Give your characters hell. Characters aren’t meant to have a quiet life in fiction! You wouldn’t read a quiet book, would you?
Do you know your characters’ individual stress levels? There’s many a tale to be told showing where characters crack and the consequences of that cracking.
Why I wrote The Trouble With Mother and why I hope one day it will be published
My novel has characters with secrets, Eileen especially has one which nobody could guess at unless they were from her original world.
I wanted to write a story about a mother with a surprising past. I like the idea of a fairy godmother falling in love and being fed up with magical power abuses by her own cousin. A character like Eileen who is prepared to break the rules, has no problem with hypocrisy and can whip out her wand and do something very nasty with it when the need arises is great fun to write about. To begin with all I need was she was as awkward as they come - and awkward characters drop themselves in it, can trigger the tension that fuels any story. Her weakness is the daughter she should never have had - the one being she will not zap.
I am hoping to either find a publisher for this during this year or to self publish. Will keep you posted, literally!