I agree. Stories are about goals, conflict, action and reaction. But the conflict must be important and urgent to the character...so important that the character can't just say, "Oh, well," and walk away. If he can shrug and forget it, so can the reader. Torture your characters. Make them suffer. Writers are so mean. :-)
RomWrtrGirl thanks so much for your advice. I agree. You have to have all levels of conflict arising out of one or two. As soon as you solve you lose a reader. There is nothing further to hold the reader's interest.
I like when the writer turns the character insides out and puts him through the mill. I am practicing to do exactly that but sometimes fall in love with the character and so go easy on her/him.
Yes, I agree, conflict is what makes the story and keeps the readers interested. The stronger athe conflict tohe more the reader wants to know what is going to happen. I love reading stories full of conflict because I love how the character I have come to know works through the conflicts and overcomes them.
Daff writes: "The writer's job is to be a troublemaker!"
You only have to read some of my posts to other groups to see that I take my job seriously.
Colaborative concurrance is a warm and fuzzy experience, but questioning things and suggesting inciteful perspectives is an experience of knowlege and vibrance.
posted by Arcade
about 1 year ago
That sounds about right but too much conflict can distract the reader and jumble him up to forget what was the main point in the first place. I think.
Without conflict, there is no story. There must be conflict, even if it a character's internal conflict. Something must entice the reader to go forward, want to know how the situation gets resolves. What is the point of the story in the first place? Without conflict it becomes a travelogue, an internal dissertation, or the study of a boring person's boring life.
There is always conflict -- is IS the story, the meat of it. Between good and bad; between conflicting values-- choices a character must make and the consequences; between a man and nature--Moby Dick--The Old Man and the Sea, the latter also internal conflict of an aging man at the end of his life]; To Kill a Mocking Bird--prejudice and its ramifications in the South; War and Peace, speaks for itself for all the conflict in its 700 plus pages.
If one is writing fiction I was taught, without a central conflict, there is no story. Write poetry, journalistic pieces, op-ed, or history, instead. We were taught to build your characters, make them interesting and people your reader will care about, even if a villain to hate -- but the central theme of the story will be a conflict, some reason to make the reader want to find out how it all works out.
The mantra that I've always heard is "Make things worse." If there's any way to make things worse for your protagonist in a story, do it, esp. if it involves confronting their worst fear or worst enemy or embarrassing the heck out of them. We authors get to torture our characters and describe their squirms!
I agree up to a point. I have given my main character so many problems that I am afraid she may decide to kill herself off. She may need a break so maybe i'll let her find true love at the end.
I'm not sure I would put it quite that way. I think the writer's job is to describe, and of course if the writer is describing troublesome events, then our attention will be caught on the "trouble", but I don't think the writer sets out to do it. Once you describe a character and a situation, then trouble is likely to follow. I look to the writer to help the character find a way out of the trouble.
I wonder, are we talking books or soap operas? I agree there needs to be conflict, a story arc, and a charactor arc. But I am not interested in books that are nothing but torture of a protagonist!
