Last week I discussed why as a writer you want things to go wrong in your story, and illustrated the challenges faced by the characters in Watership Down. This week, I thought I’d review how I kept throwing obstacles at Rob Moore, disrupting his ideal smooth escape to freedom.
The premise is that Rob is a wanted man by a bunch of criminals who want to silence him before he can talk to the authorities. He’s already a person of interest and is expected to be arrested soon. His goal is to flee the country, but in order to do so, he must first stop at his father’s to get something he’ll need before going into exile.
I throw two challenges at Rob right off the bat after he gets what he came for. The first is that the suitcase he was after is a lot heavier than he expected, and the second is that his new ride is farther down the street than the car he rode to his father’s.
I don’t let up though. Rob is already grumbling that it took longer than he’d expected to get the suitcase, hinting at a schedule he needs to keep to. Before he can reach his car, a man starts screaming from a neighboring townhouse. Because Rob is in the process of fleeing the country, he doesn’t want to be spotted outside his home, where he is still believed to be, and spends the rest of the trek to the new ride in fear that he’ll be spotted. As he’s approaching the new vehicle, one of the scoundrels that are after him impedes his path, training a gun on him.
All of this happens in Chapter 2, which is a whopping 2 pages, a chapter whose sole purpose is as follows:
Rob exits Preston’s townhouse carrying a heavy briefcase until he is stopped by gunpoint.
It’s just one event that needs to happen to set up the events in the following chapters, but instead of keeping it dry like the one sentence synopsis I just gave, I try to make it fraught with tension (Rob not wanting to be spotted), throwing hurdles at him during his escape (heavy suitcase, farther distance to travel out in the open) and the sense of a countdown (grumbling that it took too long) until his life is put in danger (being held at gunpoint). All of this is done to spice up the two pages and keep it engaging for the reader.
You tell me, did it work?