How To Set Up Your Character's Final Test

by Stephanie Morrill

Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and the Ellie Sweet books (Birch House Press). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website including the free novella, Throwing Stones.

HEY, WRITERS! I'M BACK!

It feels like I've been gone a very long time, but that's probably because I've spent a lot more time awake these last 6 weeks than I typically do, thanks to this guy:

(If you're thinking, "Hey, lady, spare me the baby pictures and just talk about writing already," feel free to scroll to where it says, "How To Set Up Your Character's Final Test.")

Eli in a rare moment of being awake and not having his brother and sister crawling all over him.

Eli is doing great, and we're having an awesome time with him. He's not one of those magical "slept through the night at 4 weeks old" or "happy and content all the time" kind of babies, but we think he's pretty special.

Eli awarded his first smile to Connor, but fortunately I was there too and had my phone handy!

It hasn't been a particularly restful maternity leave. The Royals being in the postseason and winning the World Series led to lots of late nights and craziness under my roof. Including my husband and I dragging Eli to his first game when he was 6 days old.

Also, Pioneer Woman was in town, and I refused to miss that, even if Eli was only 3 weeks old. The event was sold out and insane and wonderful.

Mom, Pioneer Woman (if you squint, you can see her signing books behind us) and me

I also had lots of phone calls/texts/emails with my agent over some VERY EXCITING NEWS that I want to talk about SO BADLY, but I'm telling myself that I'm a professional and need to be patient for official documents to be processed. I did, however, allow myself to celebrate with my favorite ice cream. And a baby who didn't think he should have to sleep just because it was bed time.

Okay, I got all the Eli talk out of my system. On to writing!

(This post is part of the Writing A Novel From Beginning to End series. You can find other posts from this series on the Looking For Something Specific? tab.)

When I last blogged, I talked about creating an "all is lost" moment for your story. As a quick refresher, sometime close to the end of your book, it's smart to have a moment when things look impossibly bad and your main character gives up on ever getting through this thing. A few of the examples I used were Frozen where Anna learns Hans's true motives or Charlie Brown Christmas where Charlie brings in his tree and everyone laughs at him.

This moment is almost always followed by another character stepping in to help. I've always called this the the cavalry moment (though it was pointed out to me by several that I actually called it the Calvary moment in several older posts—whoops!) because it's a moment when someone swoops in and rescues your character from their emotional pit. In Frozen, Olaf steps in and teaches Anna what true love is, and in Charlie Brown Christmas, Linus gives his famous speech about the true meaning of Christmas.

Could you have your character rescue themselves from their All Is Lost moment? While your main character certainly needs inner strength for us to have followed them this far, if your character can get themselves out of the All Is Lost moment without help, I would question if you've made the moment strong enough.

The cavalry moment often leads to your character forming a plan. Depending on the type of story you're telling, this part of the plot might take multiple chapters or it might be just a scene or two. Boiled down, it looks like this:

Because of what I learned, I will now...

Followed by:

Oh, snap! That didn't go like I thought it would.

Let's break those down and look at them individually:

Because of what I learned, I will now...

One of the reasons I find it impossibly hard to write out of order is that moments build on other moments. It's hard for me to logically think about my character's current emotions if I haven't let myself experience their emotions in the previous scene. If you don't build the emotions logically, the end of your book will lack oomph. (To use the technical term—ha!)

Your character should have learned something in the rescue from the All is Lost moment and from it, they should form their course of action.

Let's look at our examples once again. In Frozen, Olaf has made Anna see that Kristoff truly loves her. Even though Anna needs to stay warm, she forms a radical plan to leave the safety of the room and go into the snow storm to find Kristoff so she can hopefully kiss him before freezing to death.

In Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie has learned the true meaning of Christmas from Linus and makes a bold move. He takes his shrimpy little tree and leaves the auditorium. He intends to decorating it and show everyone that even though his tree doesn't fit "the modern holiday spirit," it still has value.

Oh, snap! That didn't go like I thought it would.

This moment could also be described as the set up for your character's final test.

We want Anna and Kristoff to live happily ever after. We want Charlie to march off with his little tree and feel content with a quieter kind of Christmas. But if the stories ended like that, it would feel a bit thin, wouldn't it?

We need to see the main character tested one last time, and the Oh, Snap! moment is the set-up for that opportunity.

In Frozen, Anna is trying to find Kristoff and is unable to. But when the storm suddenly stops, she spots him. Hooray—victory is in sight! But then the Oh, Snap moment happens. She sees Elsa on the ground and Hans raising his sword. Anna is thisclose to kissing Kristoff and saving herself from freezing to death, but she realizes there isn't time to save herself and her sister.

In Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie finds Snoopy's doghouse has won first prize in the Lights and Display contest. But he reminds himself of the true meaning of Christmas and vows that he isn't going to let silly things like this ruin his holiday. He takes an ornament off of Snoopy's doghouse and hangs it on the tree. It immediately buckles under the weight. "Oh!" Charlie groans. "Everything I touch gets ruined."

Often, Oh, Snap is the moment I leave out in my first draft, and it isn't until my second draft that I figure out why my ending isn't working well. So if you feel like the end of your story lacks something and you can't put your finger on it, this is a good thing to check for.

Do you have a moment like this toward the end of your book? If so, we'd love to hear it!