This afternoon I was in Barnes&Noble's. I found a book titled Story Trumps Structure by StevenJames

In the escalation section, he is giving some pretty good ideas to work with. I am going to order the book on Nook, later, but in the meantime, I took notes on the escalation section. Now, we all know these, probably, but seeing them altogether gave me some ideas.
In case it helps you, too, here are my notes on the nine ways to escalation, which I think he means climax, in five-point structure, but we might like to use them wherever.

Escalation

* Escalate in proximity (The danger is getting closer)
* Escalate in magnitude
* Give a countdown to impending tragedy (ticking clock-I think)
* Decrease the amount of time available to solve the problem (Another ticking clock, maybe)
* Let the readers see the impending threat or menace
* Include progressively more difficult dramas
* Make it personal (for the protagonist) (NYC is in danger. Protagonist's grandma is there)
* Raise the stakes (Make the consequences of failure more severe.)
* Isolate your protagonist (Almost everyone turns their backs on him or he can't for some reason tell anyone what's happening to him.)
* Escalate the setbacks.

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