I just finished Dean Koontz’ Icebound. This isn’t a review (it’s not my favorite of his work—it’s an early attempt to do an Alistair MacLean sort of book, originally published under a pseudonym. As a MacLean-type story, it’s long on action and suspense, short on characterization, making it not my sort of thing, overall), but it seemed to me an excellent example of plot-building in a sort of purified form.

You take a group of scientists and put them on the polar ice cap. They’re involved in an experimental project to blow a big chunk off the ice cap, creating an iceberg in order to study the feasibility of towing it southward, so as to provide fresh water for agriculture. In order to do this, they’ve just finished burying sixty shaped explosive charges deep in the ice. The next step, obviously, is to retreat as fast as possible to their base camp, miles away, and wait for the boom.

But just as they finish burying the last charge, there’s a huge earthquake. The area where they’re working becomes detached from the main ice cap, and our characters are trapped on a brand new iceberg with all those timed charges.

And then the worst ice storm in decades hits, making it impossible for ships or helicopters to evacuate them.

And then they discover they have a psychotic murderer in their midst.

That, friends, is how you raise the stakes in a story.

That’s plot in its rawest form. Put your characters in a horrible situation, then make it worse. And then make it worse again.

As I said, this is very pure plotting, very simple, done in primary colors. Your own story may deal with threats and struggles of much more subtle or internal nature. The conflict in your story may be an interpersonal struggle between business rivals or even friends. It might be the struggle of star-crossed lovers to overcome obstacles to their marriage. The conflict could even be within one character’s mind and soul.

But the principle remains the same. Some Hollywood mogul once gave his formula for an epic movie—“Start with an earthquake, then build from there.” You can call it escalation. You can call it, “Being mean to your characters.”

But it’s what plot is. It’s what keeps the reader interested.