In the last post, we talked about all the different problems you could throw at a main character to keep them busy. And we even looked at the long list of problems that Mulan gets thrown at her over the course of the (animated) movie.

But here’s the thing:

If you go back to that list of conflicts in Mulan, there are moments when she doesn’t win.

In the mountains, when she is wounded, she still wants to keep the secret that she is really a woman. The army, and in particular Chi Fu, wants to find out if she really is a woman. And guess what. Mulan loses, Chi Fu wins.

So, yes, one way of keeping the drama going is to throw new conflicts at your character when she wins.

But another, different kind of problem you can throw at her is to have her figure out how she is going to deal with losing.

That’s drama, too.

Because at that point the audience also wants to know “how is she going to deal with that?!”

So, creating something interesting to read doesn’t always mean having your main character face a problem, win, and move on. Not winning can be interesting to read about, too.

Did you ever read Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume? Sometimes Peter can stop Fudge from destroying things.

But sometimes, the turtle gets eaten.

Happy writing, young writer.