Bill asked David Wong:

What are your tips for getting characters out of tough spots without it seeming like bullshit? Any time I read your stuff I go "damn there really is no way for them to get out of this" and when they do, I never think "oh, come on." Do you come up with the solution first, then create a problem?

David Wong This is another kind of disappointing answer, but remember I'm not forced to write sequentially. I just have the whole thing open in a Word doc. So if you put the characters in jeopardy and think, "Boy the really fun way to get out of this involves John having a knife hidden in his boot" then I just grab my mouse and scroll up to earlier in the book and add a scene where he talks about the knife in his boot. I'm like a time traveler! Then to hide what I'm doing (so you don't know I'm setting up a way to get out of a jam later) I turn it into a joke - that he has a ridiculous reason for having the boot knife (say, he's paranoid about a really stupid and unlikely scenario) so that the reader thinks the joke is the point of the scene.

So if you want an actual useful writer tip, the trick is in hiding the setup as something else, so that it's out of mind when it pays off.

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