Writers in the Storm

Zooming in on Zones 2 & 3 of Story Structure: Plenty of Antagonists and Action

by Lisa Miller

The beginning and ending of stories are essential to enticing readers into our stories and making them want to seek out more from that author.

But I love playing with the middle two zones of a story. They do so much work and provide plenty of entertainment.

What Causes the Response in Zone 2?

Something had to have happened at the end of a story’s Zone 1 for our protagonist to have a response in Zone 2.

That something is the 1^st Plot Point.

One of the most famous 1^st Plot Points comes in The Wizard of Oz movie.

Dorothy’s house has crashed down in Oz and killed the Wicked Witch of the East. The original film literally goes from a black and white Zone 1 into a brightly colored Zone 2.

As a kid, I was mesmerized when Dorothy opens the door to this beautiful, strange world of good and bad witches and Munchkins.

A Second Powerful Shift Takes a Very Different Story Into Zone 3

Ballard is a spin-off from Michael Connelly’s Bosch books and TV series.

In the Ballard TV series, Renee Ballard is an LAPD Robbery Homicide Detective now heading up the RHD Cold Case unit.

I was just loving the show, not thinking about story structure or Landmarks. Then the end of episode 5 came and BAMM. The obvious Midpoint of the story had just been revealed.

The cold case team opens a storage unit to find 14 shoe boxes on metal shelves. Each box has a trophy from the victim of a serial killer they are looking for. One is a bracelet with a cold case victim’s name that they know about. But now there are 13 other victims they must identify.

It was also a visual parallel to the Cold Case unit itself. All those metal shelves with boxes of unsolved murders.

This Midpoint Landmark shifts the Zone 2 Reaction portion of Ballard’s story into the Action of Zone 3. With all this new evidence the team is energized to identify the clues and victims. It’s possible the killer is still active, so there’s no time to waste. Action!

It was so powerful; I knew I had to take a deeper dive into the series.

That’s one way you know the story structure and the Landmarks are effective.

What Ballard’s Story is About?

To make sure my students and I have a clear picture of what their story is, they must create a Story Plotline.

Your one sentence Safari Plotline is going to include:

• PROTAGONIST (Who)
• STORY GOAL (What)
• MOTIVATION (Why)
• KEY CONFLICT (Why not)
• ACTION (How)

The protagonist has a goal, because something is personally at stake if she doesn’t achieve it, but something blocks her path, and so she’s forced to take action.

Ballard Plotline:

Protagonist (Who): Detective Renee Ballard

Story Goal (What): Needs to make a success of the new LAPD Cold Case unit she’s been put in charge of.

Motivation (Why): Because if she doesn’t, she will have to leave the LAPD disgraced.

Key Conflict: (Why not): But her dismissed sexual assault complaint against popular Detective Robert Olivas leaves her few allies and little support within the LAPD. Also, a group of dirty cops don’t want past bad deeds uncovered as any of those cold cases are being worked on.

Action (How): And So, Ballard must mold her new unit, made up of volunteers and reserve officers, into a cohesive team. They must learn how to work together to identify a serial killer/rapist while solving other crimes.

Ballard’s Zone 2: Reaction

The 1^st Plot Point, which takes us into Zone 2, happens at the end of episode 2.

Cold Case member Samira Parker, a former LAPD cop who originally worked on the John Doe cold case and comes into the unit, discovers that the bullet that killed the victim is missing from evidence. Likely a cover up within the police.

So, Zone 2 begins with an awareness that dirty cops are likely working against the Cold Cast unit’s success. Any of the team’s discoveries threaten to expose members of the dirty cop ring.  It’s that twist that drives the rest of the story’s Zones. Not only must Ballard and her team be careful of the bad guys, but they also must keep looking over their shoulder for cops who may be working against them.

The 1^st Pinch-Point is around the middle of Zone 2.

The 1^st Pinch Point is a place in the story where the antagonist(s) are more visible and gaining power. It usually occurs around the middle of Zone 2. In a police procedural, it’s important to get those bad guys woven into the story early.

One of the main functions of Zone 2 is to challenge the protagonist, lower their resistance to change.

Dirty ex-cop Driscoll has arranged for one of his allies, Manny, a handsome, young cop, to get close to Martina. She’s the youngest and likely most susceptible to divulging sensitive information from the work they are doing.

Manny shows up at Martina’s favorite bar and flirts with her. This puts not only Martina but the entire unit in danger if information is leaked to the bad guys.

The 2^nd Pinch Point in Zone 3

Zone 3 is another place for the Antagonist, Antagonistic Force and Obstacles to challenge Ballard and her team.

Ballard wakes up to an assailant strangling her. She fights back and, in the struggle, Ballard crushes his windpipe. She survives. But this attack on her causes her superiors to doubt the unit can continue working on the two important cases they’ve been assigned. These cases are taken away to the Robbery Homicide unit. So not only has the bad guy seriously injured Ballard, their bosses, in the LAPD, have taken away the work they valued.

This moves the story towards its lowest All Is Lost Moment. The team feels defeated and so must find a new purpose and another case to work on.

This is the work of Zone 4 Resolution.

Zones 2 and 3 Challenge the Protagonist

The job of Zone 2 is to wear down and exhaust the Protagonist so their resistance to change is at its lowest point. They are no longer reacting but now willing to act. Take that Leap of Faith into action in Zone 3.

The purpose of Zone 3 is to challenge the Protagonist with a stronger Antagonist and making the Protagonist again resistant to the changes they must make.

Those experiences bring the Protagonist to Zone 4 and finding a Resolution.

Look at Your Own Work, Pick up a novel, or Watch a Favorite Movie or Show
Have you seen or used a Plot Point, Pinch Point, or Midpoint that you think was powerful or effective?

Want to learn more? Story Structure Safari will be live at No Stress Writing Academy in September.

About Lisa

Lisa taught middle-school science and was a certified counselor in Texas for 30 years. Her passion for teaching met her love of writing. After not finding the writing classes she needed, Lisa spent several years on a deep study of story structure. That led her to create a powerful and well-loved online course Story Structure Safari.

She has joined the staff at Deleyna Marr’s No Stress Writing Academy  where she is developing new classes. Her Creating A Constellation of Characters is available there January and June 2027. Story Structure Safari runs every September and April. The next Safari is September 2026.

Top image from Unsplash.

by Susan Watts

In my last few Writers in the Storm articles, I’ve shared several discoveries that completely changed the way I revise emotional scenes. It didn’t happen all at once. It happened while revising chapter after chapter of my current novel.

First, I realized I was leaning too heavily on visceral reactions. Every important moment seemed to come with a pounding heart, trembling hands, or a tight chest. Those reactions belonged in the story, but they weren’t carrying the emotional weight I wanted.

Then I uncovered another mistake. I had become so focused on deep POV that I was explaining every emotion through long stretches of interiority.

My most recent article discussed my discovery of emotional movement and how readers don’t simply want emotion on the page (click here to go to the article). They want to feel a character change because of what happened.

I thought I had finally solved the problem.

Then I kept revising.

As I worked through scene after scene, I noticed that even after improving the visceral reactions, strengthening the interiority, and making sure each scene contained emotional movement, there were still moments that felt…flat.

The scene should have worked. Yet somehow it still felt as though I was describing the emotion instead of inviting readers to experience it. That’s when I realized the problem wasn’t that my scenes were missing emotion.

They were leaving readers with nothing to discover.

The More I Explained, the Less Readers Could Discover

When I looked closer, I found a pattern.

Whenever I worried readers might miss the emotion, I added another paragraph explaining it.

Sometimes I wasn’t showing the same emotion twice.

I was showing it three times.

First, through a visceral reaction. Then through interiority. Finally, through narrative explanation that interpreted everything the reader had already seen.

Ironically, the harder I worked to make the emotion clear, the less room I left for the reader to experience it themselves. That realization sent me back through dozens of scenes with a completely different question.

Instead of asking,

“How can I better explain this emotion?”

I asked,

“What would this character notice because they feel this way?”

Emotion Changes What We Notice

I started noticing this in everyday life. I'd walk into my office on a morning when everything was going well and see sunlight, books, and coffee. On a difficult day, I'd walk into that same room and somehow the silence was the first thing I noticed.

Nothing physical changed. My emotional state changed what my mind considered important.

Our characters work exactly the same way.

A frightened character doesn’t simply think about being afraid. She notices every shadow that seems darker than it should be.

Someone carrying guilt may struggle to meet another person’s eyes but find themselves staring at the scuff marks on the floor instead.

A father worried about his daughter may walk into a room full of people and immediately notice the one empty chair.

Those observations aren’t random details.

They reveal emotion without the author having to explain it.

My Characters Started Showing Me What Mattered

One unexpected thing happened as I revised my novel. The less I explained, the stronger the scenes became.

I found myself deleting paragraphs I had spent a long time writing, not because I had written them poorly, but because they had become unnecessary. Once I started paying attention to what my characters noticed, those details began carrying the emotional weight on their own.

In one scene, my main character walks through an area devastated by an earthquake.  I originally included too much explanation about how the destruction left her feeling hopeless. During a recent revision, I took out much of the over-explaining and added additional details about what she saw, including a child’s broken toy lying on the ground. This minor detail helped deepen the emotion in the scene, letting the reader imagine how they might feel upon seeing that same thing.    

In another scene, I discovered that a frightened child didn’t need a paragraph explaining he felt unsafe. As the group prepared to enter another dangerous place, he instinctively reached for an older character’s hand. That single action communicated vulnerability more than any explanation I could have written.

Additionally, I had originally written long descriptions of an abandoned town because I wanted readers to feel uneasy. Instead of describing every empty storefront and deserted street, I focused on what caught the character’s attention. Curtains shifting behind dusty windows. Shadows resembling misshapen figures. Unseen eyes seeming to follow him. Using those descriptions, I didn’t have to provide a long explanation about how he felt.

Another character walking through the same town might have noticed entirely different things. That's what makes deep POV so immersive. The setting hasn't changed. The character's emotional experience has, and readers experience the scene through that lens.

Readers Love Connecting the Dots

For years I believed that stronger emotional writing meant getting closer to the character’s thoughts. Sometimes it does. But I’ve realized that readers often connect more deeply when I step back just enough to let them discover the emotion for themselves.

When we explain every emotion, we solve the puzzle before readers ever have the chance.

When a character notices a wedding ring that’s no longer on their spouse’s hand, readers don’t need a paragraph explaining why that matters.

If a child who has lost a parent avoids looking at an empty bedroom, readers already understand what he is feeling.

These moments invite readers to become active participants rather than observers listening to an explanation. When we choose details that naturally grow out of a character’s emotional state, readers begin connecting those dots themselves and become part of the storytelling.

For me, that's become one of the most rewarding parts of writing in deep POV. Instead of explaining every emotion, I can trust readers to discover it through the same details my character notices.

That doesn’t mean we abandon interiority or stop using visceral reactions. Both remain essential parts of writing emotional scenes.

It simply means they don’t have to carry the entire scene by themselves.

One Question Changed My Revision Process

The next time you revise an emotional scene, resist the temptation to add another paragraph explaining what your character feels. Instead, pause for a moment and ask yourself one question.

What would this character notice right now that they never would have noticed before this moment changed them?

You may discover that one slight change creates a deeper emotional experience because readers aren’t simply being told what the character feels.

They’re discovering it for themselves.

Have you ever revised a scene by changing what your character noticed instead of adding more emotional explanation? What happened?

About Susan:

Under the pen name Michelle Allums, Susan Watts has authored a young adult urban fantasy titled, The Jade Amulet and is currently writing the sequel. Her short stories are also included in the anthologies Christmas Roses and Forever and Always.

Susan has dedicated over four decades to training in multiple martial arts styles and holds the impressive title of a five-time US Karate Alliance world black belt fighting grand champion. Through her karate school, she is able to impart martial arts and life skills. Susan also incorporates her martial arts knowledge into her writing.

An avid triathlete, she keeps in shape by running, biking, and swimming. She lives in the country with her husband, where they raise animals and enjoy being outdoors. Susan also has three grown children and numerous grandchildren. In addition, she is a CPA and VP of finance for a company in her hometown. 

Featured image licensed from...

By Janice Hardy

Why the right details can make a reader believe just about anything.

I watched The Martian again recently. If you haven’t seen it, it’s based on Andy Weir’s novel about an astronaut named Mark Watney who’s accidentally stranded on Mars and has to survive for years while NASA struggles to rescue him.

Near the end of the movie there’s a scene where Watney is driving a rover across the surface of Mars to reach a spot where he’ll hopefully be rescued, and I started thinking about how this guy was going to have so many speaking opportunities after this, and how his life would change.

And for just a fraction of an instant, I wondered if it was based on a real event.

Yep, you heard me. I wondered if the story set on Mars was real.

Luckily, I caught my doofiness right away and laughed. But honestly? That little brain-fart shows how well-written this movie was. It felt so real, so believable, that I literally forgot it was pure fiction.

And that, right there, folks, is the goal.

When you can make your reader forget they’re reading a made-up story, you’ve struck gold.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this experience, either. Years ago, I was reading Max Brooks’ World War Z about the zombie war that nearly ended the human race. I was alone, at night, during a storm, and the book felt so authentic that even though I knew it was fiction, it didn’t feel like fiction.

It felt like I was reading a narrative history of an actual war against zombies.

Which is why it’s still one of my favorite books, ever.

Believability is all in the details.

What makes both The Martian and World War Z so good is that they built a rich and deep world around their stories. They focused on the oddly specific, yet perfect details that felt too real to be made up.

In The Martian it was:

• The running jokes about the disco music Watney is stuck listening to, because it’s all his commander left behind.
• The little “fun facts” about how growing crops means you colonized a place, and how he had now colonized Mars.
• The odd combination of international laws that meant he was, briefly, a space pirate.

These details made Watney feel like a real human stuck in a crappy situation. We see him use his dark sense of humor to deal with the incredible stress he was under, and how it helps him cope with the unimaginable.

And that makes us root for him.

It’s been a few years since I’ve read World War Z, so I don’t remember the specifics as well, but it resonated with me because of:

• The individual personal stories that focused on one tiny part of the zombie war, yet when combined, they told the whole story.
• The very credible way people and governments reacted to the situation.
• The matter-of-fact details such as how there was a northern line where zombies froze, and how teams of soldiers would stick flags in the snow when they found one, so clean-up crews could find and dispose of them after the war was over.

People reacted to a fake zombie war in ways that I could absolutely see happening in real life. Some were heroic, some were self-serving and awful, and some were just plain human.

And that’s the secret ingredient.

Our humanity is universal, and every reader recognizes it, no matter how wild the premise gets.

None of us has been stranded on Mars or lived through a zombie war. But we all know exactly what it looks like when someone cracks a joke to keep from falling apart, or saves their own skin at everyone else’s expense, or does something brave when no one’s watching.

That’s the part we believe. And once we believe the characters, we’ll follow them anywhere.

Which is why you want your details to be specific and wacky and unique to your characters.

And the best way to do that, is to show readers the quirky side of your characters’ humanity.

Because generic details strip away that common ground and turn your characters into the same old people readers see everywhere. They walk through the same “generic suburban America” or “default fantasy world #67” and act like every other character in those worlds.

You can tell readers your protagonist is:

• Scared, but resourceful
• Desperate and willing to do anything to survive
• Obsessed with the love of their life

But if readers don’t see those very real and very human details that support those generalities, you wind up with very forgettable characters and stories.

Specific details build the world and reveal the character all at the same time. One perfectly chosen, wacky and surprising, absolutely true-feeling detail beats a paragraph of generic description every single time.

This is especially handy for those of us writing in made-up worlds or off-the-wall premises, but it holds true for every writer, in every genre. The more believable your story feels, the easier it is for readers to lose themselves in it.

And just maybe, they’ll forget for a moment that what they’re reading isn’t real.

If you want to sharpen your description skills, you might want to check out my book, Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It). It’ll help you find the best ways to show both your world and your characters’ quirks, so readers believe whatever tale you want to tell (or show).

And if you’d like more tips, sign up for my Narrative Nuggets list. It’s story-based writing advice delivered right to your inbox. And as a thank you for subscribing, you’ll get my book “25 Ways to Strengthen Your Novel Right Now” for free.

What books or movies made you forget they weren’t real?

About Janice:

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. and the chapter books Who’s Haunting Who? and The Haunting of Cabin 13 for Lerner Publishing. For adults, she writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she’s not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series.

Featured image licensed from Depositphotos.