[jwplayer config=”Internal” mediaid=”1552″]
This is Elizabeth Stark in the Book Writing World. Welcome to Finish Your Book, Week 9. Today we are going to talk about your crisis choice.
The crisis choice is a helpful and important concept in storytelling. If you are writing a memoir or other narrative non-fiction, it’s likely that there is a crisis choice built into the story you’ve chosen to tell or that you’ve been looking for one in order to find the shape of your book. In a novel, you build a crisis choice—always staying close to your characters.
The crisis choice usually comes near the end of the book. The decision made during the crisis choice is then enacted at the climax.
Here’s how it looks: The character faces two choices. Both choices are good, or both choices are bad. Why? Because a choice between a good choice and a bad choice is not really a dilemma. That kind of choice is already made in advance by the character (the defining qualities) of the chooser.
For example: “Should I run over this puppy OR should I give this old lady a ride to the grocery store?” is not a real dilemma. You are either a run-over-a-puppy person or you are a give-an-old-lady-a-ride person, and if you are trying to decide between the two, you are probably a sociopath or something. If, on the other hand, you have to choose to swerve and hit either the puppy OR the old lady, we are getting closer to a dilemma, though most people would want to see the human life valued over the animal life. But that’s another debate . . .
In a choice between two irreconcilable goods or two irreconcilable evils, the character of the chooser is formed by the choice. The character sacrifices something in making the choice. This is the kind of human drama that makes us love a good book.
The choice also should not be between A and not A. In other words, the choice should not be: will I do this, yes or no? Instead, you want two compelling (or repellant) options. Your character cannot have both. A choice must be made. Yes or no would lead to negation or affirmation, but a choice between two concrete options paints an unforgettable picture and reveals character like nothing else will.
As you move through a book, your character’s options narrow and the stakes rise. At the crisis choice, everything has come down to this dilemma, and the stakes are extremely high. This is as true in literary fiction as in the genre-est crime tale. Check out Trade Secret 7, “The Crisis Choice” for some great examples. In conceptual non-fiction, the choice may be between two compelling arguments or proposals for resolving a problem.
What are the two options your character faces? Make a list of the pros and cons for each choice—and see if the choices are balanced. Are they nearly equally compelling, nearly equally wonderful or equally terrible? Can you make them more equal and more terrible or wonderful? Analyze the final crisis choice your character must make. Getting this right will go a long way toward the completion of your book.
This is Elizabeth Stark. Happy writing!
8/8/10 Lancelot & Guinevere must choose never to meet in private again. If they don’t, they may be accused of betraying Arthur as Mordred closes in on his father/uncle, Arthur. If they do choose not to meet, they will never again get to express their love with one another.
I discovered what I’ve felt all along in writing this book, that sometimes the choices we make in each moment have reverberating moral, social, and physical consequences for the rest of our lives.
Phoebe’s crisis choice in Good Mother Lizard is whether to report Professor Brown to the police, or keep quiet and give in to his demands. Pros of keeping quiet: she quiet will assure her academic career, will be less emotional and upsetting. Cons of keeping quiet: she’ll be basing her career on a lie and continuing the older generation’s mistakes, plus who knows what other lies she will have to tell along the way, or what else Brown will ask of her. Pros of reporting Brown: she will try to get justice, will have self-respect, will keep her academic career honorable, he will not be able to threaten other students. Cons of reporting Brown: her career at Columbia will be in jeopardy, she might not be believed, she might have to give up her newly discovered nests, she might have to testify in court and their relationship will be examined in public.
This is rough, but I’ll work out the details when I get to the point in revision:
When Henry’s plan to commit suicide is stopped, Penn has to decide whether or not it’s time for them to separate. Pros of separating: Henry has been pushing Penn away since returning home, so maybe that will help his recovery. Also, Penn’s niece has gotten to embroiled in Henry’s distress, which Penn assumes she’s too young to handle. Cons of separating: Since Henry hasn’t been rational, maybe he doesn’t know what he wants. Henry needs support from family, and even if he doesn’t want to stay with Penn, he gets along well with Penn’s brother, niece, and nephew.