Setting your characters up to fail

They fail, so they --and the story-- ultimately win

If your characters win easily, you lose as the writer.

Remember my concern about protective author syndrome at the beginning of this chapter? If you get stressed during this section, you may need to reread that section. The best way to make a story engaging, and therefore more enjoyable to write, is to force the character to struggle to achieve their goals.

Writers are usually compassionate people. We don’t enjoy torturing people. When someone asks you why you decided to write a novel, the first answer probably isn’t “I’m a sadist and I love ripping my characters apart on the page.”

And yet. We do need to pull the rug from under them in order to keep readers turning pages. Here’s how to do that in the most organic way possible, following your character’s lead: