, and more times than not, it did.
Read more »Written by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com