Forget the Happily Ever After!

Sometimes as an author it's easy to get caught up in the "perfect world" story. (Que Duloc song from Shrek). You learn to love your characters, so naturally you want the best for them. You want them to succeed at every turn, have the safest path to their destination, and get the happily ever after ending.

Guess what, that's boring!!! And not just boring, it's typical. Readers don't want to read a story about a typical character going through typical life. They want something exciting, someone different who stands out. So how do you make your story different and exciting?

For a lot of writers the story is already outlined in their minds from start to finish. For others, the story unfolds itself as they write. No matter which type of writer you are, the story is an ever-changing, ever-expanding thing that you get to mold. Your job is to tell it as best you can, which means you have some control over the circumstances, no matter how miniscule.

Use that control to test your characters. Throw things their way and see how they react. Not only will you learn a lot about your characters, but your story will be a lot more exciting. Go through the plot and try to find ways to twist the events. If there's something your character is dreading more than anything, throw it at them. If there is something invincible or unbeatable, throw it at them. Find a different way for your character to beat it or overcome it. Think of the most unimaginable, worst thing that could happen and make it happen. Get the point yet?

An example from my own experience is a scene where my protagonist is racing through a house to beat someone to her room because she's already supposed to be there. I knew my character would beat that person to her room (A good twist would be, what if she didn't? What would she say about it, how would she react?) and when there was a knock on her door we both knew who it was. Or so I thought. I had a moment where I questioned what was really coming next. Is it the person she was knew was coming to look for her, or was it someone else entirely?

I decided to go with the entirely different person, someone she (and I) were not expecting. I had no idea where the story was going and as I wrote I was just as anxious to find out why this new person was there. It turned out to be a very pivotal point in my book and now all the pieces have fallen into place.

Trust your characters, they'll let you know if it's right or not. More often than not, your character's reaction will be in line with the story and help propel it forward.