The Crisis/Dilemma
The crisis is that essential moment where the character must make a choice.
The two formulas for a great dilemma: Best Bad Choice or Irreconcilable Goods.
–Joe Bunting
Do a 15 minute “free writing” exercise describing your story crisis moment. Think about the questions below for a bit, take some notes to get set up, then just write for 15-20 minutes. If you are making progress, write until you reach an endpoint. Tip: If you have trouble writing, then use dictation in the Notes app and then use the text you come up with.
Crisis Questions
Is your story risky enough? Is your protagonist making life and death decisions? Is he or she making decisions at all?
How can you heighten the risk of those decisions? How can you put him or her into a best bad choice or irreconcilable goods situation?
If your character is just going along with everything, your story might be good, but it will never be great.
To make it great give your main character a dilemma, a risky and hard choice to make that will change everything in a crisis moment.
Crises are always a choice that your protagonist faces, and they come in two easy-to-follow formulas:
- Best Bad Choice. The best bad choice crisis is easy to understand. Just think of that game “would you rather.” You’re given a choice between two horrible things. Which do you choose? For example, would you rather leave the love of your life at a party with another guy, or let her humiliate you as she flirts with him? See? Drama, right?
- Irreconcilable Goods. There is another, somewhat less stressful way to create a crisis. Irreconcilable goods are two values that don’t work together. For example, love vs. money. Both are good, but like oil and water, they don’t mix. Another example: you get into your dream college, but if you go you have to leave your high school love. Other examples: comfort vs. adventure, personal happiness vs. the happiness of others, and success vs. family.
You can recognize these situations in your own life, right? We’ve all been through these crisis moments, and the choices we make in the midst of them carry outsized consequences when compared to most of the little decisions we make in our lives.
So find and explore this moment in your story!!! Dont worry about writing it well, worry about nailing the crisis moment.
If you use CHatGPT to generate any ideas, ass the sections that were useful to you and describe how they were useful.