Conflict is a necessary part of any story. Without conflict and tension, you’ve got a boring description and no story.

Along with conflict, though, you must have character reaction. If your characters don’t grow and change in response to the conflict, you’ve got another boring story. In order to really hook your readers and keep them rooting for the characters, those characters must react like real people. They must change – even if it is in small ways.

During your story, the characters must reach a point at which they must decide to make that change. This is the Point of No Return. Beyond this point, they can stay the same, go back to their lives as if nothing happened, and “keep on keeping on.”

The Point of No Return is that place in the conflict where the characters cannot react any further without making some sort of change – emotional, spiritual, physical, or mental. And with that change, they cannot “undo” their reaction. They can’t just pretend it never happened and go back to the way they were before.

This is a key part of a good story. Build your conflict to the point where the characters have to make a change, and your readers will follow right along, cheering for the characters. One good way to figure out if your story is progressing properly is to create a number system for your conflict, with 10 being a Point of No Return moment and 1 being no tension at all.

Number your scenes according to the tension and conflict in each one. You should see the numbers increasing until they reach 10. You can certainly have little dips where you slack off on the tension to give your characters a brief rest, but the overall curve should be uphill.

Once the Point of No Return is reached, you should be at or near the action climax of the tale as well – and it’s all downhill from there.

HERE’S a good article about getting your characters into trouble – in other words, upping the tension in your story.

It can be difficult to keep a good plot interesting. How do you find the right balance between action and description? How much tension is enough, and how much is too much? And there’s that point every writer reaches, where everything you put down seems boring and lifeless….

Here are some tips you can use to make things more exciting:

1. Brainstorm a list of the worst things that could happen to your character – then start making them happen!
2. Ask “what if?” questions – figure out what would logically happen in each scene – then find a way to make something else happen instead!
3. Go for emotion – let your character respond to situations with feeling!
4. Pile on the pressure – does your character have enough on his or her plate? Add something else to the mix!
5. Add a timetable – there’s nothing quite like a ticking clock to ramp up the tension!

What are some tips you’ve developed over the years to make your scenes more interesting?