Looking For The Drama

There used to be an insurance advert about ‘not making a drama out of a crisis.’ As far as fiction writers are concerned, the opposite is the goal: drama and lots of it at every opportunity. Of course, a crisis is the obvious place to find drama, but there are ways of presenting it that can effect a transformation from mildly interesting to absolutely nail-biting. An excellent example is Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love. The first chapter sucks you in and chews you up, creating a hurricane of narrative drive that keeps you turning the pages right through the book.