Writing is about Fighting
Conflict isn’t important for what it is but for what it tells us about your characters. Your character isn’t what you tell us they think or feel. Your character is what they do. Action is character: what they do shows us who they are. A lot of writers make the mistake of trying to tell us who their characters are, when 100% of the time they would be better of sticking them in a tricky situation and showing the reader how they get out of it.
So, what does conflict mean, and how do we right good conflict?
Remember the Basic Structure
So, we’ve established our wounded character is unhappy in their life but a personal flaw stemming from their wound. Then something happens to interrupt their normal like and confronts them with obstacles that force them to confront their flaw.
Desire + Obstacle + Flaw = Conflict.
Without desire why would the protagonist attempt to overcome the obstacle? The greater their desire – their need to succeed – the greater the emotional impact of the scene.
Without the obstacle there is no story: “Fred wanted be loved. He met Eddie and they fell in love. Now Fred is loved.” See what I mean?
Why do we need the flaw?
Lots of stories skip flaws and are worse for it. Our retired-CIA assassin wants to avenge his murdered wife (please don’t write this story again), and there are a room full of hired thugs in his way. Okay, desire, obstacle, followed by an action scene where you know exactly what will happen. Now, give him a drug addiction he’s trying to overcome – he wants to get off the drugs, but when he stops taking them his reflexes are slowed and his fight with the thugs results in injury. It’s immediately more interesting. I’m sure you can think of better wounds – incorporate them into your conflict, and your story will illuminate.
Thus, good story we are locked into a cycle of conflict, action, and resolution, until they overcome their flaw or succumb to it.
Good Conflict Challenges Flaws – Bad Conflict is Boring
We’ve established that the conflict must a) directly link to their wound and b) require a difficult decision (otherwise it isn’t a real obstacle.) Ideally, the reader should be thinking “Oh my God, what are they going to do now?”
And this is how conflict reveals character. Because conflict requires action. And action tells us more about a person than any number of words.
So, what makes good conflict. Here are some easy examples:
Theo is about to break up with his girlfriend when she tells him she is pregnant.
The engine room door must be sealed to contain the fire, but two of Rey’s team are still inside and shouting for help.
Sandy pops out for a quick cigarette when through the window she spots her wife giving her best friend head.
See what I mean? Oh my God, what are they going to do?
Here are some bad examples of conflicts:
The adventurers need to get into the dungeon, but a group of goblins bar the way.
Riley is scared she will lose control if she summons the power of the void to defeat the reapers.
Tom must give his first lecture to 100 students but fears public speaking.
Why don’t these work? Well, first, there isn’t a hard decision. We’ve told the reader there is danger/emotion, but the decision seems obvious: fight the goblins, summon the void, go out and give the speech. The third is the best, but even if Tom decides to run away, we don’t get the emotional identification because it seems so obvious what he should do.
Can we fix the three bad conflicts? Maybe…
Elarius is badly wounded. If he lets his comrades fight the goblins alone, they may die, but if he joins the battle he certainly will.
Does Riley wait for the refugees to escape and risk the Reapers breaking through, or gamble she can control the void to protect the refugees and strike the Reapers at the same time?
Tom, a biology professor scared of public speaking, has been told that if he doesn’t emphasise in his first lecture that evolution is only a “theory” he will lose his job.
These are better, although still not as good as the first three. How do we improve them? Make things worse! Elarius is thinking of his husband and kids at home. He is also having an affair with one of his comrades. The more your characters suffer, the more your reader will enjoy the story.
Write a 200 word Scene Driven by Desire and Weakness
Having established this notion: conflict = desire vs obstacle + flaw, and that a story is constructed from a cycle of conflict, action, and resolution (until the character overcomes their flaw or is destroyed by it), your job is to write me the most powerful conflict scene you can manage in 200 words.
Here are your criteria.
1) Following on from the last exercise, give me a protagonist and antagonist who are both wounded and have a strongly justifiable (and contradictory) desire.
2) Show me they have a REALLY good reason for wanted to overcome the obstacle.
3) Make the obstacle as BIG as possible. If your characters aren’t suffering, they should be.
4) Have both the protagonist and antagonist’s actions informed by their flaw.
5) Resolve the conflict WITHOUT resolving EITHER’S flaws – give me an outcome that is a) unresolved but b) raises the stakes.
If you’re stuck, here are some starting points:
- A breakup where neither partner wants to break up but feels they must
- A battle where a controversial artefact might be best preserved or destroyed
- A seriously ill person for whom the best treatment is not clear
- A secret that must be preserved, but the parties cannot agree how best to do so.
These are just suggestions. If you have your own idea, use it! Remember, you only have 200 words, so get to the point and hit all the bases.
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