Week of January 20, 2013 - Writing at the Crossroads

By Joan Whetzel

We all go through times when we reach a crossroads. Literally, a crossroads is a place where two roads  cross or intersect. But in life, a crossroads is a time where decisions must be made. It could also be a place considered to be the center of activity. For fiction writers, having their characters reach a cross roads is a mainstay of their stories. Nonfiction writers can always find a way to incorporate crossroads as a concept such as convergence, a village, or a crisis.

Convergence

Try using the concept of a crosswords as a convergence, letting a set of circumstances, people, or events converge on, approach, or meet at the crossroads. Or can use convergence to describe a weather phenomenon where air converges into a given region. One could also look at people as converging off into a vanishing point, or converging or being funneled into a bottleneck.

Village

A writer could always see a village as a crossroads. In this case it’s a group of people the meet at the crossroads they call home. The village represents a crossroads of different personalities and sometimes a mix of cultural backgrounds all coming together. Or it may be a village as the crossroads for a group of unique dwellings, or homes, each representing its owner.

Crisis

A crisis is the most popular way to use the concept of a crossroads. It’s the turning point in a person’s life, a sequence of events that bring things to a head. The person at this crossroads must make a decision about his or her future, or the events choose his or her future, for better or worse. The crisis could be a personal tragedy, an emotional upheaval, a death, or a turning point in a relationship. This is the type of crossroads that nonfiction writers make so much use of, but it also works great for biographies.

If you are at a crossroads in a story, article or book, think of the many ways you might incorporate a crossroads scenario to keep the story interesting and readable. For better or worse, the concept of a crossroads can create just the crisis point that gives the entire story its truest meaning.