We are officially halfway through the challenge!
I am genuinely proud of this group. There is a strong core of you who are actively commenting, starting threads, and emailing me every day, and there are many more of you who have written to say, “I’m quiet, but I’m here.”
The fact that you are still opening these emails, still watching the videos, still thinking about your story at the halfway point is massive.
An apology
Before we get into today’s lesson, I owe you an apology! O
ver the last couple of days I’ve been slow to open the chat (or completely forgetting!) and slower than I’d like to be replying to emails. It’s been one of those weeks where you sit down to work and suddenly it’s mid-afternoon and you’re not entirely sure how that happened. I’m catching up, and if you’re waiting on a reply from me, it is coming.
Having said that: don’t forget that this challenge is happening live.
If you want feedback, now is the moment to take advantage of that. I’m reading your comments, replying to emails, and having proper conversations about your stories in a way that won’t be available once these 30 days are over unless you’re inside the Academy.
So if you’ve been hesitating, consider this your nudge to step forward and let me see what you’re working on.
Okay. Let’s talk about today.
Over the last couple of days we’ve been talking about tension. First, the deep, foundational tension between what your Hero wants and what your hero needs—that internal transformation without which there is no story. Then we talked about tension devices: the external pressure points you can use to keep your reader engaged and to press on that inner conflict.
Today, we bring those two strands together as we move fully into Act Two.
Tests and trials
Tests and trials make up the long middle of your story. This is where most of the plot lives. These are the circumstances you put your Hero into in order to challenge their worldview, test their strategy, and move them—slowly and often painfully—toward the transformation they need to make.
A helpful way to think about this is that tests are meant to teach, and trials are meant to wound.
Tests are lower-stakes challenges. They’re moments where the Hero is learning how this new world works. They may succeed or fail, but the cost is manageable. These moments teach your Hero something about the rules of the story world and something about themselves.
Trials are heavier. When a trial goes wrong, something meaningful is lost: a relationship, a sense of safety, trust, status, or hope. These are the moments that hurt. They’re the moments that push the Hero closer to the breaking point.
Early in Act Two, you want a balance of what one of my story structure professors used to call “good news” and “bad news.” The Hero wins a little, loses a little, stumbles forward, recovers, and keeps going. Gradually, though, the stakes rise. The failures begin to cost more. The wins get smaller. And eventually you reach that familiar moment in every story where everything feels lost and the Hero believes there is no way forward.
Another crucial idea here is this: at first, tests and trials often reward the wrong behaviour.
Your Hero is still clinging to what they want, to the beliefs and strategies that worked in their ordinary world. Early on, those strategies might even help them survive. But over time, those same behaviours start to fail. The story begins to punish the Hero for holding on to their flaw, until they are forced to confront the need for change.
Tests and trials also teach the reader the rules of the world. This is especially important if you’re writing fantasy, speculative fiction, or anything with an altered reality. Your Hero may try to operate using the rules of their ordinary world—and fail—because the rules are different here. That failure is how we learn.
Throughout all of this, remember to balance plot and character. Action without emotional movement becomes exhausting. Emotional reflection without pressure becomes static. The story lives in the relationship between the two.
Common pitfalls to watch for
A few things to be mindful of as you think about tests and trials:
stacking too many similar challenges that test the same thing
escalating action without escalating emotional cost
introducing obstacles that don’t touch the Hero’s core flaw
resolving challenges too cleanly or too easily
Mess, complication, and unresolved tension are often signals that you’re doing it right.
Your task for today
I want you to think of three tests or trials you will put your Hero through.
You are not solving them yet. You’re not writing the clever escape or the final win.
For each one, simply consider:
what goes wrong
what it costs the Hero
how the hero responds with their current mindset
Specificity matters more than drama here.
Reflection question
This one is designed to push you into a writer’s way of thinking:
Which test in your story tempts your Hero to believe that their flawed strategy might actually work…and why is that dangerous?
You don’t need to include this answer in the story itself. This is for you, as the architect of the narrative.
That’s it for today. This is a big, important section of the journey, and we may circle back to it as needed. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about allies and enemies:the people who emerge during these tests and trials and complicate things even further.
Congratulations on making it halfway. That persistence is exactly what gets books written.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Xx Shelly
