Your Friend, the Swirling Vortex of Doom

Craft talk by Pete Fromm.

Pete fromm tells us in his craft talk that he keeps seeing stories in which the writer takes his characters only to the edge of trouble and then lets them off the hook. Pete says he writes to get to the place where things are terribly wrong. I really appreciated the fact that he used student writing before and afters to demonstarte how the scene becomes more interesting if we don't evade danger to easily.

As happens often during residencies, while Pete was talking, I saw a possibility for a swirling vortex of doom for the main character of my novel. (Yes, residencies are the riskiest times for my characters!) Pete had discussed various reasons why writers might stop short--they like their characters too much, they don't want to go through the tough emotions of writing these scenes. But I saw a different kind of issue with going into the vortex. How would I get her out? And even if I did get her out, would the reader's view of her be changed so much that she would be irredeemable? Wanting to know the answer, I came back to my room at the end of the day to write toward the vortex.