Blog post by Karen Funk BlocherIn the waning days of the Cretaceous era, specifically the summer of 1977, 20-year-old me attended the Clarion SF Writers’ Workshop. I learned a lot, but I also got so discouraged that I didn’t write fiction again for several years. I got a husband out of it though, so there’s that. Despite the years of discouragement with a stalled-out novel, I did pick up a number of solid principles that have served me well in the decades since then. I’d like to highlight one of them here. “What’s the conflict?” This question was frequently asked at Clarion when stories were workshopped, and it’s fundamental. If there’s no difficulty, no obstacle, no disagreement, and no decision to be made, then there is no conflict and therefore no story. This is something to look at in every story you write. Does your story have such a conflict? If the answer is no, you probably should make changes, and here’s why. You may have a great idea for a story, some brilliant “what if” to show your readers against a compelling backdrop of Tucson and environs or another world entirely. But if that “what if” creates no problems for your characters, if nothing gets in the way of their goals, then your reader isn’t going to care much about the story or its characters. Conflict is often heightened by characters in disagreement. This is where it pays to pay attention to the dynamic between your characters, especially in dialogue. TV producer Kenneth Johnston of Alien Nation fame once said that the best conflict is between two people who are both right. Think of George and Matt in Alien Nation, or Spock and Bones in Star Trek, and you’ll get the general idea. Now look at your characters. Are they in lockstep in their assessment of the situation and how to handle it? Or, worse still, do they feel no pressure to change anything? Two people having a dialogue in which they agree with each other is not conflict, and often comes off as an “expository lump” (another Clarion catchphrase)..
Many years ago, writer David Gerrold wrote that all Star Trek episodes hinge on the fact that “Kirk has a decision to make.” Does your protagonist have a decision to make? Is it an easy decision, or something that really matters and is difficult to achieve? The more your protagonist has to struggle, the more invested readers are likely to be in their success or failure. Let’s take a moment here to acknowledge the role of the protagonist in making the story work. This character’s function is to elicit the reader’s sympathy as they strive to overcome one or more obstacles. English teachers everywhere classify such conflicts (at least, they used to) as Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society, and Man vs. Himself. (Also seen: Man vs. Machine, Man vs, Fate, Man vs. God or the Supernatural, and, of course, Man. vs. Alien.) You can add Coyote vs. Roadrunner and any other variations you can think of. The point is the protagonist must have some sort of antagonist or obstacle, and work to overcome it. To do so, they must have both motivation (a desire to make a change) and agency (the ability to make a change). If there’s nothing the character can do to make things better, there’s no reason to care what they do. Giving your protagonist a conflict to resolve is usually the basis or your plot or narrative structure. MC (Main Character) finds their life is thrown out of equilibrium because of Conflict X. Perhaps MC thinks there’s an easy fix and tries it, only to learn that the situation is more complex than initially thought, and that they have made things worse. So MC researches the problem and tries a different strategy, perhaps more than once, until a resolution is achieved. Or, as one of the writers in residence at Clarion 1977 used to say, “Get your characters up a tree, throw rocks at them, get them down from the tree.” If nothing changes between the beginning of the story and the end of it, chances are there’s no story. In a novel, you have room for lots of complications and additional conflicts, but in a short story, you don’t have much room to pull all this off. Chances are, therefore, that your conflict is going to be small and achievable with very few steps along the way. But it has to be there, or there’s no story. You know what else leads to no story? Not writing. So write! And don’t stop, even if the advice you get is confusing or discouraging. Remember, you, too, have a decision to make, every time you have an opportunity to drag a string of glittering words from your brain. Choose wisely, and go for it!
3 Comments
Gayl
1/15/2019 11:51:04 am
Great article!
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2/19/2019 11:57:52 pm
Liked the blog. Made me look at my current story in a slightly different angle. This leads me to where I need to emphasize the conflict, the solution and the complication attached to the solution. The story keeps getting clearer and more interesting.
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