I'm Afraid If I Go Too Far, I'll Circle Back To Your Name. It Will Be Then That I Must Confront The Intensity

I'm afraid if I go too far, I'll circle back to your name. It will be then that I must confront the intensity underneath my anger. Until then, I shall sit still and watch the world move on without me.

- @annetries-towrite

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I'd care if the person I reblogged this from committed suicide.

Reblog this from anybody. literally. ANYBODY. even if you dont like them or even know them that well. YOU COULD SAVE THEIR LIFE.

(uses the “make your character say something while not actually saying it” writing advice i saw on here once)

(character interactions are now 200% more fun to write)

holy shit what

If it doesn’t impact the rest of the story, you didn’t raise the stakes

              I recently went back to a chapter at the midpoint of my novel and changed a huge detail of it because I thought it didn’t raise the stakes enough as it was. Because of this change, I had to go through every single scene and chapter beyond that point and edit it to fit in and make sense. It was annoying, but that’s how I knew I achieved what I wanted to.

              Raised stakes change everything about a story.

              If your characters can continue on as they were, then you didn’t really raise the stakes at all. This heightened pressure or danger has to be heightened enough that their lives as they know them are different now.

              Consider this: at the midpoint, you introduce a mutated form of a monster your characters have been facing that’s more deadly and intelligent than its predecessor. It’s a super scary scene, but after that, your characters go back to their safe house to talk over how best to kill it.

              Suddenly, this new monster doesn’t feel as much of a threat. It’s just another element of the same threat they’ve already been facing.

              To properly use this element as a way to raise the stakes, it should take away something the characters rely on—safety, allies, powers, etc. Something they can’t get back, and don’t get back for the rest of the story. They now have to adapt to new circumstances, and things will never be as easy for them again.

              So maybe instead, they flee to their safe house only to discover that it’s no longer safe—the monster is smart enough to get through their hidden entrance and corner them. Now they’re stuck out in the open, taking turns keeping watch and slowly deteriorating to sleeplessness and stress.

              That’s a delicious steak.

I think that once you've hurt someone enough times, you don't deserve to come back into their lives, apologizing for your actions over and over again. At some point, it stops being them and it starts being about you. At some point, you owe it to them to stay gone.

- @annetries-towrite

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Mary Oliver, "From The Book of Time." Devotions