4 Tips How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom

How to write your character hitting rock bottom.

How do we get our characters from introduction to “all hope it’s lost”?

That is the question we should be concerned about in any story.

If the story is going to be interesting, the stakes need to be great.

If the story is going to be interesting, the stakes need to be great. Click to Tweet

We need our characters to be in such a dark place that our reader believes it.

Our reader needs to be concerned enough about their bleak predicament that they are curious enough to keep reading to find out how their situation revolves.

Whether our character has tried everything and failed miserably, or they have been pushed so far into a corner that impending doom lurks imminent.

If we as writers are going to pull this off and do it well we are going to need to have a strategic game plan in mind.

# 1 How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom: the stakes gotta be high

Don’t try to paint your character into a dark corner nobody cares about.

“If I don’t pick up my dry cleaning by 5 they are going to fine me an extra 25 cents.”

Nobody cares.

“If I don’t find a way to give them the ransom of 10 million they are going to kill my wife and child.”

Okay, that sounds concerning.

# 2 How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom: Consider making the character self-destructive

Nothing smacks you in the face more than the moment you realize, “it’s completely and only my fault that I’m in this mess.”

Make your character choose several to a dozen terrible choices and spiral into the metaphorical toilet, all while your audiences watch and wince with every poor decision.

And then, when everything smashes your character in the face and there is absolutely no going back, give your character a flashback moment where they realize that everything they are going through is completely and utterly their own fault.

Nothing says rock-bottom more than “I did this to myself.”

Want to get paid to write? Check out Writing Paychecks

There is a simple method over 30,000 people use to get paid for freelance writing online.
Opportunities can get started in just minutes a day, all from your home couch.
It’s easy to get started! No previous experience or degree required to start.
Exclusive job listings for writers, updated daily.

Check out Writing Paychecks to see if you can start getting paid to write today.

# 3 How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom: Make sure your readers believe that all hope is lost.

How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom

Enjoying your stay? Share the love: share this social friendly “How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom” image!

How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom

Interested in starting a blog of your own (and making an extra $100-$600 monthly)? Check out Bluehost.

Enjoying your stay? Share the love: share this social friendly “How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom” image above!

For your character to hit absolute rock bottom, all hope must be lost.

But it MUST be believable.

Imagine you’re sitting with your reader and telling them the story of your character and you tell them, “all hope was lost.”

Can your reader say, “wait a minute! What about this?”

You can’t have any question in your reader’s mind whether the character has a possible viable way out.

Your reader needs to be thinking, “oh crap. How are they going to get out of this?”

Then you know you’ve written it right.

Don’t leave them any reasonable doubt.

# 4 How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom: Consider Making Your Protagonist Give Up.

A part of hitting rock bottom is the ultimate temptation to call it quits and say “that’s it! I’m done!”

How many stories have you seen where the main character hits a brick wall and then decides enough is enough, I’m not trying anymore, I can’t win and I’m tired of trying, I can’t go on?

How many times have you personally hit that place where you just can’t take it anymore at a sport or at work or at home and you just quit?

This is a beautiful moment you can create for your reader to jump into the life of your character, where they can watch that character say “no more! That’s it! I’m done!” and the reader can say “I feel you.” or they can be saying “no! You can’t quit now! You are soooo close!”

Either of these feelings and you can know that you are giving your reader the emotions you want them to have to enjoy your writing and want to read further.

And you can use simple dialogue to give your reader these feelings.

Have you ever been reading a story and the character says, “That’s it! I can’t take it anymore! I’m done with this whole thing! I’m done with you and you and you and you. I am out…”

Okay…so maybe they didn’t say exactly that. That was a bit over the top. But think of a story where your character gave up and left the scene with the other characters saying things like, “No! Wait! You can’t quit now! After all we’ve gone through, you can’t just give up now!”

Maybe you used a secondary character that was skeptical of the main character’s ability to finish the task and accomplish the goal. And only after the main character voices their immediate resignation to the quest that the secondary character finally believes in them and brings them back from hitting rock bottom.

That’s all for now.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.

Already own a blog? Monetize with Ezoic. Make 5X more on ads with Ezoic! See for yourself. – These ads use machine learning. Set it and leave it.

I hope this helps. Now get outta here and write something!

Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.

Try it for free now.