Character Roadblocks: Taking Two Steps Back
Slow Progress Helps Our Stories
In our stories, we usually need to include obstacles for our characters to overcome. If they succeed immediately at everything they attempt, the story and characters have a good chance of being boring (not to mention ending as soon as it begins).
Beyond that, however, while story obstacles slow down the progress of our story, they also do more to help with our storytelling:
Obstacles add to the potential for failure, which creates uncertainty and tension to keep readers interested. Will the characters succeed? Failure is inherent in obstacles, as at the very least, they mean our characters have failed to make progress along the easy, obstacle-free path.
Obstacles also create more “meat” for the middle of our story. Without them, our story would just be a simplistic point A to point B tale, rather than an emotional journey that adds layers to our storytelling and maintains pacing and tension through the middle act.
Obstacles offer the opportunity to trigger consequences and increase the stakes. Our characters easily cannot overcome obstacles, and the consequences of that failure can worsen the situation for them. These failures add to the sense of uncertainty in our story, giving readers a reason to turn the pages.
Obstacles force our characters to change. They’ll need to change at least externally, such as by choosing a different approach to their goals. But they might also change internally as well, as they reexamine their priorities, fears, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, etc. while facing down challenges.
Obstacles can force characters to make hard choices or sacrifices. These choices and sacrifices reveal truths about our characters.
Without challenges, our characters won’t seem heroic. To be heroes, our characters need to show courage and/or determination in the face of failure. Each obstacle gives us a chance to show (and not just tell) their inner strengths, as they face potential failure.
Without obstacles, characters have no struggle, nothing to overcome. “Solving a problem” is a big aspect of most forms of storytelling.
Slowing down our characters’ progress through obstacles can be a good thing.
Two Types of “Slow” Progress
When we describe slow progress, we might use the saying “two steps forward and one step back.” Challenges continue to arise, hindering progress and preventing a simplistic narrative.
However, there’s another version of the saying:
“One step forward and two steps back.”
With that version, the obstacles are so large that any momentum is actually pushed into reverse. Or maybe, like with my projects, we discover we need to do five other steps before we can even begin on what we thought was Step One. Either way, we end up worse off than when we started.
Obviously, this more extreme version of slow progress will have an enormous influence on our storytelling options. So, let’s talk about how we can use this “two steps back” situation in our stories…
Readers Can Relate to Being Worse Off
No matter the stories we write, we want our readers to connect and relate to elements of our writing. Maybe they can relate to our characters, their longings, their goals, their fears, their situations, etc. Or maybe they can relate to the plot obstacles, or the setting, and so on.
The “two steps back” problem is one that readers can relate to. After all, if we’ve ever worked on an extensive project, we’re likely familiar with this situation ourselves:
Big cleaning project? We often need to make a bigger mess as we sort through piles and create new ones for “stuff to keep,” “stuff to toss,” and so on. Until we finish cleaning, the area is going to be messier than ever.
Big learning curve? When learning something new, we often “don’t know what all we don’t know.” As we learn more, we realize there is more to learn, and thus end up with more on our “things to learn” task list than when we started.
Similarly, my task list to kick off my secret project exploded once I discovered new ways to implement it … that required a whole new list of tasks. And I bet most of us can think of examples of “two steps back” from our lives.
This “two steps back” situation in our stories won’t strike readers as odd or cliché, because we’ve all experienced it. So, readers will relate to our characters’ frustrations and determination in the face of the easy-path failure. They’ll be invested in our characters’ struggles to overcome being worse off than before.
Two-Steps-Back Obstacles Are Powerful
With each of those bullet points above, the two-steps-back style of obstacle has an oversized impact on our stories and characters. Whatever a normal obstacle can do to define our story and characters, a two-steps-back obstacle can do even more:
Uncertainty and Tension increases as the chances of success are more in question, such as when the characters are further from their goals than ever.
Middle of the Story “Meat” increases as the two-step obstacles are more complex to overcome.
Consequences and Stakes increases as our characters face more tangible evidence of failure.
Character Changes increase as the bigger setbacks need a bigger plan than the usual approach.
Hard Choices or Sacrifices increase as characters need to dig deeper to overcome the two-step obstacle.
Character Heroism increases as they must decide whether to give up when they’re further behind or to push through.
Either way, the characters should seem further from their destination (goals) than before. That sounds a lot like a two-steps-back obstacle, doesn’t it?
For example, their new situation of being further behind can trigger them to question whether all their effort is worth it, which then adds to the sense of failure and doubt at this beat. Once they rally and push through the doubts and/or their fear of failure, the Black Moment is behind them, and we’re on to the Climax of our story.
Have you experienced this “two steps back” situation in your life? Can you relate to how it might affect our characters? Have you used these types of obstacles in your stories? Does this give you ideas of how to strengthen your story’s Black Moment? Can you think of other times it would be good to use this method?
