Lucy Jane Bledsoe, in our soon-to-be-released video interview, talks about how in fiction, people are stressed by something. Often, in America at least, we turn to violence for this stress. In her engaging new novel, The Big-Bang Symphony, Bledsoe uses, among other things, the harsh and beautiful setting–Antarctica–to stress her characters.

This comment inspired me to take a quick look at the elements of craft and see how they work to create stress, which is to say plot and, therefore, character growth or arc.

First, I made a basic list of elements that get talked about under the rubric of “craft”:

Plot/ Story

Setting

Dialog

Scene/ Action

Character

Voice

Point of View

Image

Details

Figures of language (metaphors, similes)

Interior monologue

Symbols

I’m trying to be somewhat exhaustive here, but please add more in the comments below.

“Plot,” at the top of the list here, is what we create when we flint our characters against stressors.

What I saw at first glance was that everything listed below “Character” here was a tool for building the world and story: Voice, Point of View, Image, Details, Figures of language (metaphors, similes), Interior monologue, Symbols.

On the other hand, “setting,” “dialog” and “action” are the elements that can most clearly create direct stress for the characters.

Dialog: Someone makes a verbal threat or, for that matter, a seduction, reveals something or suggests something or undoes something. Lies. Tells a forbidden truth.

Action: Someone acts and disturbs, pushes, endangers.

Setting: The place creates risk, possibility, crisis . . .

The others–image, detail–can certainly create stress in the reader on behalf of the character and thinking in this way I started to see how they create stress in the characters: a haunting image, a disturbing detail. Clashes between points of view, between interior view and exterior aspects of the world given. Okay, so all of these can trouble the characters. And they can reinforce each other.

What elements of your story (fiction or non-fiction) create stress for your characters? How?