Friday, March 18, 2011

Creating the Conflict

CONFLICT:

Kurt Vonnegut on the shape of stories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ#t=17

conflict--The primary ingredient that weaves all the other elements together.  The situation that will keep your characters interesting to your reader.  Cause and effect, action and reaction, play key roles in fostering change and facilitating conflict. Conflict creates tension within the plot.  It is the one element that keeps the reader intrigued to your story.

  • Conflict is the fundamental element of fiction, fundamental because in literature only trouble is interesting.  It takes trouble to turn the great themes of life into a story: birth, love, sex, work, and death.  -Janet Burroway

I want to help you to focus on your main character today and to decide what type of conflict will build within the plot of your idea for a story.  What type of obstacles your character will face and have to resolve as a basis for the resolution of your story.  There are so many ways to creat conflict:

Yourke's Conflict Checklist:
  • Mystery.  Explain just enough to tease readers. Never give everything away.
  • Empowerment.  Give both sides options.
  • Progression.  Keep intensifying the number and type of obstacles the protagonist faces.
  • Causality.  Hold fictional characters more accountable than real people. Characters who make mistakes frequently pay, and, at least in fiction, commendable folks often reap rewards.
  • Surprise.  Provide sufficient complexity to prevent readers predicting events too far in advance.
  • Empathy.  Encourage reader identification with characters and scenarios that pleasantly or (unpleasantly) resonate with their own sweet dreams (or night sweats).
  • Insight.  Reveal something about human nature.
  • Universality.  Present a struggle that most readers find meaningful, even if the details of that struggle reflect a unique place and time.
  • High Stakes.  Convince readers that the outcome matters because someone they care about could lose something precious. Trivial clashes often produce trivial fiction.
By balancing the opposing forces of the conflict, you keep readers glued to the pages wondering how the story will end. There are five main types of conflict in literature.Conflict is drama between two opposing forces: The protaganist; the main character--the story usually focuses on this characters experiences.  The antagonist is usually prtrayed as the "bad" guy, or the person that goes against the protagonist and what he is trying to do.  When you have sufficient conflict you will be able to move the plot forward and keep the attention of your reader.  If your writing lacks conflict, it will lack tension and will fall flat.

The five most common types of conflict are:

1. Character struggling against anothe character: arguments, conflicting desires, opposing goals, physical confrontations or emotional dilemmas.

2. Character struggling internally with self: internal conflict struggles with moral dilemmas, emotional challenges or desires - the conflict is the character's own soul or conscience.

3. Character struggling against forces of nature: forces out of the characters control.  The characters are the good guys and the conflict is a force out of their control.

4. Character struggling against society: repressed by society or exploited by society.

5. Character stuggling against fantasy/ supernatural/ technology: found in specfic genres such as, horror, science fiction, fantasy, supernatural, mystical books. The conflict is between aliens, poltergeists, robots, divine forces, or supernatural villains where characters call upon thier own strength to defeat the fantastic enemy confronting them.

After thorough analysis of the main idea and the main charcter - the conflict of the story can be intertwined into the first part of the story.  The inciting moment where the real interest begins and the reader is engaged.

So write and start some trouble.



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