Forging your story's chain of progressively escalating complications
Make your character happen to the story by giving them the agency to respond, choose, and act in some minute way in every scene.
Most manuscripts I coach or edit struggle with the same issue: Writers know their characters need more problems, but they can't connect those problems into something that feels inevitable. They craft brilliant scenes—a tense confrontation here, a shocking revelation there—but then wonder why readers call the story "episodic."
The missing ingredient isn't more conflict. It's momentum.
Stories that grip readers create cascading consequences where each scene's resolution becomes the next scene's launching pad. Your protagonist makes a choice, that choice creates a new problem, and that problem demands another choice. This cause-and-effect chain transforms scattered scenes into an unstoppable narrative engine.
When writers nail this connectivity, something clicks. Instead of characters reacting to random plot events, you get protagonists who actively shape their own disasters. That's when you've moved beyond episodic storytelling into unputdownable fiction.
Progressively escalating complications
It was with this in mind that I wrote my latest advice as a resident writing coach at Writers Helping Writers.
Unputdownable stories keep readers off balance, as one scene tips into another, and another, and the next. Each scene’s challenge demands a response, and each response spirals into fresh complications.
But compelling stories don’t pile on problems in random fashion. Complications flow organically from one scene to the next in a chain of action and reaction. The upshot for your novel? This chain of progressively escalating complications transforms a mere assemblage of scenes into an unstoppable narrative.
The good news? Building this chain of progressively escalating complications doesn't require mystical plotting powers—just three practical techniques that transform scattered scenes into unstoppable momentum.
Technique 1: The fortunately/unfortunately method
Technique 2: Choosing consequences over continuations
Technique 3: The “yes/but” and “no/so” dynamic
These strategies work because they mirror how real life actually unfolds: success comes with strings attached, failure breeds unexpected consequences, and every choice creates new challenges that demand fresh decisions.
Read the 3 techniques at Writers Helping Writers—
These techniques aren't just plotting tricks—they're the foundation of stories that readers won’t abandon halfway through. Each method trains you to think in chains rather than isolated scenes, building the kind of narrative momentum that separates published novels from well-intentioned drafts. Your characters deserve to drive their own stories forward, not merely endure whatever you throw at them.
Onward,
Lisa
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P.P.S. What’s the next step for your manuscript? Sometimes it’s hard to know whether you’re ready for editing or querying, or if you need an early assessment to reveal what's already working and what still needs attention. I can help you figure that out. Look over the different ways I can help, then book a session with me—let's get your book moving forward. (Or if you’re ready to roll, I offer editing too.)
This is The Writes of Fiction, a slow-simmered assortment of old and new thinking about writing fiction, assembled at my desk, not by algorithm.
And this is Tsuki’s butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth expression after finishing her line editing word count for the day. 👇
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