As part of both my coaching service and my critique service, I get to see the framework of a lot of stories in progress. When it comes to conflict in general, and Hopeless Moments in the third act in particular, there’s one thing I notice, over and over and over.
Writers constantly pull their punches.
They get to that Hopeless Moment, which is supposed to be devastating. The worst of the worst.
Only… it’s just kinda bad.
Or unpleasant.
Possibly upsetting.
But it barely moves the needle on the “Hopeless” scale.
Put the pain on your characters.
As a reader, I am not moved by tepid conflict and the character arc equivalent of a bunny slope.
I want to feel their pain. I want stakes that gradually but noticiably escalate. I want their avenues of escape to get pruned to one runaway traintrack, hurtling toward the third act.
If you think that this only applies to thrillers, mysteries, horror, or sci/fi fantasy, you’re wrong, by the way. This applies to so-called “quieter” genres like comedy and romance, as well. Stakes are stakes, no matter what’s happening… you don’t need a dead body for something to be important.
What we’re looking for: a soul crush. You set that up correctly, and readers will be tied up in knots, cursing you as they stay up until three in the morning… because they’re dying to find out what happens next.
[Note: there are a few niche sub-genres, like low-angst romance , some LitRPG work, or some strains of literary fiction, where they emphasize not having this kind of set-up. Especially in the wake of a global pandemic and all manner of bad things in the world, this can be very, very stressful. If you’re pursuing that, or if you don’t want to go the “traditional route” of this kind of three-act set-up, you don’t have to! But do keep in mind, it is a smaller market segment.)
How to crush a soul (successfully.)
There are four questions you have to answer for your reader before you can have a true soul-crushing Hopeless Moment:
1. “Why do I care about this character?”
Usually, this is interpreted as: is my character sympathetic? Can the reader relate to the character? Because relating to a character means your reader can imagine herself in the same situation. She would care if it was happening to her. That’s one step closer to caring about the character. Bottom line: your character needs to be interesting, in an intriguing situation. The situation will carry you until we learn more about the character. (One further note: they don’t need to completely empathize. I enjoyed the show Dexter — before that disaster of a last episode — and I can’t imagine chopping people up. That said, I related to his misguided sense of justice, enough to look at the building conflict and go, Wow, how would I get out of that?)
2. “What am I rooting for?”
Once you’ve managed to create a character readers can engage with, you’ve got to go to the next step. Readers need a clear and tangible outcome to root for. Like any good goal, you need to know when you’ve achieved it. Be crystal clear.
3. “What happens if the character doesn’t get it?”
This is what’s known as creating high stakes. If the answer to your character not getting what she wants is “she’ll be unhappy” then you do not have stakes.
You’ve got a tangible outcome, right? You need a tangible consequence for failure. If the ending means the character doesn’t achieve her goal, but there’s still a happy ending because she realizes that she didn’t need it, this still applies. That said, she has to feel shattered and hit rock bottom before realizing that. She can’t simply have “an awakening.” (See point 4.)
4. “What’s stopping the character from getting it?”
This is the whole shebang: conflict. What’s standing in the way of success?
It not only needs to be sizable enough to require a lot of ingenuity and effort, it needs to escalate… like climbing a mountain, you’d better make sure every step gets harder.
Also, be wary of internal conflict. If your character has a goal of, say, getting married, and she’s got a proposal and everything but her conflict is her abandonment issues, if you’re able to solve it by saying “she decided her abandonment issues didn’t matter” then I have news for you: YOU DO NOT HAVE CONFLICT.
Once you’ve got these four elements, you’re ready to craft a truly soul-crushing Hopeless Moment.
Now: the Soul Crush™.
Take your character’s goal. Look at precisely what your character wants, and why they want it.
Next, write down a list of the ten worst things that could happen in terms of thoat external and/or internal goal.
For example, let’s say you’ve got a character who wants to get married by the time she’s thirty. The reason why: she’ll inherit a billion dollars… and she’s been struggling financially, trying to make ends meet to cover the expenses of a demanding and dysfunctional family as well as pay for school.
From a Hopeless Moment standpoint, it has to look like she is not going to get the money, because she’s not going to get married. To really make it worse, she’d get kicked out of school and disowned. See? No punches pulled there. And say she fell in love with someone who doesn’t believe in marriage, and she was going to married some other guy just to get the money. Bam! She loses the guy she’s in love with, too!
At that point, she could also get hit by a truck. Or maybe learn an asteroid is heading toward her home town. Those are, admittedly, Very Bad Things. However, they don’t really tie to the goal and motivation, so they don’t really apply. The Hopeless Moment must be in terms of what your goal and motivation have set up.
One seeming “exception” to this: when they achieve the external goal, but they absolutely lose the internal one. For example, a mafia boss who has climbed out of poor and desperate circumstances to become the head of a cartel or something — only to have what he wanted (ultimate power) without realizing the price (isolation, paranoia, perhaps ultimately death or near death.)
So why do writers pull their punches?
Usually for two reasons:
1. They love their characters, and hate putting them in pain.
Which I respect! But the purpose of the story isn’t just to show people you like in happy circumstances, just sort of floating along. I mean, it can be… but readers tend to feel relieved, and just put the book down, knowing they can pick it up at any time, because there’s no hook. Generally speaking, we want to show the characters with a growth arc, and that development tends to come through the crucible of conflict… which tends to involve pain of some sort, alas.
2. They’re afraid of putting their characters in a predicament they can’t write their way out of.
Mystery and suspense writers especially, I’m lookin’ at you.
It’s one thing to feel insecure about your writing skills, and if you’re nervous about really hitting your characters with a ton of conflict because you won’t know how to extricate them from that soul crushing hopeless moment, then your writing may plateau. Like your characters, you need to stretch and grow, as a writer. And yeah… there’s some pain involved.
But like many plots, there is a good, if sometimes difficult, way out.
You can ask for help.
I am, essentially, a professional brainstormer.
In an hour, I can help you talk about your story, and then offer you a variety of plausible (and painful! <g>) plot paths, to showcase your characters and their developmental arcs. Including twists and getting them out of tough spots, if that’s your fancy.
If you’re interested, email me, and I will send you the coaching schedule link. Or you can email me with any questions!
Good luck. You can do this!