Conflict and Stakes
So as some of you know, I've gotten into writing novels in the last few years. I just have to say that writing is great! But writing query letters, not so much. Much easier said than done. But apparently, I have their summary's Hook, Setup, Conflict, and Stakes components stuck on the brain, because I awoke this morning to a tension-steeped dream.
In my dream, I'm on vacation with family, at a summer home rental. My husband and parents have gone off somewhere, I think to stand in a long line and buy tickets for something, while I'm left with our two boys. Innocent enough of a start, no? But then it begins to rain and the house starts to flood! Meanwhile, there's no food in the house and the kids haven't eaten anything so I need to get to the store to buy something and then cook it for them (chicken curry had been the plan in the dream). Before I can go to the store, a random handsome stranger shows up and offers to fix the leak in the ceiling/roof (in the dream it's pretty much the same thing: just a gaping hole that's letting the rain in). And with no ulterior motive other than to ask to borrow a vest? I'm not buying that.
But then, word comes over my phone that everyone near the river (that's us) has to evacuate because a typhoon is coming. (Don't hate; it's my dream.) So the stakes are pretty clear: If I don't get some food into my kids, THEY WILL STARVE TO DEATH, only after half-killing me with whining and worse, proving me to be a bad mom and bad planner (gasp!). But if I don't skip dinner plans and leave with the handsome stranger and flee to safety now, WE COULD ALL DIE! But if I leave now, I MIGHT NEVER KNOW what has happened to my husband and parents. Where the heck are they, anyway?! And WHAT WILL THEY THINK when they find out I've run off with a stranger and left them high and dry? See? The story's just oozing tension! Not sure about you, but if this was a back-of-the-book cover and I were into natural disaster-suspense books, I'd buy it.
So anyway, in case you want to know what happened next in the dream, I decide the house is no longer viable as a place to cook dinner anyway; we're practically having to swim. But my indecision has raised the stakes: We're in even greater danger now and I might have doomed not just us, but this innocent stranger, too. Or is he not-so-innocent? After a humorous aside involving a raccoon the size of a wolf and an introverted but adventurous hedgehog who rides him (no idea where that came from), I take the kids and drive away with the stranger. We come to a place where we have to ford the river. (It was the Santa Fe in my dream. That's right. It's MY dream.) I have just about swum across with my youngest child, with the stranger and the older child left on the river bank behind us when…
My older child woke me up. Gah! And there you have it: Hook, Setup, Conflict, and Stakes. Now I'm going back to working on my query letter. If you know what was going to happen in my dream, please let me know!
In my dream, I'm on vacation with family, at a summer home rental. My husband and parents have gone off somewhere, I think to stand in a long line and buy tickets for something, while I'm left with our two boys. Innocent enough of a start, no? But then it begins to rain and the house starts to flood! Meanwhile, there's no food in the house and the kids haven't eaten anything so I need to get to the store to buy something and then cook it for them (chicken curry had been the plan in the dream). Before I can go to the store, a random handsome stranger shows up and offers to fix the leak in the ceiling/roof (in the dream it's pretty much the same thing: just a gaping hole that's letting the rain in). And with no ulterior motive other than to ask to borrow a vest? I'm not buying that.
But then, word comes over my phone that everyone near the river (that's us) has to evacuate because a typhoon is coming. (Don't hate; it's my dream.) So the stakes are pretty clear: If I don't get some food into my kids, THEY WILL STARVE TO DEATH, only after half-killing me with whining and worse, proving me to be a bad mom and bad planner (gasp!). But if I don't skip dinner plans and leave with the handsome stranger and flee to safety now, WE COULD ALL DIE! But if I leave now, I MIGHT NEVER KNOW what has happened to my husband and parents. Where the heck are they, anyway?! And WHAT WILL THEY THINK when they find out I've run off with a stranger and left them high and dry? See? The story's just oozing tension! Not sure about you, but if this was a back-of-the-book cover and I were into natural disaster-suspense books, I'd buy it.
So anyway, in case you want to know what happened next in the dream, I decide the house is no longer viable as a place to cook dinner anyway; we're practically having to swim. But my indecision has raised the stakes: We're in even greater danger now and I might have doomed not just us, but this innocent stranger, too. Or is he not-so-innocent? After a humorous aside involving a raccoon the size of a wolf and an introverted but adventurous hedgehog who rides him (no idea where that came from), I take the kids and drive away with the stranger. We come to a place where we have to ford the river. (It was the Santa Fe in my dream. That's right. It's MY dream.) I have just about swum across with my youngest child, with the stranger and the older child left on the river bank behind us when…
My older child woke me up. Gah! And there you have it: Hook, Setup, Conflict, and Stakes. Now I'm going back to working on my query letter. If you know what was going to happen in my dream, please let me know!
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