Where’s the crisis?

Most writers mistake big events for story crises

I keep seeing the same thing in manuscripts. Writers will tell me: "Here's where the crisis happens—the protagonist finds out her husband is cheating" or "Here's the crisis—the storm destroys the barn" or "Here's the crisis—she gets fired from her job."

And I'll read the scene and think: okay, something happened. Something big and disruptive and absolutely worth writing about. But that's not the crisis.

The crisis isn't the event. It's not the betrayal or the disaster or the loss. It's the moment when the antagonist has backed the protagonist into a corner so tight that staying put is no longer an option. It's when she's forced to choose between two options, and both of them hurt.

Most writers build the thing that happens and call it a day. They miss the actual crisis entirely. They miss the moment where their character has to decide what matters more—safety or truth, loyalty or survival, the person they've been or the person they're about to become.

That decision. That's the crisis. That's where the story lives.

Here's a scene from Chapter 7 of my novel, Dying To Be Seen. Nothing catastrophic happens. No explosions. No one bleeding on the floor. But there's absolutely a crisis buried in here, and now that you know what you're actually looking for, can you find it? (And please don't cheat and skip to the end—actually read the thing first.)

Conti shifts his weight. I wait for him to walk away, to do his job and leave me with my rage. Instead, he leans against the wall opposite my cell. Not too close. Not too far.

"Two-fifteen," he says finally.

"What?"

"Her visit. Tomorrow. It's at two-fifteen."

I laugh, but it sounds wrong. "Of course you knew. Everyone but me knowing when Margaret King decides to grace us with her presence."

"I can call Father Michael—"

"Call a priest?" The words explode out of me. "That's your solution? More men telling me how to feel? More words about forgiveness and grace and—" I slam my palm against the bars. "She sat there. Every Sunday dinner, she sat there watching me disappear. Now she wants to talk. Now she has things to say in person!"

My whole body is shaking. "I can't sit in this box another minute knowing she's out there planning her perfect little visit. Just get it over with," I say. "Tell the warden to move it up. Margaret can write six more sentences about how she tried, but she was too late!"

I kick the books across the floor as hard as I can. One of them even flies out of the cell.

Conti looks down at the book. He picks it up, smooths the pages with careful hands, then sets it on the floor just inside my cell. He slides his key in the lock, glances down the corridor, then back at me. "You need air."

"Against regulations."

He opens the cell and reaches for my arm. "Five minutes. No more." His hands are gentle as he helps me up. "Don't make me regret this, 4275."

We move like shadows through corridors I've never seen. Past the laundry room's industrial hum, down stairs that smell of mildew and old paint. His keys don't make a sound—he holds them against his palm. Each step feels like we're moving deeper into the prison's guts instead of out.

Lower and lower, past pipes that wheeze, past basement levels I didn't know existed. The air gets thinner, damper. Dark and narrow, like the prison is swallowing us whole.

"Conti—" My voice catches as we turn down yet another corridor, even darker than the others.

"Trust me." Just that. Soft as a prayer.

We pass through a maze of mechanical rooms, the prison's heart beating in ancient boilers and generators. Everything down here feels old, like we're moving through the building's memory. Past a rusted door marked "Maintenance Only," down steps so narrow my shoulders brush concrete on both sides.

Then a door I didn't notice—dark metal, no markings—tucked into a corner like an afterthought. I expect it to lead to more pipes and machines. But when Conti pushes it open, night rushes in.

I stand frozen in the doorway. The space beyond feels impossible—a perfect square of grass and sky cut into the prison's center, like someone carved out this pocket of freedom and forgot about it. Chain link stretches up all four sides, disappearing into darkness. But beyond that—stars. More stars than the sky deserves, scattered across black velvet.

The fence rises around us, reaching toward sky instead of earth. Several stories up, razor wire catches starlight. Somewhere above, an airplane blinks across the night, and from down here, it feels like I'm looking up from the bottom of the world.

Sky. Real sky. Stars. The air hits my lungs with shocking force. No recycled prison breath, no smell of industrial cleaner or disinfectant or sweat and fear. Just night air and grass and something that might be honeysuckle growing wild beyond the fence.

I've forgotten what living things smell like—earth and grass instead of concrete dust, clean breeze instead of recycled ventilation. The night air is cool but alive against my skin, not the artificial chill of climate-controlled cells. I kneel and touch the grass. It feels like a gentle, damp sponge, nothing like concrete walls, rough and scorched.

In the prison, everything is hard edges and right angles, every surface designed to be wiped clean of humanity. But here, randomness thrives—weeds push through cracks in the patio, vines climb chain link with no pattern, stars scatter across the sky in glorious disorder. Even the sounds are different—the distant rustle of leaves, the gentle chirp of crickets, the whisper of wind replacing the mechanical hum and metallic clangs that form the prison's constant soundtrack.

I want to spin, to touch every blade of grass. Instead, I stand still, letting the night press against my skin. Letting myself be seen by stars instead of fluorescent lights.

"Three more minutes," Conti says, but he's looking up too.

Another light blinks across the sky. For a moment, I let myself imagine being on a plane, flying somewhere, being someone. Anyone.

There it is.

The crisis isn't 4275 exploding about Margaret's visit. That's the inciting incident—the rage, the breakdown, the moment everything destabilizes. The crisis isn't her shaking body or her words slamming against the bars. That's just the circumstance.

Conti's goal is straightforward: deliver the news about Margaret's visit without breaking protocol. Tell her. Follow the rules. Do his job.

But when he delivers the news, 4275 explodes. She goes berserk. She's shaking. She's coming apart.

Now Conti has to make a decision:

Option A: Stick to protocol. Keep the rules intact. Watch her spiral.

Option B: Break the rules. Take her outside. Risk his job. Give her five minutes of sky. Bring her back to herself.

Both require him to give something up.

He chooses to break the rules.

And in that choice is where Conti's character reveals itself. He values her humanity more than his career. He values restoring her more than protecting himself. He'd rather risk everything than watch her disappear.

That's the crisis. That's what the scene is actually about.

That's the emotional core. That's where readers lean in. That's where the story lives.

And now that you know the crisis isn't a thing or a disastrous event but instead it's a forced decision that comes after the thing, go find your scenes and push your protagonists into corners. Make them choose between two things they can't have together. Watch what they do when staying put stops being an option!