This past weekend, I found myself in a Läderach chocolate shop very similar to the one in the above image. I hadn’t had Läderach chocolates since my last trip through Zurich in 2018, and let me tell you, they are divine. I recently learned they opened a shop in Boston, and it was all I could do to restrain myself from heading there the next day, work obligations be damned.

This week I hit that pivotal moment in my novel, where we turn into Act III. It’s a good place for an “all is lost” moment. Maybe even a culmination of many moments, where the Protagonist realizes nothing is going right, and it’s her against the world.

Many writers struggle with conveying character thought and emotion effectively. For a character to be three-dimensional, we need to see their interiority – what they think and feel, but don’t express; and their exterior expression – what they say or do that reveals (or attempts to conceal) their thoughts and emotions.

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” - The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka.

Last month I reviewed several methods for structuring your story. Knowing basic story structure is crucial for creating a narrative arc that builds toward a satisfying climax and shows your main character’s transformational arc.

However, it’s not, as I’ve mentioned, a simple paint-by-numbers approach. You still have to figure out what happens, and how you will demonstrate that character’s arc of change.

Some of the most successful and complex stories can boil down to answering just one question:

I’ve had a few clients lately who have asked me this question. Some are relatively new writers, who are realizing that this writing thing isn’t quite as easy as it looks. Some are more experienced, who have been working for a while and not seeing the kind of success they envisioned at the beginning.