Are you dangerous enough?

Sometimes a manuscript, or even a published novel or movie doesn’t work as well as it could have.

That may happen because we didn’t experience enough danger or danger that was deep enough or serious enough.

Our novels are about danger.

A character is in a dangerous situation. The plot is about learning something to improve or strengthen the character and thus control or conquer the danger.

Writing “danger” can feel off-putting at first to a new writer because, after all, we’re nice people. Stories, though, are about how people are in danger or put themselves in danger and then get out of danger or save somebody else from a dangerous situation.

Danger can be intellectual, romantic, emotional, physical, environmental, and so on. Danger can come from supernatural or science fiction entities.

In the hand of good writers, danger can be funny, too.

There’s danger at the core of all genres. Dinosaurs eat children in picture books, after all. In Young Adult novels teens deal with murderers, drug dealers, abusive parents, and more.

Remember:  Show how to fight the danger and survive it (or not).

Make the danger important enough or big enough to last a novel’s length.

The opposite of danger may be more than just survival; often it’s “triumph.” Your novel’s last act or ending has to fit the level of danger you present from the beginning.

If you get stuck in the middle of your manuscript, re-assess how you’re working “danger” in the story.

Do you have a very strong protagonist but the danger you put him or her in is rather tepid?

What about secondary characters, or the sidekick? What is dangerous for them? How will they deal with it?

Fiction is about danger. Danger sells. Analyze how you’re using danger. Perhaps revise.

Write dangerously and all will be well.