Here’s a little tidbit for all of you writers out there. This is something that I feel is essential to any good story, and something that you must be able to master for your stories to reach their full potential. I personally use it quite a bit.
I call it “The OSH moment.”
What is the OSH moment, you may ask?
The OSH moment is, simply put, the moment where the feces hit the fan. This is the one moment where everything is either going wrong or is about to go wrong, and your protagonist is wondering “what the hell am I going to do now?”
If you look at basically any movie – let’s say a love story – you’ll see this principle in action. You have your boy meets girl moment, but there’s always some twist to the meeting, some secret or tidbit of information that the protagonist has that his or her love interest isn’t privy to. The two have their ups and downs throughout the movie, but everything seems to be progressing along. Then that little tidbit becomes public knowledge, and the truth comes out, and this moment puts the whole relationship in jeopardy. That is the OSH moment, the crossroads where things can go either way.
And it doesn’t just work in romance stories. You have it in your spy novels where the spy’s cover is blown, or in action movies where the hero meets the foe he can’t beat. All of those old “wanna get away?” airline commercials are based on the OSH moment.
You especially get this moment in real life. For instance, I was working at the plant many years back, and the machine I was working on was acting snarky. The maintenance guy comes around to try to fix the durned thing, but can’t quite figure out what’s wrong with it. So he goes out to get some more tools. I’m standing there waiting for him, and I don’t like standing around when I’m getting paid to work. So I pick up one f the components he was looking at, thinking “Well, maybe he missed something.” Yeah, like I’m going to find something a trained mechanic missed. Complete brainfart on my part, but I digress. Almost as soon as I pick the thing up, little bitty parts of the component fall out, bounce off of the machine, and roll over the floor. And when maintenance guy comes back, I just knew he was going to be livid that somebody messed with the part while he was gone.
In my book The Hand You’re Dealt, Tika was tasked by her roommate and best friend to watch over her prized pet goldfish while she was away on Spring break. Tika had stayed behind in the dorm to hang out on campus with her boyfriend. So on the day when her roomate was expected to return, Tika is hanging out with her man and their circle of friends, when she realizes she had forgotten entirely about those fish for the whole week. She rushes back to their dorm room, and finds her roommate there, standing over her dead fishies, with tears in her eyes. Those fish had extra special sentimental value to her roommate, and she trusted her best friend to take care of them. And now they were dead. This does not bode well for Tika.
This is the OSH moment; the moment where you’re most likely to yell
“O’SH…!”
Get it now?
As a writer, you want to have as many of these in your story as possible, especially at the end of chapters or acts or commercial breaks. It’s a crucial element to help ramp up the tension in your story. And you want to have at least one big OSH moment towards the end. Give it a try, and I guarantee your stories will be that much more fun to read.
By the way, there’s a song you should be listening to that illustrates my point perfectly. Check out “Oh Sh*t,” by the Pharcyde. It encompasses everything I just mentioned, and it’s even named after my new term. Check it out.
