Pinch Points - Force of Change

 

Two nights ago, one of my cats alerted me to an interloper in our backyard. I caught a glimpse of this youngster at left. I grabbed my trap and had him within the hour. He's cute and terrified. He went into foster care today with someone who has no other pets and who doesn't have a day job, a book to write, and ill parents to tend. (The past two weeks have been a lot.) This guy - oh, yes. He's male. No doubt about that or the fact that he's intact - made up for some of the stress. He's a teenaged cat at that point where he looks like he's made from mismatched spare parts. His head is too big for his body. His legs are too long and skinny for the rest of him. It makes him adorable and a little comical at the same time. He will be looking for home the southeast region once I have him neutered and vaxxed.

 

On to the business of the blog! This week, you'll be able to divide us into two camps - the plotters and the pantsers - just based on our response to the Pinch Point question. As if you didn't already know.

Pinch Points are a structural device that gives an author an opportunity to bring an antagonist into direct opposition to the protagonist with the sole intent of showing up the protagonist's short comings. If we think about story and character arc forcing a protagonist to change, the pinch point is the place where the protagonist finds out *why* change is necessary: Throughout most of our novels, the protagonist doesn't have the skills to overcome the antagonist. If they did, we'd write mighty short stories. Our heroes need to grow into their roles. They need to become something more in order to best whatever obstacles are arrayed against them. Yet our heroes will fight stepping up at every turn.

Humans are weird animals. You'd think we'd be all about change given that adaptation and flexibility confers evolutionary advantage. If we can't adapt, we die. Yet we have to be dragged kicking and screaming to change. Our characters are no different. They must be forced to change. Pinch Points are one of the ways an author can force a character to transform in some way. 

All of this to say that no. I don't consciously use them, much less plan them. It depends entirely on what a story needs. Some stories are about the inevitable march of a character's choices and actions leading them, step by inexorable step into the climax of the story. There's a Sarah McLachlan song with a line that says "Where every step I took in faith betrayed me." I used that as my plotting device for a couple of books because it interested me - could I have characters who made the absolute right choices in the moment only to have those choices rip them to shreds?

Right now, in the current WIP, Pinch Points fell by accident into my lap. The antagonists have POVs, and in those cases, they do act as catalysts to my protagonists. So I guess those are a kind of Pinch Point? I suspect they are Pinch Points by the letter of the law rather than in the spirit of it. Long way of saying if I have Pinch Points in this book, it's a freaking accident, but after the fact if you ask me, I'll totally claim I meant to do that.