- When in doubt, make it worse. Not sure if you should kill the best friend or if the first day of school should be terrible? Do it!
- Incorporate tension on every page. If everything is perfect, it’s boring. Even low-grade tension is enough (like having characters bickering).
- Build mystery. If you reveal everything immediately, it will be 1) boring exposition and 2) doesn’t give a reason for your reader to continue on. Mystery prompts curiosity.
- Cut out the boring stuff. Does your character need to brush their teeth? Probably. Do we need to read about it? Unless the toothpaste has been poisoned, no.
- Alternate between high-intensity and low-intensity scenes. After a heart-pounding action scene, your reader will need to catch their breath. Or, if it’s slow scene after slow scene, they may loose interest.
- Make the goal hard. Either the goal is physically difficult to obtain or it forces the protagonist to face an inner flaw (ideally, it should be both.)
- Follow a plot template to get started. ‘Hero’s Journey’ or ‘Three-Act Structure’ are good places to start.
How do you strengthen your plot?
