Write Your Novel
Step by Step


By Melanie Anne Phillips
Creator of StoryWeaver

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For Story

Structure


Story Structure

Library


Videos on

Structure



For Story

Development


Writing

Tips

Library


Articles on Writing






Read the Science Fiction Thriller

From the founder of Storymind

Man Made follows a mysterious force as it sweeps around the globe erasing anything man made - from buildings, vehicles, and technology to medicines, clothing, and dental work.

Governments stagger under the panic, religions are at a loss for an explanation, scientists strive for any means to stop or divert the phenomenon, and the world’s population from families to individuals struggle to prepare for The Event, which will drive humanity back beyond the stone age.

The Event is coming.

Are you prepared?

Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips


Storymind

Free Writing Resources

~ Step 123 ~



Establishing Main Character Dilemma – Act One



The Main Character’s Dilemma is another tool for illustrating the thematic argument.  Because your readers identify with the Main Character, when he or she wavers between the relative values of the message issue and the counterpoint, the thematic argument becomes personal.  This helps make your message an emotional one for the reader, rather than an intellectual debate.


From the illustrations of your Main Character’s dilemma you have already developed in the Exposition Stage, select those that will best ease the reader into that personal view of the issues as experienced by your Main Character in act one.


Describe how your readers will be introduced over the course of the first act to your Main Character's Dilemma, which is the heart of the thematic conflict in your story.


Then, devise any additional illustrations that you feel will solidly establish the central importance of that dilemma to your Main Character in act one.