C is for Connections
C is for Connections
Making the people, places, and things in your story interconnected and significant.
One of my favorite ways to increase the emotional impact of my stories is to increase the personal connections between the people, places, and things.
People: Say you’re writing a Romance novel and you want a handsome bachelor to move in next door to your protagonist. Ask yourself: how can I make the connections deeper than just “new neighbors”? What if the handsome bachelor just happens to be the protagonist’s childhood crush? Ok, that could add some intrigue and drama. But we can go further. What if the handsome bachelor is not only our protagonist’s childhood crush, but he ended up marrying her best friend years ago and it caused a rift between the friends (ultimately ruining their friendship), and the friend/wife recently died and the man is now a widower. Now the protagonist will be dealing with old romantic feelings, guilt, betrayal, and who knows what else as a result of this character connection. Now there’s some inherent drama and conflict.
So consider the characters you have in your story—can you deepen the connections between them? If you have rivals, can you also make them cousins? If a new employee is hired at the protagonist’s workplace, can she be an ex-girlfriend? Even somewhat walk-on characters can have a connection. The server at a fancy restaurant—could she be the little sister of the protagonist’s crush, and the protagonist only realizes this at the end of the meal, after she’s already had telling conversations in front of the server?
Places: The settings you choose for your story can also serve to increase the emotional impact of your story. Going back to our “handsome bachelor neighbor” example: how could you make the house itself more connected? What if the house Mr. Handsome moved into is the home the protagonist’s grandmother lived in, and thus it has great personal meaning to her. If fact, maybe the protagonist moved to this town and rented the house next door to Grandma’s old house because of the fond memories it holds for her. Then Grandma’s house came on the market and before she can get her finances in order, Mr. Handsome swoops in and buys it. She’s mad at the guy for stealing Grandma’s house from her even before she meets him.
Think about the significance of the buildings, the cities, even the rooms your story is set in. Why have your protagonist break up with her girlfriend over coffee at home when they can break up on the ferris wheel where they first met?
Things: As with people and places, the items in your story can be imbued with significance through their connections with your characters. Again, going back to Mr. Handsome Neighbor. Let’s say you need a reason for the protagonist to steal an item from Mr. Handsome’s back yard. Maybe a stepping stone in the garden was made by her (now-deceased) mother as a child, and the protagonist can’t stand the idea of the new owner stepping on her mother’s childhood craft. So in order to get this emotionally-significant memento back, the protagonist has to hop the adjoining fence in the middle of the night, not realizing that the new owner already moved in over the weekend until the porchlight flickers on and…you see what I’m getting at, right? If a character finds a wallet full of money on the street, make it belong to their worst enemy. If a character finds a painting in a thrift store, make it a portrait of their own ancestor. Connections, connections, connections.
When outlining a new novel, I always ask myself: can I make the characters related somehow? Can I make the setting a location rife with personal memories? Can I make every object worth mentioning (particularly any MacGuffin) an item imbued with personal significance? By making the web of connections in your story as intertwined as possible, you’ll raise the emotional stakes of your novel—and the emotional impact it will have on your readers.