In the last lesson we introduced the cycle of conflict, action, and resolution. This cycle begins when the character’s disappointed, ordinary life is first disrupted and continues until the moment when the book ends in success or failure. Thus we have an extra set: conflict, action, resolution -> transition into next cycle.
If at any point in your story you cannot identify a current conflict, then you need conflict. Conflict is what drives the story forwards. Remember: a conflict is a want prevented by an obstacle. It is important to note that if the resolution is clear before the action, then there is no real conflict. What you’re aiming to achieve is this response:
“Oh fuck! How is the hero going to get out of this one?”
So how do you know if you have a conflict?
Two simple questions help us build conflict.
First – ask who wants what? If nobody wants anything, you’re in trouble.
Second – what is stopping them from getting what they want?
Now you must decide upon the action they are going to take. Remember, for the first half of the story the protagonist’s (protagonists’ and antagonist’s (s’)) actions are principally driven by the tension between desire and flaw – and as such their “solutions” should make things worse even if they solve the immediate problem.
Around the middle of the story, you’ll have a crisis point where your protagonist realises they are at least partially responsible and attempts to change to overcome the antagonist. This does not, however, stop the character flaws from driving their course of action – the only difference is now they attempt to overcome their flaws, rather than ignore them.
There’s no real conflict without character flaws.
What should be clear by now is that good stories are about flawed characters. This is, amongst other things, what makes writing Superman so hard – and what makes reading Mary Sue fan fiction so dull. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a protagonist who is a fantasy figure. Hell, Marvel managed to turn round my life-long hatred of super-heroes. But the story comes from their flaws, not their strengths. Their strengths just give them cool ways to overcome their problems (and what is cool REALLY depends on the genre – Jean Genet’s “Thief” makes best use of his talent for deception and amorality in a wonderful book that is also totally loathsome.) Flaws, flaws, flaws. All your characters should be acting from a broken place, or there’s no story.
Resolving the Conflict
So, we have a conflict (want vs obstacle), an action (driven by a flaw or an attempt to overcome a flaw), and now we need a resolution.
The principal purpose of the resolution is to show the emotional consequences of the character’s flaws being challenged. Remember, a flaw is essentially a harmful world view – and learning that the world is not the way you think it is can easily be one of the most painful things you will ever experience. Revealing character is always your purpose, and the character’s desire (we are defined by the things we want and the things preventing us from achieving them) must feel like a matter of life and death. Often, it’s easier to dump the problem on the character’s lap and use that to reveal the desire – how they respond to the conflict reveals what they are. That’s totally fine.
What to do if you don’t know how to resolve the conflict?
If you’re in doubt about how to resolve a conflict, well, the answer is easy. Push your characters as far as you can at every opportunity. What is the worst thing that can happen? DO THAT. What’s bad in life is good on the page. A good game of football is one where the score is 3-2 in extra time, not one that finishes 7-0 in normal time.
The obstacle should be equal or greater than the character’s action. Nothing should ever be easy for the character (and be careful of obvious outs – it must be a genuine obstacle, not one that could be solved if he just talked to her/put down the gun/called Starfleet for backup).
Whatever is happening, your character should have strong feelings about it. They should be driving a car AND revealing something about themselves by how they drive the car.
From resolution into transition
In good storytelling everything has a purpose all the time. And nothing should be doing only one thing: we show emotions, and we move the plot forward.
Thus the resolution of one problem should lead directly into a new conflict: fixing the immediate problem (or screwing it up) only leads to a new, worse problem.
What should emerge is a vicious circle, an inevitable descent where no matter what the hero does their flaws prove to strong/their attempts to overcome their flaws insufficient, until finally, in their darkest hour, right before the end of the story, they are forced to give everything they have and everything they are to win the day (or die.)
In this exercise we’re going to look at transitions. To make this work within your 200 words your writing is going to have to be sparse – almost to the point of outline.
The Exercise
Start in media res with a conflict and its resolution. Show me the want, the obstacle, an action based on the character’s flaw and then move directly through resolution into ANOTHER conflict, making it clear that things have become worse because – even though the protagonists resolved the problem their decision was based on their flaw.
You won’t always want to be as unsubtle as to point this out in every cycle – the character/reader discovering the flaw is part of the experience – but for this exercise throw subtlety out of the window.
To keep things big and easy (not that action is easy to write) I want this set in an action movie of your choice – either fanfiction me from a story you like or make you own. Explosions, fights, whatever works. The trick here, and it’s a trick many action movies fail to achieve, is that you are going to show me the emotional impact of the action.
So, here it is conflict in media res, action, resolution that makes things worse, leading into a new conflict. 200 words. Make it ugly, make it work.
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