Conflict

[Pru Freda]

I've heard it said that without conflict there is no story. Conflict is what drives a story along.

But I hate conflict. Yes, I'll stand up for myself (albeit defensively) if need be, but I'm far more inclined to just slowly back away - and in some cases run hell for leather back in to my cosy little hole, pull the covers over my head, and dream my dreams of sweetness and light.

I'm not over fond of reading about it either. I'm not talking of war stories, or grisly horror, but when you know the bad guy has got something nasty prepared and the hero is just about to step into it, I've been known to put the book down - and, sometimes, never return to it. Or flick forward a few pages until the hero is safely past it and out the other side.

So, how do I write it? I really struggle to throw rocks at my heroine - I feel like the kid in playground surrounded by bullies, and don't want to put her through it. I want her to be surrounded by love, flowers, and rainbows (all the barf-inducing things ) not villains, mayhem, and murder. But who's going to want to read that? Who wants to read of a hero not overcoming the odds, not fighting (and winning) against the bad guys - because there aren't any odds and there aren't any bad guys in the story?

In the current WIP, I've just realised that my heroine has it all too easy. Yes, she's a sleuth and has to work out whodunit, and yes, there are issues in her private life she has to work out, but conflict? Not so much. So how do I manage to make the world a less rosy place when I hate to even think of "man's inhumanity to man"?

[Becca Mills]

I'm okay with a high level of conflict in a book, so long as I get the sense that there's going to be a happy ending. (No, I don't read much literary fiction anymore these days.) In my own writing, though, I'm not sure I'll have a happy ending, and I don't have any aversion to putting the MC through the wringer. How strange.

[cate]

Neither do I, Becca. In fact, I may enjoy it a little too much.

Here is how I think of plot/conflict (stolen from Rachel Aaron): you get your characters up a tree, then you set the tree on fire. When they hop to another branch, thinking they are safe, I light that one up. Works for me every time.

And conflict doesn't have to be some big bad evil. Conflict happens when there is an obstacle standing between the main character and her goal.

Some of the most fun books I've read have one hilarious or crazy mishap after the other, keeping the heroine from her objective.

[Becca Mills]

Apr 13, 2014 0:50:31 GMT -5 cate said:

Neither do I, Becca. In fact, I may enjoy it a little too much.

Here is how I think of plot/conflict (stolen from Rachel Aaron): you get your characters up a tree, then you set the tree on fire. When they hop to another branch, thinking they are safe, I light that one up. Works for me every time.

And conflict doesn't have to be some big bad evil. Conflict happens when there is an obstacle standing between the main character and her goal.

Some of the most fun books I've read have one hilarious or crazy mishap after the other, keeping the heroine from her objective.

Love the fiery tree image. I'm going to have to keep that in mind!

[cate]

It reminds me that I have to keep ratcheting the suspense, since I write, well, suspense. (romantic suspense, heavy on both)

[Becca Mills]

Apr 13, 2014 1:25:48 GMT -5 cate said:

It reminds me that I have to keep ratcheting the suspense, since I write, well, suspense. (romantic suspense, heavy on both)

Good point for everyone, IMO! And I like the idea that an obstacle doesn't have to be a conflict, per se.

[Daniel]

I suspect that "conflict aversion," like risk aversion, is one of those things that sets readers apart from one another. I'm a happy ending reader like Becca. I have no problem with the protagonist suffering through conflict and mayhem, but it can't be for the whole book. I need a few bright spots along the way where the protagonist wins once in a while. I've read books (one recently, in fact) where the protagonist suffers horribly through the entire book until the very end. It was emotionally unsatisfying in spite of the somewhat happy ending. Books where the protagonist wins in the end, but at too high a cost are similarly dissatisfying.

This is really just another way to say you can't please everyone. Some readers are perfectly happy reading butterflies and rainbows books. Every writing book I've read says you have no story without conflict, but conflict doesn't have to be terrifying or dreadful to be emotionally engaging. As long as I care about the characters and want to know how they will overcome their difficulties, that's enough for me.

[Suzy]

Apr 13, 2014 8:43:39 GMT -5 Daniel said:

I suspect that "conflict aversion," like risk aversion, is one of those things that sets readers apart from one another. I'm a happy ending reader like Becca. I have no problem with the protagonist suffering through conflict and mayhem, but it can't be for the whole book. I need a few bright spots along the way where the protagonist wins once in a while. I've read books (one recently, in fact) where the protagonist suffers horribly through the entire book until the very end. It was emotionally unsatisfying in spite of the somewhat happy ending. Books where the protagonist wins in the end, but at too high a cost are similarly dissatisfying.

This is really just another way to say you can't please everyone. Some readers are perfectly happy reading butterflies and rainbows books. Every writing book I've read says you have no story without conflict, but conflict doesn't have to be terrifying or dreadful to be emotionally engaging. As long as I care about the characters and want to know how they will overcome their difficulties, that's enough for me.

I love creating conflict. I find it very interesting. I also find that the way the MC copes with conflicts, deepens the character and shows what she is made of. In my WIP, my MC is beaten up by someone she thought loved her, abandoned and is finally the victim of an accident. All these things happen suddenly, probably jolting the reader out of their happy mood but then, hopefully, making them cheer on the MC until the happy end.

[scdaffron]

I see this a lot in writing books. Most of them say that you have to keep upping the ante, until the conflict is a life or death thing.

But realistically, that approach doesn't work with all genres. If I make the conflict too awful in my books, they go from romantic comedy to something that's kind of a downer. Which is SO not the point. You don't read romantic comedy to get depressed. (Like Becca, I don't read literary fiction anymore.) I like Cate's point about "crazy mishaps." That's more what I'm shooting for with my books, as far as conflict. Plus, there's always gonna be an HEA. It's a romance, after all. If I want reality, I can go read the news.

[Deleted]

I'm so bad at writing conflict that I had to get someone else (who writes adventure novels) to write the fight scene for me!

[Pru Freda]

Apr 13, 2014 10:23:50 GMT -5 @becca said:

I'm so bad at writing conflict that I had to get someone else (who writes adventure novels) to write the fight scene for me!

Oh, lol, Becca. I can relate to that.

The cozy mystery genre I write in is usually not about conflict so much as the sleuth gathering clues which will uncover the killer. The reader should be carried along, the writer revealing enough clues for the reader to feel they've solved the case - at least until the twist in the end. They can pat themselves on the back if they'd foreseen that and picked the right person, anyway.

In the previous books in the series, I've put my poor heroine through the wringer quite a few times - she been pushed into oncoming traffic, thrown into a canal, run off the road, three parts throttled, and shot at by a demon archer. She's been hospitalized twice and had to tell the police that the great love of her life, the man she was going to marry, is a crook and a bank robber who then gets sent down for 18 years.

All she's got to do in this 4th book is solve the crime and marry the policeman at the end of it. Danged if I know why I'm finding it so hard and letting it take forever.

[Deano]

Conflict is essential, but as mentioned conflict doesn't have to mean combat or heinous and devious murders or whatever. Instead of conflict, think tension. Cate's marvellous analogy of a burning tree is perfect as it highlights one of the most important tools used by authors to keep readers turning the page: just as everything is working well for the protagonist, everything must fall apart. Likewise, at the climax of your story, when everything seems to be lost, everything must be resolved. That doesn't have to mean a happy ending, just that everything you've set up with your story must be satisfyingly completed.

High-stakes is another way of looking at conflict as opposed to violence or unhappiness: the stakes must get higher throughout the novel, or else why would the reader continue on?

[Becca Mills]

Apr 13, 2014 14:05:08 GMT -5 Deano said:

Conflict is essential, but as mentioned conflict doesn't have to mean combat or heinous and devious murders or whatever. Instead of conflict, think tension. Cate's marvellous analogy of a burning tree is perfect as it highlights one of the most important tools used by authors to keep readers turning the page: just as everything is working well for the protagonist, everything must fall apart. Likewise, at the climax of your story, when everything seems to be lost, everything must be resolved. That doesn't have to mean a happy ending, just that everything you've set up with your story must be satisfyingly completed.

High-stakes is another way of looking at conflict as opposed to violence or unhappiness: the stakes must get higher throughout the novel, or else why would the reader continue on?

I need to do a better job of thinking about plot in these large structural terms.

[Suzy]

Apr 13, 2014 14:05:08 GMT -5 Deano said:

Conflict is essential, but as mentioned conflict doesn't have to mean combat or heinous and devious murders or whatever. Instead of conflict, think tension. Cate's marvellous analogy of a burning tree is perfect as it highlights one of the most important tools used by authors to keep readers turning the page: just as everything is working well for the protagonist, everything must fall apart. Likewise, at the climax of your story, when everything seems to be lost, everything must be resolved. That doesn't have to mean a happy ending, just that everything you've set up with your story must be satisfyingly completed.

High-stakes is another way of looking at conflict as opposed to violence or unhappiness: the stakes must get higher throughout the novel, or else why would the reader continue on?

That's so true, Dean. Thank you.

[cate]

Apr 13, 2014 14:05:08 GMT -5 Deano said:

Conflict is essential, but as mentioned conflict doesn't have to mean combat or heinous and devious murders or whatever. Instead of conflict, think tension. Cate's marvellous analogy of a burning tree is perfect as it highlights one of the most important tools used by authors to keep readers turning the page: just as everything is working well for the protagonist, everything must fall apart. Likewise, at the climax of your story, when everything seems to be lost, everything must be resolved. That doesn't have to mean a happy ending, just that everything you've set up with your story must be satisfyingly completed.

High-stakes is another way of looking at conflict as opposed to violence or unhappiness: the stakes must get higher throughout the novel, or else why would the reader continue on?

Thank you, Dean! What an eloquent description - you took my burning tree and turned it into poetry.

[Deleted]

I would like to add to this, but it seems everything has already been covered. The only thing I would comment on, which I struggle with, is empathy for the villain.

Cardboard cutout villains, bland archetypes with a banal goal of generally being very difficult and irritating 'just 'cos' are so tiresome to read. But when their motives have depth, and we understand the way their logic works, that empathy is created, breeding many elements. My favourite is the dynamic and relationship between the hero and the villain. In almost every novel I've read that features a villain, the bad guy is always relatable, gradually understood. He/she becomes human. I think this is powerful part of this conflict issue.

For me, Bernard Cornwell summed it up best in an interview some years ago. I'll paraphrase. He said something like: 'The villain generally believes that the end justifies the means'. And so the villain cannot see beyond his/her own goals and desires, or how they affect others, because they are blinded by their own drive. Does that suggest that most villains have personality disorders?

[Becca Mills]

Apr 13, 2014 15:56:57 GMT -5 @cpburrage said:

I would like to add to this, but it seems everything has already been covered. The only thing I would comment on, which I struggle with, is empathy for the villain.

Cardboard cutout villains, bland archetypes with a banal goal of generally being very difficult and irritating 'just 'cos' are so tiresome to read. But when their motives have depth, and we understand the way their logic works, that empathy is created, breeding many elements. My favourite is the dynamic and relationship between the hero and the villain. In almost every novel I've read that features a villain, the bad guy is always relatable, gradually understood. He/she becomes human. I think this is powerful part of this conflict issue.

For me, Bernard Cornwell summed it up best in an interview some years ago. I'll paraphrase. He said something like: 'The villain generally believes that the end justifies the means'. And so the villain cannot see beyond his/her own goals and desires, or how they affect others, because they are blinded by their own drive. Does that suggest that most villains have personality disorders?

Hmmm, interesting. I'm thinking that the "ends justify the means" villain is one type. Another type you can empathize with might be "wrong ends for the right reasons." You know. The hero can see that things are not going to turn out well, but the villain is too blind to see it.

[vrabinec]

Apr 13, 2014 0:08:21 GMT -5 Pru Freda said:

In the current WIP, I've just realised that my heroine has it all too easy. Yes, she's a sleuth and has to work out whodunit, and yes, there are issues in her private life she has to work out, but conflict? Not so much. So how do I manage to make the world a less rosy place when I hate to even think of "man's inhumanity to man"?

I get what you're saying about not wanting to get her into the fray. I'd focus on psychological issues then. Maybe she takes it REAL hard and feels like she's on the edge sometimes. Maybe she sits in a dark room for hours and has to force herself to go to the next place to look for clues. Adds urgency. She HAS to solve it because she immerses herself into their world so thoroughly that she believes they'll come after her, because she's the one who's gonna solve it, and they would know that (they would know that IF they were as smart as her, and she starts out with the assumption that they are). I dunno fishing here.

[Deleted]

And conflict doesn't even have to be another person. It could be the wilderness. Or bad weather. Or a hero's own fevered mind. The important thing is how the hero deals with the conflict, overcoming adversity, hopefully in an entertaining and enlightening way. Otherwise, why is the story even worth telling?

[Pru Freda]

Wow! Thanks, everyone, this has really helped. I'd been concentrating so hard on one aspect of conflict that I was missing the bigger picture. I've read so many books on plotting and "goal, motivation, conflict", and the examples given so often focus on a tangible conflict the hero has to overcome that I was looking for one in my own books when I should have been working on the inner conflict and the puzzle.

Dean - nicely put. I think I ought to print your post out and stick it to my computer desk. Not only for now, but in the future, when I stumble again.