Plotting anguish

In studying plots so I can construct a novel I found the most important element appears to be anguish, that is extreme pain or distress of body or mind. Characters are driven by mental or physical actions to keep a reader looking forward to a conclusion. An instructor once said that there must be at least one incident in each chapter to keep expectations high for the reader. What the incidents must do for the character is cause anguish. Even in the hard core physical action of Mark Bolen or The Exterminator the thoughts of the main characters are what drive the story. Twists within the plots vary in type depending upon the genre but are always within bounds of a recipe.
History is more prevalent than ever in the mainstream of publishing. It's shown up more sharply by some publishing houses but the romance of history is in every novel. Most recently, romance climaxed with the emergence of feminism, I think. People were fascinated to know what everyday lives were like. There were shocking glimpses earlier in "Grapes of Wrath" and "To Catch a Mockingbird" where anguish settled on a particular reality. Those were extraordinary people under extraordinary circumstances and are classics. However, extraordinary circumstances take place sometime in everyone's life.
Making history come alive is particularly important to me because I had the most boring history classes and I tuned out not only the teachers but history itself. Now I have to recover that loss. I find history is anything but boring. It is the anguish of our forebearers in the fields and kitchens and state houses and bedrooms. I have many historic facts to put into a novel set in the mid seventeen hundreds. Construction of the series of circumstances to bring out that history now centers on believable characters steeped in anguish to fit the period. Now I will
work to make that happen.
Naomi Sherer