“A well-chosen complication should give you choices. Juggling choices for your characters is what makes writing fun, after all. If you discover that you're struggling more than you ought to with a draft, perhaps you've run out of interesting choices, or have given yourself too few choices to begin with. Go back to the complication, fatten it up, and start over.” IfsGivingShouldWritingWellsCharacterRunningChoicesGivenFunInterestingStruggleOughtChosenStarting OverComplicationJuggling Author:Monica Wood
“It's often hard to determine, especially in early drafts, whether or not a story has a bona fide complication. Remember this: A complication must either illuminate, thwart, or alter what the character wants. A good complication puts emotional pressure on a character, promoting that character not only to act, but to act with purpose.If the circumstance does none of these things, then it's not a complication at all - it's a situation. This situation, or setup, might be interesting or even astonishing, but it gives the story no point of departure.” IfsWantGivingWritingDoeHardCharacterStoriesMightRememberPurposeInterestingSituationEmotionalCircumstancesPressureDeterminePromotingAstonishingNo PointDepartureComplicationSetups Author:Monica Wood