June 24, 2025 • 29 mins
You don’t need more filler. You need better progressive complications.
Your inciting incident hooks your readers and promises them a story they’ll love.
And then comes the middle.
The messy middle. The quiet doldrums of your story, where plot momentum goes to die.
Where your characters wander, your conflict blurs, and you start to wonder if any of it is working.
So what do you do? Add some “stuff that happens” and hope it holds your readers’ interest? Toss in a random subplot? Describe your character’s breakfast in extreme detail?
Nope. This is the space of the progressive complications.
And in this episode, I’m showing you exactly how to revise them.
Because the middle of your story isn’t filler or unnecessary fluff. It’s 60% of the story, and it has an essential job to do.
- What progressive complications really are (and what they’re not)
- How they build momentum and escalate conflict
- The 8 qualities I’m looking for when I edit progressive complications
- How to know if your scenes are working—or just taking up space
- And more!
And to make it even easier, I’ve created a cheat sheet to help you revise your progressive complications. Print it out, keep it handy, and use it every time you edit a scene.
If you’ve ever gotten stuck in the middle of your manuscript wondering how to move forward—this episode is for you.
Let’s take your messy middle and make it unputdownable.
Links mentioned in the episode:
- Get the Inciting Incident Revision Cheat Sheet: alicesudlow.com/87
- Work with me: alicesudlow.com/contact
- Ep. 42: The 6 Essential Elements of Every Novel, Act, and Scene
- A clip from S1E4 of Younger
Want my support in your revision?
In Story Clarity, we’ll work one-on-one to sharpen your story’s structure and craft a revision plan that works. If you’re ready for thoughtful, personalized feedback from an editor who gets what you’re trying to do, I’d love to hear what you’re working on.
Get started by telling me about your story here.
Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
"I love Alice and Your Next Draft." If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more writers through the mess—and joy—of the editing process. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap the stars to rate, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!
Loving the show? Show your support with a monthly contribution »
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You open your story with anamazing inciting incident, you
(00:03):
hook your reader's attentionright away, promising them a
brilliant tale.
They're going to love you.
Send your protagonist on ajourney in pursuit of a goal.
You kick off the first act withexplosive, propulsive,
unputdownable energy, and thenyou reach the middle.
The messy middle, the quietdoldrums of your story.
(00:27):
Where plot momentum goes to diesomehow.
You've got to get yourprotagonist and your readers
from the exciting promise of theinciting incident at the
beginning to the satisfyingpayoff of the climax at the end.
And you've got to fill enoughpages to stretch each scene out
to scene length and the book outto book length.
(00:49):
So what do you do?
Throw a bunch of stuff in foryour characters to do and hope
that it somehow works and keepsyour readers entertained or
fluff out your sentences withextra words describing
everything your charactersencounter in obsessive detail.
Nope.
This is the space of theprogressive complications.
(01:09):
Not irrelevant stuff.
Not distracting fluff, butunmissable, unskipable,
unputdownable rising conflictthat raises the stakes, prepares
the protagonist for the climaxand compels your reader to keep
turning pages.
In this episode, we'll demystifythe messy middle so you can make
(01:29):
your progressive complicationssome of the best parts of your
story.
(02:21):
Welcome to your next draft.
Today we're continuing our deepdive into my favorite story
structure framework, the sixelements of story.
We're putting the second elementprogressive complications under
the microscope to see what theyare and what makes them work.
Last month we studied theinciting incidents in obsessive
(02:42):
detail, and I think that waspossibly one of my most popular
episodes ever in the history ofthe podcast.
So I'm pretty sure you're goingto love what I have to share
with you here.
It turns out though, that I havea lot to say about progressive
complications.
Who would've thunk?
So I'm splitting this episodeinto two parts.
In this installment, I'm goingto share the way I define
(03:04):
progressive complications, wherein a story the progressive
complications appear.
And what I'm watching for as aneditor when I evaluate
progressive complications, andin the next installment I'll
share the common traps that Isee writers fall into when
they're writing and revisingtheir progressive complications.
You don't need to have listenedto the inciting incident episode
in order to follow everythingthat I'm going to talk about
(03:26):
here.
But I am going to assume you'reat least a little bit aware of
the six elements of storyframework.
If that's totally new to you, Irecommend starting with my
episode, the six essentialelements of every novel act and
scene, which I'll link in theshow notes.
I've also put together a freecheat sheet with everything that
I'll cover in this episode.
You can print it out and keep itat hand, easy to reference as
(03:47):
you edit.
Go to alice sud though.com/ 87into your email there and I'll
send it straight to you.
Alright, we've got a lot tocover, so let's dive right in.
Let's start with the definition.
Here's how I define theprogressive complications.
A series of complications happenthat escalate the conflict.
(04:08):
These events might make thingsbetter or worse, but they
certainly make things morecomplicated.
What does that mean?
Well, the inciting incident setsyour protagonist on a path in
pursuit of a goal, but theycan't achieve their goal
immediately.
If it were that simple, they'dhave it already so they embark
(04:29):
on a course of action thatshould take them towards their
goal.
at least based on their existingworldview.
That's everything they know andunderstand and believe about the
world right now.
Based on all of that, they thinkthat this path will take them
towards their goal and along theway they encounter challenges,
things that move them closer totheir goal or throw up obstacles
(04:50):
in their way.
Those are the progressivecomplications.
Okay.
Basically, they're all thethings that challenge your
protagonist and raise the stakeson their way to achieving their
goal.
They culminate in the turningpoint, which is a special
progressive complication withseveral additional jobs to do.
It's the moment when theprotagonist's strategy and
tactics fail to such a degreethat it breaks their existing
(05:13):
worldview.
The protagonist irrevocablychanges, and so the story
irrevocably changes.
I'll put the turning point undera microscope in another episode,
but for now, it's enough to knowthat it's technically also a
progressive complication, andthe job of the progressive
complications is to carry thereader to the global crisis of
the story where the stakes arethe highest they've been so far.
(05:37):
Where in the story are theprogressive complications?
As you can probably guess fromthat definition alone, the
progressive complications span alot of the story.
60% or more of a seen act orglobal story can be spent in the
progressive complications.
If I had to mark percentages,I'd estimate that they tend to
start somewhere around the 15%mark and wrap up somewhere
(06:01):
around the 70% mark.
Those are really loose ballparknumbers though.
The point is they're the middleof the story and they're the
bulk of the story.
in short, the progressivecomplications matter.
This, by the way, is why I callmy favorite story structure
framework, the six elements ofstory.
(06:21):
If you're an avid student ofcraft books, you're probably
familiar with Sean Coin's StoryGrid.
I'm a story grid certifiededitor, and story grid is where
I was introduced to thisframework.
But the framework as story griddescribes it, It's called the
Five Commandments ofStorytelling.
The five commandments are, one,the inciting incident, two, the
Turning Point, progressivecomplication.
(06:43):
Three, the crisis, four, theclimax, and five the resolution.
In essence, the fiveCommandments, skip over the
progressive complications andjump straight to the turning
point.
On the one hand, I do sort ofget why.
As you'll see, when we put theturning point under the
microscope, there are veryspecific things that are set up
(07:04):
in the inciting incident.
Irreversibly challenged in theturning point and then paid off
in the climax.
The turning point does have anessential job to do and you
can't really effectively reviseyour progressive complications
until you know what that turningpoint is doing.
But.
The progressive complicationsare 60% of the story.
(07:24):
I felt adamantly that theprogressive complications also
have an essential job to dobecause no one wants to buy a
novel with the middle, twothirds sliced out of it.
Plus, this is the messy middleof the story, the part where
writers tend to feel lost,adrift in storytelling,
doldrums, unsure what needs tohappen between the setup of the
inciting incident and the payoffof the climax.
(07:47):
So I kept the progressivecomplications in the framework.
I renamed it the six elements ofstory to recognize their
significance.
I set out to figure out whatexactly the progressive
complications must accomplish,and this is what I found.
There are seven qualities thatI'm watching for throughout the
progressive complications.
(08:08):
One, the progressivecomplications escalate.
Each complication raises thestakes higher than the last.
They don't repeat the sameconflict at the same intensity,
with the same stakes.
They raise it all.
Here's an example from seasonone, episode four of the TV
show, younger.
Our protagonist, Liza and herfriend Kelsey go to a bar to
(08:30):
celebrate Kelsey landing a majorproject at work.
Kelsey asks Liza to keep herfrom drinking too much because
tomorrow she has the firstmeeting with the client to kick
off the project and she wants tobe sharp and ready in the
morning.
So Liza's goal is to mitigateKelsey's drinking without
ruining Kelsey's celebration.
(08:50):
Progressive complication.
Kelsey has one drink.
Liza encourages her to stopthere and Kelsey agrees.
Progressive complication.
Kelsey's boyfriend Thad shows upand orders a round of shots.
Liza reluctantly agrees that oneround is fine and they drink
progressive complication.
Thad orders six more rounds ofshots despite Liza's protests,
(09:14):
Kelsey Sides with Thad ratherthan Liza, and drinks every
round progressive complication.
It's now after midnight andKelsey is very drunk.
She decides they should all goto Liza's boyfriend's tattoo
parlor and get tattoos.
Thad decides to go home andleaves Kelsey in Liza's care.
Liza tries to get Kelsey to gohome, but Kelsey has already
(09:35):
called the Uber to the tattooparlor.
Progressive complication whilethey're in the Uber and before
Liza can stop her.
Kelsey drunk texts her newclient that he's hot,
progressive complication.
when they get to the tattooparlor, it's closed.
Liza's boyfriend, Josh livesupstairs, so before Liza can
(09:57):
stop her, Kelsey picks up a rockand throws it at his window,
breaking the window.
Progressive complication.
Josh wakes up and comes to thedoor with another woman in a
nightgown.
Do you see how the complicationsescalate from Kelsey?
Agreeing to stop drinking, towasted Kelsey throwing a rock
through Josh's window.
(10:18):
With each new complication, thestakes become higher and Liza's
ability to achieve her goalprotecting Kelsey from the
consequences of drinking toomuch, becomes more important and
more difficult.
That's the progressive part ofprogressive complications.
They are steadily increasing inintensity, escalating inexorably
(10:39):
until they culminate in theturning point.
Two.
The progressive complicationscan be positive or negative,
never neutral.
When progressive complicationsare positive, they move the
protagonist closer to theirgoal.
They're a happy opportunity.
A piece of good news, a helpinghand Kelsey agreeing to stop
(10:59):
after one drink.
That's positive.
When they're negative, they movethe protagonist farther away
from their goal.
They're an unforeseen obstacle,a failure of a plan, a new
enemy, Thad showing up andpressuring Kelsey to drink many
rounds of shots that's negative.
Both positive and negativedevelopments can be progressive
(11:20):
complications.
Complication doesn't mean bad.
Positive things can alsocomplicate the situation.
The only thing they can't be isneutral.
Three.
Progressive complications can beactive or revelatory.
Active means there's somethingthat happens.
An external event revelatorymeans that they're the reveal of
(11:44):
new information, something thatthe protagonist didn't know, or
perhaps the reader didn't know.
All those times that Kelseydismisses liza's protests and
drinks the shots, fad orders.
Those are actions.
The discovery that Liza'sboyfriend has another woman
staying over that's revelatory.
Don't get too hung up here.
(12:04):
You don't need to evaluate everysingle progressive complication
in your story to note whetherthey're active or revelatory,
but if you find that yourprogressive complications aren't
escalating or feel repetitive,especially on the level of the
global story, it might bebecause you have a long stretch
of only active or onlyrevelatory complications.
(12:26):
Four, the progressivecomplications can be causal or
coincidental.
But tread carefully withcoincidences.
A causal progressivecomplication is the result of a
character's action.
Kelsey called Thad and told himabout her work win.
therefore, he came to join herat the bar.
Therefore he bought her too manyrounds of shots and therefore
(12:47):
Kelsey kept drinking shots.
This puts Liza in a toughposition to either one, let
Kelsey keep taking shots or two,force the celebration to stop.
There's a clear cause and effectrelationship that connects every
event to the ones before andafter it.
A coincidental progressivecomplication is the result of
(13:07):
random chance it's raining orit's sunny.
You're driving to work and youget rear-ended.
Kelsey throws a rock throughLiza's boyfriend's window, and
it just so happens that this isa night when he has another
woman over.
There's no cause and defectrelationship connecting that to
other events.
It's simply the randomness oflife that sometimes things
(13:27):
happen that we're not expecting.
Tread carefully withcoincidences in your story.
There are two principles to keepin mind here.
First coincidences work bestwhen they're negative rather
than positive.
Negative coincidences ring true.
They reflect the random chaosthat we experience every day.
Positive coincidences feel likea Deus xm, a rescue from our
(13:52):
problems.
I have yet to read a novel wherethe climax is a character
winning a million dollars in thelottery and that's solving all
of their problems.
I can think of several storiesthough, Where the inciting
incident is the characterwinning a lottery with
consequences that areundesirable and sometimes even
deadly.
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins,the Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
(14:14):
The episode, luck of the Drawfrom the TV show Sliders Ends
the movie.
It could happen to you all beginwith the random chance of
winning a lottery And then theychallenge their characters to
navigate a lot of cause andeffect base negative fallout
from those coincidental wins.
So be careful with positivecoincidences, and especially
avoid using them as a Deus Xmock in a rescue for your
(14:36):
characters.
And second coincidences workbest when they're used sparingly
too many, and you'll destroy thereader's willing suspension of
disbelief.
So sprinkle in coincidences,sparingly, and look for the
cause and effect trajectoryconnecting your progressive
complications.
It's especially helpful to watchfor those cause and defect
(14:58):
connections.
On the level of the globalstory, I don't typically
explicitly analyze the cause anddefect chain on the scene level,
but it can give you real insightinto plot holes and logical gaps
in the big picture story.
Five.
The progressive complicationscome from outside the
protagonist or are a result of achoice the protagonist makes.
(15:21):
The key here is.
Progressive complications arenot choices the character makes.
They can be something thathappens to the protagonist
because of someone else'schoices.
They can be the result, theimpact, the outcome of the
choice that the protagonistmakes, but they are not
themselves.
The choices the protagonistmakes.
(15:42):
Choices the protagonist makesare essential.
They drive the plot and theygive the protagonist agency.
The protagonist will be makingchoices about how to respond to
progressive complicationsconstantly, but the progressive
complications are notthemselves.
The protagonist choices.
Back to our example scene withLiza and Kelsey.
(16:02):
Remember, Liza is ourprotagonist and her goal is to
mitigate Kelsey's drinkingwithout ruining Kelsey's
celebration.
every time Liza tries to tellKelsey and Thad to slow down, to
stop drinking, to take it easyto go home.
That's Liza's Choice, Liza'sAction Liza's Agency.
It's not a progressivecomplication.
(16:23):
Every time Kelsey refuses, takesmore shots, calls an Uber,
throws a rock, those are allchallenges coming from outside
of Liza.
their choices Kelsey makes andactions Kelsey takes, they are
progressive complications.
And Liza's task is to figure outhow the heck to respond.
Six.
On the scene level, there aretypically one to three
(16:45):
progressive complications on thelevel of the global story.
Every scene is a progressivecomplication.
There's no one right number ofprogressive complications.
You can have as many as you needat every level of story, and to
some degree, anything can be aprogressive complication.
Get too granular in youranalysis and you could read
(17:06):
every line of dialogue back andforth between characters as its
own individual progressivecomplication.
I don't recommend looking thatclosely.
You'll hit a point ofdiminishing returns in your
analysis and you'll start tomiss the forest for the trees.
You could get lost in the slightpitch of new anger in Kelsey's
voice as she tells Liza no forthe fifth time and miss that.
(17:29):
All that's happened for sixpages is Kelsey drinking five
shots.
Your progressive complicationsaren't escalating.
What you want to watch for arethe major plot developments.
Kelsey's boyfriend showing up,Kelsey calling an Uber Kelsey
throwing a rock.
There are typically one to threemajor plot developments like
this in a scene.
(17:49):
A long scene could have more,but as long as you have at least
one, you're fine.
Zoom all the way out to the bigpicture and every scene should
be a progressive complication.
If it doesn't escalate theconflict and move the story
forward in some way, it hasn'tearned its place in the story.
Kelsey's big night of Drinkingmoves the larger episode plot
(18:09):
forward in three ways.
First, Kelsey will oversleep bevery hungover and miss the
meeting with the new client inthe morning.
Second, she's already made theirrelationship very unprofessional
by drunk texting them that he'shot.
And third, she's going to blameLiza for not doing what Kelsey
asked and preventing her fromdrinking too much, which is to
say it's Liza's fault thatKelsey's kicking things off so
(18:31):
poorly with her new client.
It's a scene full of progressivecomplications and it's one
progressive complication in thelarger episode.
And now.
The seventh quality I look forin the progressive
complications, and the biggestreason that I separate them out
from story grid's fivecommandments seven.
(18:53):
On the scene level, theprogressive complications
reinforce the starting value onthe global level.
They move along the spectrum ofthe value.
What are the progressivecomplications doing for 60% of
the story?
What unskipable irreplaceablerole do they serve?
That's not done by any otherelement of story.
(19:15):
They are emphasizing the beforeside of the value shift.
Remember, stories are aboutchange.
the inciting incident.
Establishes that things are oneway a before The turning point,
crisis and climax, the valuewill shift and by the resolution
will be in the after the newworld order.
(19:35):
The result of the change, thejob of the progressive
complications is to emphasizethe, before.
This looks a little different onthe level of the scene versus
the global story, so let's breakthem down.
On the scene level, things startone way and end another way.
Kelsey is out celebrating togoing home.
(19:56):
That's the end of a scene.
By the way.
Liza shoves her in another Uberand bodily forces her to end her
night.
The shift is binary.
She's out and then she's goinghome.
Liza is being patient with herand going along with her, and
then Liza is fed up and done andtaking control.
All the progressivecomplications, the boyfriend,
the shots, the tattoo idea, theUber, the Rock, they all
(20:18):
emphasize how out celebratingKelsey is and how patient and
going along Liza is.
Their whole entire job is tomake us really feel that before
side of the value shift, thefirst half of a binary value.
Zoom out to the big picture andlook at the story as a whole,
and it's a little bit different.
(20:40):
The value shift in a novel isn'tbinary.
It's a spectrum.
Consider love versus hate.
For example, that spectrum lookslike this.
hate master, love to hate todislike, to indifference, to
like to love.
In an enemies to love's romance,the levers will begin way at the
(21:01):
hate end of the spectrum, and bythe end of the story, they'll
move to love, but they won'tspend 60% of the story sitting
immovable at hate.
The story won't spend all theprogressive complications
emphasizing, unchanging hatred,then flip magically to the
opposite end of the spectrum andbring them all the way to love
at the turning point.
(21:21):
Of course not.
That would be insufferablyboring for most of the story.
And then unbelievable andridiculous at the end.
So the job of the progressivecomplications, the Unskipable
unmissable essential job, Thereason you can't just cut 60%
from the middle of every novelis to move the story along the
spectrum of the value.
(21:42):
The progressive complicationsmight move the story forwards
and backwards Along thatspectrum, some scenes will bring
the story closer to the positiveend and others will push it to
the negative end.
think again of our enemies Tolover's romance.
In one scene, he might dosomething that builds her trust
in him, despite herdetermination to hate him.
On the scene level, they go fromdistrust to trust, from hatred
(22:06):
to grudging, dislike.
And then in another scene, hemight betray that trust.
Trust to distrust again, andfrom grudging dislike to even
deeper hatred within the scene.
The value shift is generallybinary on the level of the
global story.
The value shifts along theentire spectrum, The role of the
progressive complications is toreinforce the foresight of the
(22:29):
value shift on the scene leveland on the level of the global
story to move the story throughall the chaos and drama of the
value spectrum before it reachesits final, after state, before
our enemies to lovers reachtheir steady, secure love, and
finally.
Eight, the progressivecomplications are aligned with
(22:51):
the stories genre.
I've put this one last becauseif your progressive
complications are doing theirjob well in terms of the value
shift, then they're also passingthis last test with flying
colors because the progressivecomplications move the story
along the spectrum of the valueshift, this also means that the
progressive complications arealigned with the story's genre.
(23:14):
That's because the value atstake is defined by the genre,
or the genre is defined by thevalue at stake, however you like
to look at it.
Either way, they're inextricablyconnected.
That means that those enemies tolevers probably won't suddenly
discover a dead body somewherein the middle of the progressive
complications.
A dead body points us to thelife and death stakes of an
(23:36):
action story or the justice andtyranny stakes of a crime story.
If the enemies suddenly gotdistracted by an investigation,
it would cease to be a romancestory and become a crime story
instead.
Unless, of course, you areintentionally blending genres,
and this is, say, an enemies tolove's mafia story, that means
the dead body is a progressivecomplication that's relevant to
(23:58):
the crime plot.
But in order to not lose thethreat of the romance, you'll
need to make it relevant to thelove plot too.
How does discovering the deadbody impact how our lovers feel
about each other?
Does it force them to worktogether and they start to like
each other a little bit more?
Or do they suspect each other ofthe crime and their fragile
alliance begins to erode?
(24:20):
Remind yourself of the change atthe heart of your story.
Keep the value spectrum in mindand check for how each
progressive complication movesthe story along it.
That way you'll ensure thatevery progressive complication
is aligned with your story'sgenre and nothing feels outta
the blue or irrelevant to yourreaders.
So there you have it.
(24:40):
The eight qualities that I'mlooking for in effective
progressive complications.
Here they are again.
The progressive complicationsone, escalate two are positive
or negative, never neutral.
Three can be active orrevelatory.
Four can be causal orcoincidental, but tread
(25:02):
carefully with coincidences.
Five.
Come from outside theprotagonist or are the result of
a choice the protagonist makes.
Six typically include one tothree progressive complications
on the scene level and on theglobal level.
Every scene is a progressivecomplication.
Seven on the scene levelreinforce the beginning value
(25:26):
and on the global level, movealong the spectrum of the value,
and eight are aligned with thestories genre.
So now you know what progressivecomplications are, how they
function in a scene and in aglobal story, and what I'm
looking for when I evaluatethem.
But there's another essentialpart of the conversation we
(25:47):
haven't touched yet, Whathappens when they don't work?
What does it look like whenprogressive complications fall
flat?
What traps do writers commonlyfall into, and how do those
traps affect your story and yourreaders?
that's what I'll be covering inthe next installment on
progressive complications.
I'll walk you through the fivemost common traps that I see in
(26:08):
manuscripts, how they show up,what they do to the reader's
experience, and how to fix themin revision.
So if you've ever had a scene ora story feel slow, repetitive,
scattered, or like it's almostworking, but not quite, don't
miss the next installment inthis series coming four weeks
from now.
In the meantime, you candownload a free progressive
(26:30):
complication cheat sheet to keepall of this in front of you
while you revise.
Go to alice sudler.com/ 87,enter your email and I'll send
it straight to your inbox.
And if all of this feelsoverwhelmingly technical, like
the calculus of storytelling, Iget it.
That's why I'm here.
I study stories in granulardetail and run this level of
(26:52):
analysis in my head so that youcan stay in your storytelling
flow and think about theseconcepts only as much or as
little as you like.
Progressive complications arewhere so many writers get stuck,
not because they don't know howto write them, but because this
part of the story feels like afoggy, uncharted stretch between
the big moments.
(27:12):
It's easy to lose your sense ofdirection here if you'd like
help, seeing what's working,what's missing, and how to
revise your scenes so that everymoment builds towards something
powerful.
I'd love to work with you.
Go to Alice sudler.com/contactand fill out the form there to
tell me about your story andI'll be in touch.
Until next time, happy editing.
You open your story with anamazing inciting incident, you
(00:03):
hook your reader's attentionright away, promising them a
brilliant tale.
They're going to love you.
Send your protagonist on ajourney in pursuit of a goal.
You kick off the first act withexplosive, propulsive,
unputdownable energy, and thenyou reach the middle.
The messy middle, the quietdoldrums of your story.
(00:27):
Where plot momentum goes to diesomehow.
You've got to get yourprotagonist and your readers
from the exciting promise of theinciting incident at the
beginning to the satisfyingpayoff of the climax at the end.
And you've got to fill enoughpages to stretch each scene out
to scene length and the book outto book length.
(00:49):
So what do you do?
Throw a bunch of stuff in foryour characters to do and hope
that it somehow works and keepsyour readers entertained or
fluff out your sentences withextra words describing
everything your charactersencounter in obsessive detail.
Nope.
This is the space of theprogressive complications.
(01:09):
Not irrelevant stuff.
Not distracting fluff, butunmissable, unskipable,
unputdownable rising conflictthat raises the stakes, prepares
the protagonist for the climaxand compels your reader to keep
turning pages.
In this episode, we'll demystifythe messy middle so you can make
(01:29):
your progressive complicationssome of the best parts of your
story.
(02:21):
Welcome to your next draft.
Today we're continuing our deepdive into my favorite story
structure framework, the sixelements of story.
We're putting the second elementprogressive complications under
the microscope to see what theyare and what makes them work.
Last month we studied theinciting incidents in obsessive
(02:42):
detail, and I think that waspossibly one of my most popular
episodes ever in the history ofthe podcast.
So I'm pretty sure you're goingto love what I have to share
with you here.
It turns out though, that I havea lot to say about progressive
complications.
Who would've thunk?
So I'm splitting this episodeinto two parts.
In this installment, I'm goingto share the way I define
(03:04):
progressive complications, wherein a story the progressive
complications appear.
And what I'm watching for as aneditor when I evaluate
progressive complications, andin the next installment I'll
share the common traps that Isee writers fall into when
they're writing and revisingtheir progressive complications.
You don't need to have listenedto the inciting incident episode
in order to follow everythingthat I'm going to talk about
(03:26):
here.
But I am going to assume you'reat least a little bit aware of
the six elements of storyframework.
If that's totally new to you, Irecommend starting with my
episode, the six essentialelements of every novel act and
scene, which I'll link in theshow notes.
I've also put together a freecheat sheet with everything that
I'll cover in this episode.
You can print it out and keep itat hand, easy to reference as
(03:47):
you edit.
Go to alice sud though.com/ 87into your email there and I'll
send it straight to you.
Alright, we've got a lot tocover, so let's dive right in.
Let's start with the definition.
Here's how I define theprogressive complications.
A series of complications happenthat escalate the conflict.
(04:08):
These events might make thingsbetter or worse, but they
certainly make things morecomplicated.
What does that mean?
Well, the inciting incident setsyour protagonist on a path in
pursuit of a goal, but theycan't achieve their goal
immediately.
If it were that simple, they'dhave it already so they embark
(04:29):
on a course of action thatshould take them towards their
goal.
at least based on their existingworldview.
That's everything they know andunderstand and believe about the
world right now.
Based on all of that, they thinkthat this path will take them
towards their goal and along theway they encounter challenges,
things that move them closer totheir goal or throw up obstacles
(04:50):
in their way.
Those are the progressivecomplications.
Okay.
Basically, they're all thethings that challenge your
protagonist and raise the stakeson their way to achieving their
goal.
They culminate in the turningpoint, which is a special
progressive complication withseveral additional jobs to do.
It's the moment when theprotagonist's strategy and
tactics fail to such a degreethat it breaks their existing
(05:13):
worldview.
The protagonist irrevocablychanges, and so the story
irrevocably changes.
I'll put the turning point undera microscope in another episode,
but for now, it's enough to knowthat it's technically also a
progressive complication, andthe job of the progressive
complications is to carry thereader to the global crisis of
the story where the stakes arethe highest they've been so far.
(05:37):
Where in the story are theprogressive complications?
As you can probably guess fromthat definition alone, the
progressive complications span alot of the story.
60% or more of a seen act orglobal story can be spent in the
progressive complications.
If I had to mark percentages,I'd estimate that they tend to
start somewhere around the 15%mark and wrap up somewhere
(06:01):
around the 70% mark.
Those are really loose ballparknumbers though.
The point is they're the middleof the story and they're the
bulk of the story.
in short, the progressivecomplications matter.
This, by the way, is why I callmy favorite story structure
framework, the six elements ofstory.
(06:21):
If you're an avid student ofcraft books, you're probably
familiar with Sean Coin's StoryGrid.
I'm a story grid certifiededitor, and story grid is where
I was introduced to thisframework.
But the framework as story griddescribes it, It's called the
Five Commandments ofStorytelling.
The five commandments are, one,the inciting incident, two, the
Turning Point, progressivecomplication.
(06:43):
Three, the crisis, four, theclimax, and five the resolution.
In essence, the fiveCommandments, skip over the
progressive complications andjump straight to the turning
point.
On the one hand, I do sort ofget why.
As you'll see, when we put theturning point under the
microscope, there are veryspecific things that are set up
(07:04):
in the inciting incident.
Irreversibly challenged in theturning point and then paid off
in the climax.
The turning point does have anessential job to do and you
can't really effectively reviseyour progressive complications
until you know what that turningpoint is doing.
But.
The progressive complicationsare 60% of the story.
(07:24):
I felt adamantly that theprogressive complications also
have an essential job to dobecause no one wants to buy a
novel with the middle, twothirds sliced out of it.
Plus, this is the messy middleof the story, the part where
writers tend to feel lost,adrift in storytelling,
doldrums, unsure what needs tohappen between the setup of the
inciting incident and the payoffof the climax.
(07:47):
So I kept the progressivecomplications in the framework.
I renamed it the six elements ofstory to recognize their
significance.
I set out to figure out whatexactly the progressive
complications must accomplish,and this is what I found.
There are seven qualities thatI'm watching for throughout the
progressive complications.
(08:08):
One, the progressivecomplications escalate.
Each complication raises thestakes higher than the last.
They don't repeat the sameconflict at the same intensity,
with the same stakes.
They raise it all.
Here's an example from seasonone, episode four of the TV
show, younger.
Our protagonist, Liza and herfriend Kelsey go to a bar to
(08:30):
celebrate Kelsey landing a majorproject at work.
Kelsey asks Liza to keep herfrom drinking too much because
tomorrow she has the firstmeeting with the client to kick
off the project and she wants tobe sharp and ready in the
morning.
So Liza's goal is to mitigateKelsey's drinking without
ruining Kelsey's celebration.
(08:50):
Progressive complication.
Kelsey has one drink.
Liza encourages her to stopthere and Kelsey agrees.
Progressive complication.
Kelsey's boyfriend Thad shows upand orders a round of shots.
Liza reluctantly agrees that oneround is fine and they drink
progressive complication.
Thad orders six more rounds ofshots despite Liza's protests,
(09:14):
Kelsey Sides with Thad ratherthan Liza, and drinks every
round progressive complication.
It's now after midnight andKelsey is very drunk.
She decides they should all goto Liza's boyfriend's tattoo
parlor and get tattoos.
Thad decides to go home andleaves Kelsey in Liza's care.
Liza tries to get Kelsey to gohome, but Kelsey has already
(09:35):
called the Uber to the tattooparlor.
Progressive complication whilethey're in the Uber and before
Liza can stop her.
Kelsey drunk texts her newclient that he's hot,
progressive complication.
when they get to the tattooparlor, it's closed.
Liza's boyfriend, Josh livesupstairs, so before Liza can
(09:57):
stop her, Kelsey picks up a rockand throws it at his window,
breaking the window.
Progressive complication.
Josh wakes up and comes to thedoor with another woman in a
nightgown.
Do you see how the complicationsescalate from Kelsey?
Agreeing to stop drinking, towasted Kelsey throwing a rock
through Josh's window.
(10:18):
With each new complication, thestakes become higher and Liza's
ability to achieve her goalprotecting Kelsey from the
consequences of drinking toomuch, becomes more important and
more difficult.
That's the progressive part ofprogressive complications.
They are steadily increasing inintensity, escalating inexorably
(10:39):
until they culminate in theturning point.
Two.
The progressive complicationscan be positive or negative,
never neutral.
When progressive complicationsare positive, they move the
protagonist closer to theirgoal.
They're a happy opportunity.
A piece of good news, a helpinghand Kelsey agreeing to stop
(10:59):
after one drink.
That's positive.
When they're negative, they movethe protagonist farther away
from their goal.
They're an unforeseen obstacle,a failure of a plan, a new
enemy, Thad showing up andpressuring Kelsey to drink many
rounds of shots that's negative.
Both positive and negativedevelopments can be progressive
(11:20):
complications.
Complication doesn't mean bad.
Positive things can alsocomplicate the situation.
The only thing they can't be isneutral.
Three.
Progressive complications can beactive or revelatory.
Active means there's somethingthat happens.
An external event revelatorymeans that they're the reveal of
(11:44):
new information, something thatthe protagonist didn't know, or
perhaps the reader didn't know.
All those times that Kelseydismisses liza's protests and
drinks the shots, fad orders.
Those are actions.
The discovery that Liza'sboyfriend has another woman
staying over that's revelatory.
Don't get too hung up here.
(12:04):
You don't need to evaluate everysingle progressive complication
in your story to note whetherthey're active or revelatory,
but if you find that yourprogressive complications aren't
escalating or feel repetitive,especially on the level of the
global story, it might bebecause you have a long stretch
of only active or onlyrevelatory complications.
(12:26):
Four, the progressivecomplications can be causal or
coincidental.
But tread carefully withcoincidences.
A causal progressivecomplication is the result of a
character's action.
Kelsey called Thad and told himabout her work win.
therefore, he came to join herat the bar.
Therefore he bought her too manyrounds of shots and therefore
(12:47):
Kelsey kept drinking shots.
This puts Liza in a toughposition to either one, let
Kelsey keep taking shots or two,force the celebration to stop.
There's a clear cause and effectrelationship that connects every
event to the ones before andafter it.
A coincidental progressivecomplication is the result of
(13:07):
random chance it's raining orit's sunny.
You're driving to work and youget rear-ended.
Kelsey throws a rock throughLiza's boyfriend's window, and
it just so happens that this isa night when he has another
woman over.
There's no cause and defectrelationship connecting that to
other events.
It's simply the randomness oflife that sometimes things
(13:27):
happen that we're not expecting.
Tread carefully withcoincidences in your story.
There are two principles to keepin mind here.
First coincidences work bestwhen they're negative rather
than positive.
Negative coincidences ring true.
They reflect the random chaosthat we experience every day.
Positive coincidences feel likea Deus xm, a rescue from our
(13:52):
problems.
I have yet to read a novel wherethe climax is a character
winning a million dollars in thelottery and that's solving all
of their problems.
I can think of several storiesthough, Where the inciting
incident is the characterwinning a lottery with
consequences that areundesirable and sometimes even
deadly.
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins,the Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
(14:14):
The episode, luck of the Drawfrom the TV show Sliders Ends
the movie.
It could happen to you all beginwith the random chance of
winning a lottery And then theychallenge their characters to
navigate a lot of cause andeffect base negative fallout
from those coincidental wins.
So be careful with positivecoincidences, and especially
avoid using them as a Deus Xmock in a rescue for your
(14:36):
characters.
And second coincidences workbest when they're used sparingly
too many, and you'll destroy thereader's willing suspension of
disbelief.
So sprinkle in coincidences,sparingly, and look for the
cause and effect trajectoryconnecting your progressive
complications.
It's especially helpful to watchfor those cause and defect
(14:58):
connections.
On the level of the globalstory, I don't typically
explicitly analyze the cause anddefect chain on the scene level,
but it can give you real insightinto plot holes and logical gaps
in the big picture story.
Five.
The progressive complicationscome from outside the
protagonist or are a result of achoice the protagonist makes.
(15:21):
The key here is.
Progressive complications arenot choices the character makes.
They can be something thathappens to the protagonist
because of someone else'schoices.
They can be the result, theimpact, the outcome of the
choice that the protagonistmakes, but they are not
themselves.
The choices the protagonistmakes.
(15:42):
Choices the protagonist makesare essential.
They drive the plot and theygive the protagonist agency.
The protagonist will be makingchoices about how to respond to
progressive complicationsconstantly, but the progressive
complications are notthemselves.
The protagonist choices.
Back to our example scene withLiza and Kelsey.
(16:02):
Remember, Liza is ourprotagonist and her goal is to
mitigate Kelsey's drinkingwithout ruining Kelsey's
celebration.
every time Liza tries to tellKelsey and Thad to slow down, to
stop drinking, to take it easyto go home.
That's Liza's Choice, Liza'sAction Liza's Agency.
It's not a progressivecomplication.
(16:23):
Every time Kelsey refuses, takesmore shots, calls an Uber,
throws a rock, those are allchallenges coming from outside
of Liza.
their choices Kelsey makes andactions Kelsey takes, they are
progressive complications.
And Liza's task is to figure outhow the heck to respond.
Six.
On the scene level, there aretypically one to three
(16:45):
progressive complications on thelevel of the global story.
Every scene is a progressivecomplication.
There's no one right number ofprogressive complications.
You can have as many as you needat every level of story, and to
some degree, anything can be aprogressive complication.
Get too granular in youranalysis and you could read
(17:06):
every line of dialogue back andforth between characters as its
own individual progressivecomplication.
I don't recommend looking thatclosely.
You'll hit a point ofdiminishing returns in your
analysis and you'll start tomiss the forest for the trees.
You could get lost in the slightpitch of new anger in Kelsey's
voice as she tells Liza no forthe fifth time and miss that.
(17:29):
All that's happened for sixpages is Kelsey drinking five
shots.
Your progressive complicationsaren't escalating.
What you want to watch for arethe major plot developments.
Kelsey's boyfriend showing up,Kelsey calling an Uber Kelsey
throwing a rock.
There are typically one to threemajor plot developments like
this in a scene.
(17:49):
A long scene could have more,but as long as you have at least
one, you're fine.
Zoom all the way out to the bigpicture and every scene should
be a progressive complication.
If it doesn't escalate theconflict and move the story
forward in some way, it hasn'tearned its place in the story.
Kelsey's big night of Drinkingmoves the larger episode plot
(18:09):
forward in three ways.
First, Kelsey will oversleep bevery hungover and miss the
meeting with the new client inthe morning.
Second, she's already made theirrelationship very unprofessional
by drunk texting them that he'shot.
And third, she's going to blameLiza for not doing what Kelsey
asked and preventing her fromdrinking too much, which is to
say it's Liza's fault thatKelsey's kicking things off so
(18:31):
poorly with her new client.
It's a scene full of progressivecomplications and it's one
progressive complication in thelarger episode.
And now.
The seventh quality I look forin the progressive
complications, and the biggestreason that I separate them out
from story grid's fivecommandments seven.
(18:53):
On the scene level, theprogressive complications
reinforce the starting value onthe global level.
They move along the spectrum ofthe value.
What are the progressivecomplications doing for 60% of
the story?
What unskipable irreplaceablerole do they serve?
That's not done by any otherelement of story.
(19:15):
They are emphasizing the beforeside of the value shift.
Remember, stories are aboutchange.
the inciting incident.
Establishes that things are oneway a before The turning point,
crisis and climax, the valuewill shift and by the resolution
will be in the after the newworld order.
(19:35):
The result of the change, thejob of the progressive
complications is to emphasizethe, before.
This looks a little different onthe level of the scene versus
the global story, so let's breakthem down.
On the scene level, things startone way and end another way.
Kelsey is out celebrating togoing home.
(19:56):
That's the end of a scene.
By the way.
Liza shoves her in another Uberand bodily forces her to end her
night.
The shift is binary.
She's out and then she's goinghome.
Liza is being patient with herand going along with her, and
then Liza is fed up and done andtaking control.
All the progressivecomplications, the boyfriend,
the shots, the tattoo idea, theUber, the Rock, they all
(20:18):
emphasize how out celebratingKelsey is and how patient and
going along Liza is.
Their whole entire job is tomake us really feel that before
side of the value shift, thefirst half of a binary value.
Zoom out to the big picture andlook at the story as a whole,
and it's a little bit different.
(20:40):
The value shift in a novel isn'tbinary.
It's a spectrum.
Consider love versus hate.
For example, that spectrum lookslike this.
hate master, love to hate todislike, to indifference, to
like to love.
In an enemies to love's romance,the levers will begin way at the
(21:01):
hate end of the spectrum, and bythe end of the story, they'll
move to love, but they won'tspend 60% of the story sitting
immovable at hate.
The story won't spend all theprogressive complications
emphasizing, unchanging hatred,then flip magically to the
opposite end of the spectrum andbring them all the way to love
at the turning point.
(21:21):
Of course not.
That would be insufferablyboring for most of the story.
And then unbelievable andridiculous at the end.
So the job of the progressivecomplications, the Unskipable
unmissable essential job, Thereason you can't just cut 60%
from the middle of every novelis to move the story along the
spectrum of the value.
(21:42):
The progressive complicationsmight move the story forwards
and backwards Along thatspectrum, some scenes will bring
the story closer to the positiveend and others will push it to
the negative end.
think again of our enemies Tolover's romance.
In one scene, he might dosomething that builds her trust
in him, despite herdetermination to hate him.
On the scene level, they go fromdistrust to trust, from hatred
(22:06):
to grudging, dislike.
And then in another scene, hemight betray that trust.
Trust to distrust again, andfrom grudging dislike to even
deeper hatred within the scene.
The value shift is generallybinary on the level of the
global story.
The value shifts along theentire spectrum, The role of the
progressive complications is toreinforce the foresight of the
(22:29):
value shift on the scene leveland on the level of the global
story to move the story throughall the chaos and drama of the
value spectrum before it reachesits final, after state, before
our enemies to lovers reachtheir steady, secure love, and
finally.
Eight, the progressivecomplications are aligned with
(22:51):
the stories genre.
I've put this one last becauseif your progressive
complications are doing theirjob well in terms of the value
shift, then they're also passingthis last test with flying
colors because the progressivecomplications move the story
along the spectrum of the valueshift, this also means that the
progressive complications arealigned with the story's genre.
(23:14):
That's because the value atstake is defined by the genre,
or the genre is defined by thevalue at stake, however you like
to look at it.
Either way, they're inextricablyconnected.
That means that those enemies tolevers probably won't suddenly
discover a dead body somewherein the middle of the progressive
complications.
A dead body points us to thelife and death stakes of an
(23:36):
action story or the justice andtyranny stakes of a crime story.
If the enemies suddenly gotdistracted by an investigation,
it would cease to be a romancestory and become a crime story
instead.
Unless, of course, you areintentionally blending genres,
and this is, say, an enemies tolove's mafia story, that means
the dead body is a progressivecomplication that's relevant to
(23:58):
the crime plot.
But in order to not lose thethreat of the romance, you'll
need to make it relevant to thelove plot too.
How does discovering the deadbody impact how our lovers feel
about each other?
Does it force them to worktogether and they start to like
each other a little bit more?
Or do they suspect each other ofthe crime and their fragile
alliance begins to erode?
(24:20):
Remind yourself of the change atthe heart of your story.
Keep the value spectrum in mindand check for how each
progressive complication movesthe story along it.
That way you'll ensure thatevery progressive complication
is aligned with your story'sgenre and nothing feels outta
the blue or irrelevant to yourreaders.
So there you have it.
(24:40):
The eight qualities that I'mlooking for in effective
progressive complications.
Here they are again.
The progressive complicationsone, escalate two are positive
or negative, never neutral.
Three can be active orrevelatory.
Four can be causal orcoincidental, but tread
(25:02):
carefully with coincidences.
Five.
Come from outside theprotagonist or are the result of
a choice the protagonist makes.
Six typically include one tothree progressive complications
on the scene level and on theglobal level.
Every scene is a progressivecomplication.
Seven on the scene levelreinforce the beginning value
(25:26):
and on the global level, movealong the spectrum of the value,
and eight are aligned with thestories genre.
So now you know what progressivecomplications are, how they
function in a scene and in aglobal story, and what I'm
looking for when I evaluatethem.
But there's another essentialpart of the conversation we
(25:47):
haven't touched yet, Whathappens when they don't work?
What does it look like whenprogressive complications fall
flat?
What traps do writers commonlyfall into, and how do those
traps affect your story and yourreaders?
that's what I'll be covering inthe next installment on
progressive complications.
I'll walk you through the fivemost common traps that I see in
(26:08):
manuscripts, how they show up,what they do to the reader's
experience, and how to fix themin revision.
So if you've ever had a scene ora story feel slow, repetitive,
scattered, or like it's almostworking, but not quite, don't
miss the next installment inthis series coming four weeks
from now.
In the meantime, you candownload a free progressive
(26:30):
complication cheat sheet to keepall of this in front of you
while you revise.
Go to alice sudler.com/ 87,enter your email and I'll send
it straight to your inbox.
And if all of this feelsoverwhelmingly technical, like
the calculus of storytelling, Iget it.
That's why I'm here.
I study stories in granulardetail and run this level of
(26:52):
analysis in my head so that youcan stay in your storytelling
flow and think about theseconcepts only as much or as
little as you like.
Progressive complications arewhere so many writers get stuck,
not because they don't know howto write them, but because this
part of the story feels like afoggy, uncharted stretch between
the big moments.
(27:12):
It's easy to lose your sense ofdirection here if you'd like
help, seeing what's working,what's missing, and how to
revise your scenes so that everymoment builds towards something
powerful.
I'd love to work with you.
Go to Alice sudler.com/contactand fill out the form there to
tell me about your story andI'll be in touch.
Until next time, happy editing.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com