All successful stories should contain multiple turning points at each section of the narrative, with the most substantial turning point located at the tip of the rising action, otherwise known as the story’s climax or the point of no return.  Resting beneath that point are the turning points in each of the second largest sections – the acts, followed by those in each chapter beneath and finally at the smallest sections on the bottom- within each scene. The turning point size and importance diminish relative to each smaller section, lining up beneath one another like Russian resting dolls or steps on a ladder. 

Each turning point has the potential to change the narrative direction, to either draw the protagonist forward toward her goal or desire, or conversely, to push her away toward her story’s antagonist or the doom awaiting her, even if that doom is self-made…the one she may have created for herself.  Without turning points, our characters remain flat, unremarkable and stuck, without any growth or transformation.

In our own lives, we as the protagonists of our life stories, wind our way across the peaks and valleys we create for ourselves in addition to those created for us. We face opportunity and risks, we find hope and we encounter despair as we stumble around and over roadblocks, sometimes running head first into wind gusts so strong we feel momentarily helpless, ready to turn back or give up. Occasionally; however, we reevaluate and change direction as we reassess, or learn from the consequences of our decisions or we awaken to a glaring truth to which we were previously blind.  These opportunities and road blocks make up the turning points of our lives, the crossroads where we make decisions or take actions that move our story in some direction.

It is important in the stories we create to include turning points that impact our entire story, that change the story direction, or impact the character in some profound way, whether the actions are loud and thunderous or as quiet as tears sliding silently down a child’s cheek. Although our characters will have various moments throughout their story to make decisions, form opinions, or become impacted by situations and unfolding events, it is only those moments that  affect the  full story  that we would consider to be turning points.  If what happens alters the story’s path, or prevents the character from going back to her original status quo, or if it enlightens or transforms her through an epiphany or moment of discovery, it is a turning point. Conversely, if what happened does not alter the overall story it would merely be something that happened.

Jamie Gold, in her article on Turning Points, distinguishes between events that are and are not turning points, describing it this way:  the triggering event in a scene—big or small, loud or quiet—doesn’t determine whether it’s a turning point. What makes the difference is if the response or the immediate results indicate significant story-sized change beyond just this scene and the next, and beyond just the normal cause-and-effect chain that links scenes together in stories,

Building on this idea, Courtney Carpenter, in her June 2012 article; Writers Digest; Scene Structure; How to write Turning points, adds ;  Turning points can occur without direct confrontation. A turning point scene might be wholly internal, as when it leads up to a character making an important decision or coming to see the truth about a situation without necessarily voicing that awareness.

Your turning point scene—and it must be a scene, not a summary—can show this change in the character’s life or consciousness through thoughts, action, or dialogue. But it must grow naturally out of what comes before so that the turning point is credible.

We identify turning points in our lives as a crossroad, the moment of truth, a milestone, the climax, an important juncture, the culmination, a critical moment, the point of no return, a pivotal moment, a hinge or transition.  Despite the label we give it; however, and whether that moment is large or small, loud or quiet, black or white, the impact that moment makes on our overall story’s outcome is monumental,  our life forever changed because of it. 

Sue Mell says in her July 2022 Writer’s  Digest : 5 tips for Writing and structuring effective turning points for your characters: A turning point is just that: a left turn here, a right there, a bit of round and round, until something gives way to change—or a stance against it.

One example of a well known literary turning point is when in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird,  the protagonist narrator Scout Finch, observes her father/lawyer Atticus Finch, defend Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape. This turning point propels Scout to confront the harsh realities of her world, forcing her to face the deeply ingrained narrow-mindedness and injustices that saturate her world, serving as a trigger for Scout’s moral awakening, consequently reshaping her beliefs as she maneuvers through the convoluted pot holes of the human condition. That turning point is where she learns the true meaning of kindness and open mindedness toward others. It is her point of no return.

Two other examples of famous turning points include when in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games, the protagonist’s sister Prim, is selected for Tribute, and the protagonist, Katniss voluntarily replaces Prim in order to save her, forever changing Katniss’s life direction, and similarly, when in L. Frank Buam’s Wizard of Oz, the protagonist Dorothy discovers that the wonderful  and mysterious wizard of Oz is nothing more than an ordinary man who does not have the power to grant her  wishes, that the true power she sought was hiding within her own heart and will all along.  

How many times in our own lives have we made a life- altering decision we later wish we made differently, or engaged in a  life- changing behavior we wish we could erase, or said something we deeply regret? Or we observed an act that permanently changed our world view- all of which impacted the direction of our overall life story.  If only, we could turn back time, rewind or erase that moment, and reverse what we did or what we observed or what we heard.  If only….. Maybe things would have turned out differently? Better?  Or on the other hand, what about the opportunity we took that led us to the good fortune we have now?  The decision we made that led us to the people in our lives-that were meant to be there; the places where we decided to hitch our tent and call home?  The family we grew?  The lifestyle we achieved for which we worked so hard and now get to reap the benefits of the seeds we once sowed. 

So many turning points with so many potential directions to which they could take us, so many different possible endings to our story.  It is these turning points of our fictional stories and in our real lives that shape who our characters become and where they end up, that shape who we become, that map out our overall life narrative, and determine our characters’ and our own ultimate fate that awaits us in the final sentence of the last paragraph on the last page of the last chapter of our story.  All because of those turning points that changed the direction of our story.