My stride is dictated by an urge for irritation. The ridge of my chest nudges his, a movement he detests. His breath stinks of cheap bourbon and cigarettes; how cliché for a backstreet bar. An opposing forearm is pressed into my stomach, pressure demanding recognition rather than reaction. His shoulder twitches. My hand strikes; too late.
Warning: the character above is repugnant, a grade-A aggressive plonker. Distasteful as he may be, his actions highlight one of the marvels of story-telling.
CONFLICT.
I put that in capitals, see what I did there?
Being relatively ‘semi-virgin’ to the magical land of writing, when the subject of conflict came aloud in discussion, I held a picture in my brain of my dull, dreary and dusty manuscript resting upon the desk. Basically, any depressing word beginning with D will suffice. I thought it contained zero conflict, an exaggeration perhaps, but the ‘work in progress’ staring at me flapped around in a boring frenzy. How were people going to enjoy a manuscript with little conflict? There’re no dramatic fight scenes, no heated rivalries, all your obvious strings of conflict I had spinning around my mind at the thought of the word. But…I was wrong.
I hadn’t seen them because they didn’t appear obvious to me through a narrow-minded haze. I imagined conflict in its most basic of formats - the physical confrontation at the top of the page for example - but slapped myself in the cheek when contemplating the subtleties of conflict and imaginative ways it can be implemented. My characters were experiencing a tremendous amount of internal conflict, battling their own demons and insecurities to work towards a solution to their inner troubles. As I scanned my work-in-progress, I felt a dawning of fresh respect for the pros.
Implementing this effectively is an art. If this story building pillar was an actual pillar, it would be solid marble. It’s the sparking of the fuse to a slow-burning bomb. Or a fast burning bomb, either way, you bet your bottom dollar it’s the origin of the spark. There are a tremendous number of articles on characterization (and so there should be) stressing the articulate approach to developing characters. Conflict is a mammoth element. Conflict is drama. And in the drama we begin to dissect each character’s personality, whether subtle and minute, or bold and brash, both are impactful to unraveling their behavior. How your characters handle conflict is what makes their personalities shine through the page, hooking the readers into investing an interest in their journey. I was under the belief that my work contained little conflict, yet when pondering the thought and flicking through some of my favorite segments, I realized the essential residues were alive.
I am no expert. I am a fresh fishy. If I was placed within an online adventure game, I believe the term to use is ‘noob’. But I’m noticing. I’m a noticer (is that a word?). The last book I read contained no fight scenes. In fact, no physical confrontations at all. But the emotional conflict, both internal and external simmered with such excellence I found certain characters delightfully despicable, capturing my empathy when banging verbal heads with the inspirational lead. The way conflict had been used as an ideal representation of the many issues a lot of individuals face on a day to day basis. The battles people face within themselves are often the toughest, and I’ve fallen smitten for the way conflict was conveyed with such subtlety.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a big action confrontation. Fight scene – why not? But I want to bring attention to the subtle side and its power in a book.
When creeping towards the paper finish line I found myself rooting for this female lead, silently cheering her progression as she overcomes the cacophony of surrounding drama. I care about her. About an imaginary person. Like, genuinely care. I place down the book, look around the room, and try to figure out how an author can extract such emotion towards a character.
My emotional post-mortem highlighted the following two points:
Lively dialog.
The way this female lead interacted with others revealed her personality, her fears, her hopes and the conflict in her life. There was never one dull exchange, not one ‘throw-away’ piece of dialog, nor anything uninteresting or irrelevant to the development of her character. Her words were sharp and quick-witted, but most importantly showed conflict. She disagreed with social norms and found the conventional activities of others odd; lively dialog displayed this.
Blunt, questioning, disagreeable dialog demonstrated the conflict in her own mind and its effects on her relationships. Simple questions - ones traditionally answered with a basic response – were spun on their heads with rebounded questions, confusion, witty corrections, and fragile emotion. There were no wasted interactions and each verbal exchange told me something.
‘Would you like to dance?’
‘Oh please, dancing with me would be an unpleasant experience for both of us’.
Lively dialog doesn’t have to be extensive, even something as short as this can indicate internal conflict.
Building emotional conflict. This author was a master at building emotional conflict. Without the need for a single physical confrontation, I was tangled in a pit of internal contradiction. The characters emotions and emotional interest struggled to correspond. Each individual carried emotions that would butt-heads with others; both people and internally. The imbalance of emotion across all the characters sparked the conflict that would build throughout the novel until something had to give and they are faced with addressing the disparity. The lead character would struggle with balancing her own emotions, attempting to judge the measure towards love and hate, along with fighting the comforting prison of thoughts in her head to try and become a better person.
The writer made it clear to me (the reader), of the sheer depth of this emotional conflict, how much her thoughts and behaviors have affected her and anybody who tries to get close. The book was written in first person, and as a particular fan of this style of writing, it was the internal monologue that captured the conflict so well. The self-doubt, the fight to improve herself was narrated with such uncertainty that her battle came across as powerful as any sword fight or shootout.
Maybe I’m biased, a lover of personal battles rather than physical confrontations. Of course, if various aspects of conflict fall within the story then that’s fantastic, but I have consumed many stories that contain strings of gorge worthy conflict ‘on-paper’, yet in reality, I can’t relate, nor resonate. It needs to contain feeling. I’m no expert critic, but as an avid reader, I can say that I’ve given up on books in the past over this. I’ve read novels and felt detached from the conflict, resulting in a lack of interest towards the characters, causing me to ditch the story into a pile of ‘did not finish’ comrades. In any story, I struggle with the notion of conflict for conflict’s sake. I need to feel those verbal exchanges, bath in the mind of another’s emotional turmoil, hold empathy for the characters and their battles. When writing does this, I’ll keep turning.
I do not detest the physical form of conflict, I love it. But I want to know why. Why does the character feel like this? Why would they take upon such a challenge? Show me why. Go deep. In the subtlest of manors. Take me through the most delicate of matters in their lives, show me their beliefs, their values, and maybe then I’ll be rooting them to victory from the safety of my bed.
- A Solivagant Writer,
Jack Allen
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Written by: Jack Allen
Produced by: Bethany Lord