October Novel Prep Challenge

It's almost the end of the month. We're in the home stretch - can you feel it???

Plot Complications. By now you've been working on your overall plot arc. For a short story, it's really all you need, but in a novel - it may not fill up the entire space you need. You have myriad characters and situations to be involved in, and they're not going to be so easy-peasy.

The Wizard of Oz: I hope I'm not spoiling anything, because this movie came out in 1939 and the book was published in 1900. Dorothy is the main character, and she brings her dog Toto. Her overarching goal is to get home, but she has to get through Oz to ask the wizard.

While at first everything seems happy because she killed the wicked witch, the witch has a sister. On Dorothy's way through Oz, she picks up companions and she has several difficulties getting through. Each of those companions has his own goal to ask the wizard, and they each have weaknesses they must overcome in order to get to the end goal.

A shorter story might have been simply Dorothy against the Wicked Witch, but adding a Lion, a Scarecrow, and a Tinman where they all need to pull together as a party and help each other when they fail makes this into the tale we've grown up with.

Complications:
The Tinman is forever needing lubricant (oil).
The Scarecrow has no brain.
The Lion is afraid of everything.
Dorothy can't take off the Wicked Witch of the East's shoes.
Sometimes Toto takes off on his own ideas, and the party must chase after him.

So the big question for you today: How do you keep your story from being too easy? Escalate the tension by adding complications. One of mine (remember i'm writing a Space Western) - is the mechanic/engineer who works on the ship. He's under the impression that he needs to always be working on making the spaceship into something better - and he often takes critical systems offline to make them work, which puts the crew farther behind on their journey, and ultimately means they won't be able to pay off the loan and they're worried they may become debt slaves. I mean, who needs life support, communications, propulsion, etc?

May your plot be complicated and send your reader into panic hoping your characters make it to the end.
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