Escalation: The key to avoiding melodrama

Melodrama. It might make for addictive daytime TV, but it tends to drive readers crazy.

Consider the following melodramatic scenarios:

It's a long, slow ride to the top (Photo by kconnors from morguefile.com)Eyes lock across a crowded room and the hero will now spend 300 pages risking his life for a woman he has never spoken to.The heroine's boyfriend sees her touch another man's shoulder in a conversation, A page later, he strangles the rival and disembowels him, then sends the...