Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Crisis Building

Crisis Building

In many books on story telling referenve is made to "The Three Crisis." In the class, Exploratory Writing, the first of these will be the one the CC enounters after the Life Changing Event. This one will take place after our hero/heroine decides to get off their duff and make some changes in their lives. Remember, following the Life Changing Event its time to step out of your rut and embark on a new path. This is what the CC does after the final wake up call. It id the “attention getter” that opens the door to a whole new set of adverse circumstances. These begin rearing their heads as obstacles. There are two types of adversity, the self induced version and the type that springs up from the world around us. When the CC decides tries to defy the inclination of nature, and chooses a new path, nature adjusts by serving up a whole new set of obstacles.

Sound confusing? Well it isn’t really. Consider the first crisis you will be writing about as the smallest of the three you will have in your story. The number isn’t locked in cement, it could be two or it could be four but for the purpose of discussion, lets assume it is going to be three. The first of these will be the smallest (relative to the others) and be one that the CC has brought on themselves. Now, I realize there are countless variations to what I’m asking you to do and your story will no doubt vary from this model. However, be gracious and indulge me. I want you to practice the self-induced crisis first and concurrently think about starting small and building momentum as you get to the bigger ones that will follow.

The idea is to start with a baby step and build from there. In football they say that scoring the first points is always the hardest. Once that is accomplished a team can begin to build momentum and go on to bigger and better things. To take that analogy a bit further consider the first points you score will be like a field goal. It is the first step, only three points but an important first step. In the second crisis think of this as a touch down. That is harder to do; however it builds even more momentum. Finally a team faces the game winning moment and that is the biggest hurdle of all. So this is the idea, get the ball rolling with a small crisis, let it gain moment as it rolls faster over a medium crisis and finally let it overwhelm the final and most daunting obstacle of them all…. That is the climax, if you haven’t already figured that out