I’m a big fan of writer youtubers. There’s something about seeing and hearing a writer talk to me, with a shelf full of books behind them, that I find soothing and inspiring. A few weeks ago I came across a new-to-me writer on Youtube, Shaelin Bishop, who posted a video which shared their top 12 writing tips.
There are great tips in the video, but the one I’d never heard before and which really stood out to me as something profound and interest was this one:
Find the despair in the hope, and the hope in the despair.
Shaelin describes this (as related by a writing professor) as a source of tension: “If a scene is only despair, there’s actually no tension because there’s no possible way forward.”
This made me stop and think a lot. I’ve heard people talk about scene craft as driven by objectives — as in, your protagonist wants something! And other people (or elements) in the scene want something else! But this idea of the tension between despair and hope is a big picture, more holistic way to think about it, something that transcends character goals. It suggests that each scene is a microcosm of the despair and hope in the entire story: will the main character resolve the story question, or not? Where is the hope that they will? And where is the despair if they don’t?
This framing also suggests stakes, which I like, since that’s something that I often forget to illuminate for my reader. What do readers hope for? And what do they despair about?
Based on my thinking about this this week, I decided to give myself an assignment: go through a couple of scenes in my current WIP, a novella, and look for the hope and the despair. How can I play those against each other? Can I use this question to highlight stakes where I need to?
Happy writing!