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Rule 2: Conflict Rules
Rule 2Good, balanced, healthy people in happy situations are sweet, but boring. You want to be related to them, but you do not want them populating the only novel you've got to keep you busy on an eight hour flight. They do not make interesting fiction.At the heart of any satisfying story there is at least one conflict
In a good story there are usually multiple conflicts on multiple levels, some small and some larger. Conflicts are most usually between people but sometimes the primary conflict is within the main character. A person can be in conflict with an addiction, with a horse, a town, a mountain, a river. A town can be in confict with a governor; a child with a teacher; a mailman with a cat. In any of these conflicts, one character (say, the cat) can be symbolic of an internal conflict (Jeremy hates being a mailman and wants to quit, but his wife would leave him if he loses another job; and there's the fucking cat who terrorizes him every morning of his life).
A complex story will have major characters with internal conflicts that harmonize with the conflicts that arise between them. I'm writing a novel about a woman who is agoraphobic who is attracted to a man who is a recovered claustrophobic. It's like two stormfronts running into each other.
Often writers or film makers will take something out of the news that has caught the attention and interest of the nation and build a story around it. The Titanic is the obvious example here. You've got a big ship, it goes down. If you want to tell that story yet again, you've got to find a new focal point, new characters with a new conflict that you can use to prop up the framework of the ship going down.
Even the blandest of storytelling depends on conflict. Think of Ozzie and Harriet or any of the television shows from the 50s and 60s that are based on the mythology of the perfect middle American family. Nice people with jobs and houses and cars and well adjusted kids. On the surface, no story at all, so the writers had to come up, week by week, with a conflict that would allow them to move the characters around the set. Andy lies to Aunt Bee and tells her how much he loves her awful home made pickles, so she enters them in the State Fair, sure she's going to bring home the blue ribbon. There's a big formal dinner party to go to and Laura gets her toe stuck in the bathtub faucet. These are small conflicts that can be used to explore (in a superficial way) the relationship between the characters, and make the viewers laugh, all in a half hour.
But you could, if you felt like it, twist one of these well known settings into something new, darker, more complex. Ozzie's granddaughter is playing in the attic one day and discovers and old trunk, and inside the trunk, wrapped in quilts, is the mummified body of a six month old child. Suddenly the perfect American family is interesting in a new way. Or, Harriet decides she likes her neighbor Milly more than she likes Ozzie. Or she doesn't want to be married anymore and instead would like to run a tavern.
If you study a particular piece of fiction or film and want to find the bones, look for the conflicts and the way they work together to provide structure.
October 16, 2005 10:12 AM
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WEll, I tried to vote, so that you would get some encouragement. I can't find anything to click on, although I do see the box saying "Whaddaya think?"
So here goes: I like what you write on most days, and I can't think of anything I was horrified by. Your posts are a learning experience for me... and I'm a reader, not a writer (at least not of fiction or poetry or anything like that.... ). Your commentary on the seven points makes me think about what I liked & didn't like about certain books. Maybe learning what works for me will eventually turn me into a better writer? In any case, it will certainly turn me into a better & more appreciative reader. Thanks for the time you spend on the blog. I enjoy reading it & always love it when there's a highlight indicating you've posted.
Posted by: Kim at October 20, 2005 05:06 PM
Kim, thanks for the useful feedback. I'm a little confused by the fact that the links aren't showing up here for voting, so I'll look into that.
Posted by: sara at October 20, 2005 05:13 PM