Working with the Magic of Threes
Why a combo of three raises the stakes in your scenes, chapters, stories, essays, whole books--and why it's one of my favorite techniques for increasing conflict
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Imagine a pool table with two balls sitting on the green felt. One ball has to be struck. Eventually it will hit the other. Not too many options for getting that result.
Add a third ball. The options grow exponentially.
Two’s company, three’s a crowd—but that’s a good thing to make a game more interesting. It’s also a key element in writing conflict. Add a third element, get that crowded feeling of not enough space, and break everything wide open.
I most often get stuck in scenes with two people. Two can go back and forth endlessly. It becomes a rhythm of stasis. Comfortable or not, it’s way too predictable to move story forward.
Add a third. Where do you look now? It’s no longer a straight-line back and forth. It brings in more questions. Who holds the power overtly or secretly? Who will align with whom, leaving an outcast third?
Avoiding stasis
Stasis is just another name for a nicely balanced state, a status quo where change is neither sought nor necessary. When we’re all doing fine on the page, a story stops moving forward. A new upset must arise to dissolve the stasis.
I’m not saying: avoid any moments in story where two characters are doing well with each other. This has to happen. But it creates something other than momentum. Maybe it’s a moment of resolution. Or a tiny rest to assimilate and review what’s happened before moving forward again.
Just watch out for staying too long in this stasis. It’s an unchallenged situation that will eventually stall out your story.
Who shared this great piece of advice? I can’t remember where I read it, so if you know, please post a comment. (It might have been Andre Dubus.) But here it is: If your character is in the same room for more than one page, get them out.
How brilliant is that! A simple way to scan for stasis and note tendencies. Then correct them.
Bringing in the third
Often, the twosome starts the story. In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, two sisters survive the aftermath of the poisoning of the rest of their family, shunned by the town but quite content to live alone. There’s a third character, the elderly uncle who also survived, but because of his illness, he doesn’t shake up their created status quo. It isn’t until a third person arrives—a supposed lost cousin—that the story begins to move forward.
In House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III, a woman loses her home due to a paperwork snag. She aligns with a cop who tries to help her get it back. The third element that rumbles constantly in the background is the family who has taken over her home and lives there. Dubus is very skilled with how he develops the reality of this takeover and the family’s life independent of the woman who hates them, so that we never lose track of this trio.
What else makes up a threesome?
I find it’s easiest to create movement with three characters. But many times, you can use other elements to create movement. The key is that the third element has to have the same emotional weight as a person has. In other words, it has to mean a LOT to at least one of the twosome.
The goal is to create friction because of the third element. In Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars, the main character’s beloved dog is the third element for a large part of the story. The narrator lives for his dog. His co-survivor at the abandoned airstrip is not keen on the dog, always hinting at what he might do if the dog is left alone. This creates an effective tug of war, with one person protecting and the other threatening.
The idea is to make the third element something of value the twosome either want or fear or hate—an element that creates a strong emotion.
In The Stars and the Blackness between Them by Junauda Petrus, two girls form the basis of the story, and while others circle around them—friends, family, schoolmates—the third element is definitely the terminal cancer affecting one of the girls. The cancer becomes a character they battle.
Sometimes a place or an object makes up the three. I recently re-watched the Masterpiece Theater production of Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier’s classic. The ghost of the murdered Rebecca haunts the household at Manderley, and this creates the unbearable tension between the newlyweds. As the story brings her and her death into sharp relief, as the third element causes more and more tension, the heat definitely increases.
Increasing the heat
I played with the magic of threes in both my recent novels.
In Last Bets, I created a classic romantic triangle of Elly, Rosie, and Trevor. (Elly is on the island to paint Trevor’s portrait. Rosie is a teenager working for Trevor to pay a debt.) I didn’t mean to create this triangle, but when I put the two women on the island, each with their own troubles to work out, the scenes fell flat. When I decided to have Rosie crush on Trevor, the fire started.
Trevor has the new challenge of what to do with this crush (Rosie is an underage employee). And because of the crush, Elly becomes the rescuer she never was, during her young sister’s tragic encounter with a high-school teacher. Trevor, as the third element, ups the tension of every scene.
In A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, I also started with two women. Estranged sisters, both pilots, Kate and Red are reuniting under dangerous circumstances. I wanted to play with a trio in each of their lives. Red’s trio became the man who was pursuing her and the woman she loved. Kate’s was her daughter and husband. I wove these trios together until they overlapped at the crucial moment of the plot. All sorts of trouble came from that writing decision.
Often, in early story drafts, I don’t see the stasis. I don’t notice the trouble a threesome could cause. It’s only in revision that I notice the characters who are still in the “same room” of their comfortable lives and need a third element to shake them out of it.
Conflict is essential to the mechanics of change in story. While we may love to live without perpetual tension, our characters need it to keep from getting stuck in stasis. Have you ever encountered this in your writing?
Your Weekly Writing Exercise
Find a scene with only two elements—two people, for instance—and play with adding a third. What is in the landscape that might become a character? Is there someone else in the scene (or another part of the story) that could come into this interaction? See if you can make a combination of three and notice if the conflict or tension accelerates.
Share your thoughts!
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I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.
I’m also the author of 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.
Excellent advice, as usual! Thank you.