In the midst of recent Instagram scrolling, I came across a featured quote that made me pause. I’m paraphrasing, but the gist of the notion was this — any problem that a character can walk away from leads to a book that a reader can put down. (Editor’s Note: this appears to have been a screencap of a tweet shared by author Eric Smith).
This quote gave me pause 1) because it’s true and 2) it made appreciate, yet again, the value of conflict in storytelling. As someone who is incredibly conflict-averse in real life, Author Me (who is real me, but better) puts her characters through the wringer on a regular basis. For sport!
Why? Narrative tension is the gas in the car that is your story. The tales we tell are incredibly condensed “life-snippets” — if you’re a fiction writer like me, snippets of the lives of people you’ve made up to get at the larger universal truths you want to illustrate — and as such, become instantly boring without a means to up the drama. Periods of intentional conflict, and our characters’ reactions to them, keep the tempo of the story underneath the plot. In reality, people like to be happy. In stories, we like to see characters overcoming obstacles in ways that change them (and maybe us), through the limited window we’re provided to witness a significant series of events in their lives.
As I round the bend on wrapping up Ariavide, Ever Onward, I’ve been thinking recently about Feria Albrecht, one of its main characters. By the end of the book, that girl has seen and done some things that, if I’ve done my job properly, you would both never expect at the beginning of the story yet find justifiable based on the arc of character growth I’ve presented over several hundred pages. Conflict is wholly meshed with this development; without it, there is nothing to force Feria (or whoever your character might be) to take the next step, and the next, and the next, in the direction you want the narrative as a whole to go.
Some questions about conflict to ask yourself as you’re plotting:
- I’ll borrow this from Mr. Smith’s friend, as it’s now a tool I’ll add to my own repertoire: Can your character walk away from this problem?
- For those of us who write fantasy, especially — how does this issue pull them further into the world you are building? The tried and true “show, don’t tell” applies here.
- How will dealing with this conflict change your character? Does it develop them toward making decisions that will move your story forward? How might it further deepen relationships between your characters in meaningful ways?
And to wrap up, you do you, but most readers invest time in a story with the expectation of some kind of payoff at its conclusion, following The Biggest Obstacle of All (i.e., your climax). If there’s not a “happy ending,” there is at least some sort of satisfying resolution to the problems that hooked them in the first place. My best advice is to know what this is ahead of time and work backward as you outline.
I hope this quick overview sets your characters on a productive road toward misery and heartbreak! Just kidding… but remember, happiness is for real life. Delicious conflict is what keeps your readers turning the pages.
Have a question for me? I might answer it in a future blog post! Contact me here.
© 2018 – by Campbell Media, LLC. | Terms of Use & Privacy Policy
Joanna Harmonosky 