5 moments to create momentum

As Build Your Book Month draws to a close, we invited acclaimed author and editor Dr Clare Harvey to share her insights how to create momentum in your writing. Read on to learn about how to engage your reader and keep them turning the pages long into the night.

Hands up who watched 7 Up?

For those of you who didn’t, 7 Up is the groundbreaking documentary series that tracked the lives of British children born in the 1950s into adulthood, and beyond. The filmmakers returned to their subjects every seven years, from the age of seven to 70 – and the final (tearjerking) episode aired in September.

But what’s 7 Up got to do with crafting fiction?

Quite a lot, it turns out. Because what makes 7 Up such compelling watching is also what can make a story a compelling read: moments.

As 7 Up showed, a whole life is made up of moments: the skipping schoolchild; the awkward teenager; the conflicted young adult; the proud new parent; the self-reflective older person.

And the same is true of fiction. Think about Cinderella. You don’t need every waking moment of Cinders’ life to tell her story. You need the moments that matter: the ball invitation; the transformation; running from the prince’s embrace at midnight and losing a shoe; the shoe fitting; the wedding.

A handful of moments gives us a whole story. But there’s something else those moments do: they create momentum. So, when I’m working on a novel, I ask myself five questions. Or, more accurately, I write down five moments.

1. The moment when something changes

Something has to happen. It doesn’t necessarily have to be dramatic. It might be a piece of information, a look, or something the character notices that they hadn’t noticed before.

But by the end of the moment, something is different.

This is where all that writerly terminology comes in: catalyst, inciting incident, turning point, beat…

(Full disclosure: I still get confused about some of it. Please don’t ask me what a McGuffin is.)

I find it much easier simply to think: this is the moment when something changes.

2. The moment when the character responds

Something happens. So what?

What does your character do with it?

This is where characterisation starts to happen organically. If a strange old woman turns up out of the blue and offers your character a new outfit and a carriage to a ball, does she accept the magic without question? Does she run away? Does she suspect a trap?

Her response tells us who she is.

3. The moment when it gets worse

Because, generally speaking, things shouldn’t get easier. Your character has made a decision. Something has changed. Now give them another problem.

It doesn’t have to be a car chase or an exploding building. Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is simply that somebody says the thing your protagonist desperately didn’t want to hear.

Something happens. The character responds. That response creates another problem.

That’s momentum.

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4. The moment when everything is at stake

What does your character stand to lose? What do they want? What are they afraid of?

And, crucially, what are they going to do about it?

This is often where the emotional heart of a story lies. It’s not necessarily the biggest moment externally. It’s the moment when the character understands what is really at stake.

5. The moment when everything changes again

And then we reach the finale.

Something has shifted. The character knows something they didn’t know before. They’ve made a decision. A relationship has altered. A secret has been revealed.

And that new situation becomes the starting point for the next moment.

Which is how you get momentum.

When I’m writing, I actually put “the moment when…” at the top of each scene and make notes about exactly what that moment is for whoever’s perspective I’m writing from before I begin to start the writing itself.

This morning, for example, I was writing a mother-daughter confrontation scene from the perspective of a mother who is hiding a family secret. It was the moment when the mother finally admits the truth, treats her daughter as an adult, and gives her the information she needs to begin coming to terms with her past. Once I know that, I can work out what happens to my character in the scene (what she can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste, as well as what she’s thinking feeling and saying) – and, more importantly, why it matters.

This is why I find thinking about moments so much more useful than trying to remember every bit of writing terminology I’ve ever been taught. Because beats, turning points, inciting incidents, catalysts, set pieces and all the rest are really just different ways of describing moments in which something happens. And it’s those moments, strung together, that make a story.

7 Up showed us this beautifully: a series of snapshots can reveal the dynamics of a whole life.

For writers, I think it’s much the same.

Find the moments. Make them matter. Let them create the momentum.