Category Archives: Conflict

In February we took a look at the different kinds of love that characters can experience, and the importance of allowing characters to feel love. Whether that’s romantic love, love for family, love for friends, love for a belief or a cause, or any of the other myriad forms of love, stories convey intense emotion when it’s clear the characters care strongly for something or someone.

In April we’re taking a look at the other side of the equation: conflict.

If a character strongly loves something, but there’s no threat to that thing, there’s no conflict and no story. If a character strongly loves someone, and the other person returns the feeling without obstacle or hindrance, there’s no conflict and no story. If a character passionately believes in a cause, and immediately puts that cause into effect, there’s no conflict and no story.

A strong conflict is essential to a strong story. It’s hard to keep a reader’s interest when the characters don’t face any challenges, and there’s nothing to stop them from doing, having, and enjoying what they want.

Just as there’s many different types of love, there’s many different types of conflict. Conflict can run the gamut from actual combat to a character trying to come to terms with her own thoughts on a subject. Stories can include more than one conflict. For example, two members of the superhero team might be rivals, fighting against one another to be chosen as team leader, while also fighting villains.

Conflict can include:

Fights against an antagonist adversary, whether that be a single villain, a government system, an opposing nation, a bully, a competing love interest, a series of foes, or a concept such as criminality or evil.

Rivalries

Physical fighting, ranging from one-on-one to armies in combat

Contests (sports games, chess matches, spelling bees, races…)

Arguing (fighting through communication, whether it be spoken, online, a series of gestures, etc)

Conflicting ideas or philosophies

Obstacles preventing the lovers from getting together, or the hero from enacting her master plan, or the apprentice from reaching his goal

A character struggling to survive against nature (ie natural disaster, trekking across the wilderness, being abandoned to the elements)

A character fighting to overcome (or live with) a disease or illness

Internal conflict. This occurs when the conflict is in a character’s own mind. Examples include ethical dilemmas, characters raised in one culture, faith, or belief system questioning whether what they’d always believed is in fact correct, or a character wondering if his current course of action is what he truly wants to be doing.

This month we’re going to talk about the different kinds of conflict, how to write about conflict, how to make conflict believable, and how to tackle conflicts you as the writer haven’t personally experienced. Take up your shields (or your swords) and prepare to defend that which you love.

Thou Shall (Not) Kill Your Darlings

March 23, 2015

Kristin Luna

Balancing Acts Character Conflict Craft & Skills Editing Failures First Drafts Kristin Luna Reflection Rewriting Storyline The Writing Life 4 Comments

There is a popular piece of advice that has gone around (and around) writing circles since William Faulkner said it: “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” Joss Whedon has since advised writers to cut what they love most from their manuscripts or screenplays if they’ve come up against a serious case of writer’s block. The advice is, succinctly: take out what you love the most to get “unstuck.” And writers have agonizingly cut their beloved characters and scenes out of their first and second drafts, thinking they are heeding valuable advice.

While I personally think authors like George R. R. Martin kill off beloved characters particularly well in order to elicit emotions from the reader, that’s not exactly what we’re talking about. I mean when a writer gets some alpha or beta reader’s feedback suggesting they cut a character or scene the author particularly loves. Forcing a character out of a first or second draft can be devastating to a newer writer. Sometimes, it might be necessary. But other times, it’s important to recognize when you have something special.

We can safely assume Joss Whedon has been stuck on many occasions because he’s a writer and that’s in the job description. Let’s imagine Whedon came down with a serious case of writer’s block while working on episodes of Firefly. Following his own advice, what would he take out? My favorite part of the show is Malcolm Reynolds, the captain of the firefly ship Serenity. Now let’s just imagine Firefly without Malcolm Reynolds for a minute. I can’t help but ask myself… What’s the point, anymore?

Would the show have reached its famed cult status if Whedon replaced Mal with a different, less Han Solo-esk character? Perhaps, but an absolutely vital piece of what makes Firefly so memorable, part of its magic, would have been buried in old drafts, never to see the light of day. Mal is special. He’s important to the story, and the story would be weaker without him. Imagine if we never knew Nathan Fillion as Mal because Whedon was under a deadline, or had had a bad week?

Put down the knife; back slowly away from the computer. Before immediately killing off your favorite character or deleting your favorite scene, I offer you an alternative: questions.

1. Did I develop this character to his/her full potential?

2. Is there something buried in my character’s past that could be vital to this story and increase conflict?

3. *Gulp* Is there a conflict?

4. What about my character could cause conflict with: a. others, b. his/her surroundings, c. his/her culture, or d. him/herself?

5. Did I outline this story? (Most writers report writer’s block when they skimp on pre-writing and outlining)

6. Am I holding back, or waiting to reveal something pivotal until the end? What if I put it near the beginning instead? How would that change the story, and could it make the story stronger?

7. What would make my side characters more interesting to play as a foil to the main character? Are the side characters just as developed as my main character?

8. Would taking this character out of my story make the story stronger or significantly weaker?

9. Pretend you have cut the scene or character in question. Are you just as enthusiastic about the project as you were before?

10. Are you willing to put in the time and work to fix the issue, deepen the character, conflict, or scene, in order to keep it in your project?

When it comes down to it, writers either run on enthusiasm or discipline. Ideally, at least a little of both. If the character or scene you love is giving you trouble, ask yourself if you’re still enthusiastic about the story, and committed to telling it. If it’s one of your first stories or drafts, you may find it’s better to cut your losses and either begin again or start a different story entirely. But if you love the story and are committed to telling it, there is always a way to fix the problem without resorting to cutting or killing your beloved darlings.

Always (or Never?) Leave Your Readers Hanging

March 18, 2015

Nathan Barra

Authorial Trust Balancing Acts Character Conflict Craft & Skills Nathan Barra POV Reader Investment & Empathy No Comments

Every so often, I hear a writer claim that everyone must “Always end your (book/chapter/scene/page/sentence/introductory clause) on a cliffhanger.” Yes, maintaining your reader’s momentum through the story is essential. Yes, cliffhangers can be an effective means of doing just that. Extremely so. By their very nature, cliffhangers leverage the reader’s investment in character or story to push the narrative forward and create a sense of urgency. However, they also run the risk of backfiring and driving readers away if used improperly or cheaply.

This sort of manipulation typically takes one of three forms. In the first instance, a beloved character is threatened, but neither their fate nor their response to the danger is revealed. It is a sort of dramatic pause, like cutting to a commercial break in your book. The emotional draw in this instance is dread; the reader wants to know that the character will survive the encounter. They keep reading to find this answer.

Another option is to have a powder keg moment. In this structure, the reader has been anticipating a specific event, usually some sort of violent conflict. It is akin to watching the fuse burn towards a keg of gun powder. The reader knows that the explosion is coming. They have been waiting for it, bracing for it. However, in the moment before the explosion of action, there is a prolonged stillness and the scene is cut. In this case, the draw is anticipation. The reader needs to see how the events play out and if those events match how they thought the scene would progress.

The third major case is what I sometimes call “the First Boot Drops.” A major story event occurs, often unexpected, but before the characters or reader have time to fully react, the story cuts. Though the threat to the character is implicit, the reader’s tension comes from not knowing what will happen next. They are drawn forward by their need to witness those consequences. They are waiting for the other boot to fall.

In all three cases, cliffhangers play upon the reader’s need to know the resolution to a threat against a beloved character. The situation must represent a believable and immediate threat whose consequences would be severely and personally damaging to the PoV. For that to happen, the reader must be deeply enough invested in the character to feel a sense of urgency. Used too early in the story, before a strong bond is developed between reader and PoV, the technique will feel like a cheap ploy.

The threat’s believability hinges on the reader’s trust of the author’s skill. I see cliffhangers as an addendum to the writer’s contract with the reader. They accept the situation because they believe that the writer will pay off on the promise with a satisfying resolution. Revealing that the character was never actually threatened after all is cheating. You might get away with pulling that sort of bait and switch once, but over use of cliffhangers will numb your reader to threats against the character. Once they come to believe that any threat against the character is an instance of “crying wolf,” it’s game over for your book.

As for immediacy, it is perfectly legitimate to cut to another PoV in order to draw out the suspense. However, the contents of that second PoV must be interesting enough to keep the audience moving forwards until you cut back to the character you left hanging. Furthermore, the threatened character needs to resolve their situation to pay off on the tension. Lag for too long, and the effect is lost.

Cliffhangers are an effective tool, not a one size fits all solution for every situation. They require authorial trust and reader commitment to be effective, as well as an impeccable sense of timing. Used too often, they begin to feel cheap and lose their effectiveness. However, betraying your promise to the reader is even worse. False anticipation will drive readers away faster than any other authorial sin.

Shifting Tense

March 3, 2015

Gregory D. Little

Character Conflict Craft & Skills Gregory D. Little The Writing Life No Comments

Consistency is one of the great universally desirable qualities. Think how many times in your life you’ve heard a variant on the phrase “pick an approach and be consistent.” Your leadership style at work? Be consistent. Parenting? Be consistent. In your wacky fantasy world where swords use people as weapons in duels? Hey, as long as it’s internally consistent, you can probably make it work.

And there’s one law of writing consistency few will challenge, the consistency of tense within a given story. Whether an author prefers third or first person, multiple protagonists or just one, they will generally pick either present or past tense and stick with it. And it makes sense to do so. The story’s tense is one of those bedrock elements of a story, so integral that people won’t even notice when it is done properly. But have you ever seen a piece of writing, maybe at work, where the author had trouble sticking to one tense? It’s jarring, right? It screams “bad writing” at you in every way.

But there are ways to make a tense switch work, particularly when your goal is highlighting the inner world of a character. Sometimes you might want to jar the reader and force them to notice the scaffolding of words the story is built upon.

R. Scott Bakker writes primarily epic fantasy in the “grimdark” model. His major work, The Second Apocalypse, is made up of a pair of trilogies, The Prince of Nothing and The Aspect Emperor. Early in The Judging Eye, volume one of The Aspect Emperor, a character named Mimara is introduced as a major POV. Mimara shares major POV duties with three other characters. But while the rest of the POVs (and all the POVs in the first trilogy) are told in past tense, Mimara’s sections are relayed exclusively in present tense.

It’s incredibly jarring the first time you encounter it, and I’ll be honest when I say that I didn’t like the choice initially. It made Mimara’s sections seem as if they came from a different book entirely, which is the big danger in switching tense.

But the further into the series I’ve read, the more I like the decision. While all of Bakker’s characters are haunted by tragic pasts, Mimara’s story is singularly tragic. Sold into slavery as a child, Mimara spent most of her life utterly devoid of hope. Finally free from that slavery in the time of the books, she now does everything she can not to dwell in the past she’s left behind. When I got to thinking about it that way, she was a character who’d never had a future and who dares not dwell in her past. Writing her in the present tense started to seem like the only thing that would make sense.

The choice gives Mimara’s sections an immediacy the other POVs lack. She possesses a lifetime of hard-won instincts attuned to detect the slightest hints of danger, so she is constantly on the lookout for threats to her freedom. Present tense also serves to highlight the mental scarring her past has left her, giving her inner voice a frenzied quality lacked by the other POVs with their more stately past tense voice. Lastly, the choice serves to underline her inherent isolation. For when it turns out she possesses an ability unique in the series else she becomes a character even more apart from the world she lives in.

Whether or not all this was the author’s mindset when he made the choice to go with present tense, I can’t say. But it made me think more about the character and what he was trying to say about her, and so I would call the experiment a success.

It helps that the tense shift was used in a controlled fashion. There is no shifting of tense within the same Mimara’s sections, and since the books are written in third-person limited, there is no shifting of POV within the same section. That’s the internal consistency thing I mentioned back at the top of the post. This demonstrates to the reader that “hey, I’m not doing this because I don’t know how to write, I’m doing this deliberately so maybe you should stop and consider why.”

This example remains the exception and not the rule, and that’s all to the good I think. Shifting tenses within stories remains a technique that should be approached with extreme care. There are more ways to do it wrong than right. But, handled properly, the shocking nature of the shift itself can be used to powerful effect.