A plot may contain minor crises

Aplot may contain minor crises. The main crisis— the big struggle, the chief obstacle, the tragic moment— in the story may be the outcome of an earlier lesser crisis, or even of several such. In "The Monkey's Paw," by W. W. Jacobs, if the son had not snatched the dried paw from the fire into which its owner had thrown it, thus deciding a foundation crisis in the lives of the whole family, there would have been  no series of increasingly terrible crises brought about by the three wishes—and of course, there would have been no story. The play of minor crises in a short-story is well typified by Marguerite's testing of her love-fortunes by plucking the daisy petals: "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me." With each minor crisis aif element of suspense enters the story; this is followed by a resolution of the suspense; then a new element enters, causing an entirely new sort of suspense, which in turn is dispelled, only to make way for another difficulty—and thus the story zig-zags its way to the end. Indeed the progress of the plot may be compared to a not-too-elaborate maze in which one makes several ineffectual turnings and enters one or two blind alleys before finding the way out.