Plot Landmines

Murphy’s Law: Whatever can go wrong will, at the worst possible time.

In your everyday life mishaps and tardiness are frowned upon, but in fiction these are the life blood of conflict. A character misses the big date or forgets her briefcase and the that big meeting at work turn out horrible.

Conflict is what drives the narrative and ultimately what gets readers to care about our characters. If nothing bad ever happens then why should they care about Ms. So’n So?

No this doesn’t mean you throw in bad things at random. You have the characters go through trials and tribulations and make the stakes real for them.

You as the writer must be willing to torture your characters so at the end of their journey they’ve earned that happy ending, otherwise readers will feel cheated.

This is where Murphy’s Law comes in; have little mishaps turn out to be colossal in magnitude. E.G. have that minor accident result in a law suit in which your character losses and become destitute.

Or have them build up to a larger crisis she has to overcome. The point is these obstacles must happen organically or you run the risk of having an over convoluted plot, or worse one where the reader is bored because the protagonist comes out unscathed no matter the challenge.

One method I use is called plot land mines. You lure the reader into a false sense of security by having things go the protagonist’s way awhile then BOOM.

An enemy attacks, destroying the center of operations or characters die due to the protagonist’s over confidence in battle or as reprisals for his/her earlier actions.

Again the trick is to be organic while having the events flow as natural consequences of these earlier actions, while ratcheting up the conflict without being convoluted.