Wattpad Creators Weekly Writing Challenges

The Storycoaster

Hello, Creators!

Writing is an art that requires both creativity and skill, but the ultimate goal of any writer is to engage their readers. Engaging your readers means captivating them with your story, making them feel invested in your characters, and leaving them wanting more. In this post, we'll explore some tips and strategies to help you engage your readers and keep them hooked from the first page to the last.

Engaging means your story catches your reader's attention and keeps it. An Engaging story has periods of higher and lower conflict, is well-paced (i.e. the reader feels like the story moves from important beat to important beat; leaving them excited to see what happens next, but never bored of what's happening now). Every scene of an Engaging story advances our understanding of the characters or the plot, and leaves us wanting more. This is primarily accomplished through the use of Conflict and Tension.

The easiest way to think about action, conflict, and tension in your story is to think about a rollercoaster. A rollercoaster builds up slowly to a peak, and then sends you rushing down from that peak (which is the fun part!). A rollercoaster doesn't need to be hundreds of feet tall to be fun; it just needs to offer the rider ups and downs. The same is true of stories. Your story doesn't need to be the most dramatic, it just needs to offer the reader rhythmic build up and release of tension and conflict.

At the peak of our rollercoaster, we have "It Happens." But what is "it"? That sense of curiosity is how we want the reader to feel. What's waiting at the top? What's going to happen?

Climb: Before It Happens

This is the build up of the scene, where tension (negative, positive, or both!) rises. The action, the actual events happening in the scene, slowly rises in intensity.

Peak: It Happens

This is the thing the character wants or fears, the moment we've been building towards. Note that this builds from what came before. This isn't a lighting strike coming down and hitting our rollercoaster car, it's the height we knew was coming when the car started to climb. The peak changes things: that's what makes it a peak, and not a point on a line.

Plunge: Consequences

The change that happens in the Peak initiates a series of consequences. In a rollercoaster, this is the part where we speed down the hill and scream. In a story, this is where all the promises you made to the reader in the Climb come true.

Valley: What Changed?

How did the consequences of the Peak change things for the character? What new desires or problems arise as a result of the Peak and the Plunge? Why did that Climb and Peak matter? In the Valley, we take a quick breather before the next Climb.

Every scene should have a Climb, Peak, Plunge, and Valley to make your story as Engaging as possible. In the Storycoaster, the action is made up of the events of the story, the tension is the Climb, and the Conflict is the track the Storycoaster runs on. The Conflict can change; as long as your story has conflict, it's "on track."