…you
will almost never have a story that only has one type of conflict in it
Conflict in a story is a subject
that makes me laugh the most, because it’s the one thing that I look back on
and think to myself that it is always something that both my students and colleagues
forget to include in their work. Hours and days and weeks of world building.
Documents filled to the brim with ideas just spread out. Grandiose concepts
that make commentary on the world around us by using technology and religion as
a larger metaphor. But once that honeymoon stage of a story idea wears off,
you’re left with the big question. What drives the story? Where is the central
conflict? Why do these characters need to do what they’re doing in this story
so that you can have a story to begin with?
An example I can bring up from one
of my own students works is when she wanted to create an Urban Fantasy novel
wherein mythical creatures are just a normal part of our lives. The image she
had in her head to spark off this idea was a vampire teaching a history class.
We made a few jokes about how the vampire would correct the history textbook
since they were there and they remember what happened better than the person
who wrote the text book did. We all had a good laugh about this and realized
that this idea had the potential for any number of genera. Mystery, romance,
horror, thriller, action, adventure. Any writer worth their salt could use any
of those genera in some compacity for this world just till I asked her “So
what’s the book about?”
About that time, she realized she
didn’t have a central conflict. She had an idea sure, but that won’t take you
very far. Given a single word I could write up a prompt for a story, that
doesn’t mean I have any idea what the hell it’s going to be about though. So,
for all the effort you put into an idea for your story, one thing you need to
remember to include on that checklist is a central conflict.
A
method I found works for me is to create the conflict first and work backwards
from there. A murder victim waking up on the dissection table. Autonomous
killing machines waging war on humanity. An immortal warlord seeking the
remains of a dead god. What happens when I do this is that when I use this as a
seed, the story will grow around that conflict and the world building, the
characters, the setting will follow suit. Think of it like building a train
station for a city. The city itself is already set up with its attractions and
locations and everything else. The only thing that’s left to do is figure out
the most efficient way to get people from point A to point B.
That’s
not to say that you can’t have an idea and include the conflict later. Looking
at our own world, we build grand displays of ingenuity and architecture,
advances and science and medicine, and then the bad stuff happens. This goes
back to what I mentioned in a previous essay. When in doubt, drop a body on a
car, set a bomb off, kill off a character. All of these are great means of
adding conflict to a story, but one more thing to keep in mind is that you will
almost never have a story that only has one type of conflict in it. Moreover,
you’ll find that every story uses more than half of the six types of conflict
in literature. Those six types being:
Character verses self or Internal conflict.
Character verses Nature.
Character verses Character.
Character verses Society.
Character verses Supernatural.
Character verses Technology.
Going down the
list one by one, character verses self is a case of cognitive dissonance. That
being when an individual holds two conflicting ideals at the same time. They
had no choice, there is always a choice. They’re the good guys, but they just
did something unspeakable. Its not their fault, they are responsible for their
own actions. A prime case of a piece of media for character verses self is Spec. Ops.: The Line an X Box 360 era
third person shooter. Throughout the campaign Captain Walker must continually justify everything he’s done to
himself, fighting back that encroaching doubt in the back of his mind that he
shouldn’t be here. That what he’s done was wrong all along and that he is in
fact responsible for every death throughout the game.
Character verses
Self conflict is an excellent way to rip open your character and really see
what makes them tick. If they can’t even agree with their own actions, what
does that say about what they’re doing, what they about to do, and who they
are? Additionally, this won’t always manifest itself in such an extreme way
either. Some times it can be as innocuous as someone getting a call from two
different jobs. One they’ve held loyalty to for most of their adult life and
another that is offering instantaneous opportunities that the other job forced
our character to work their way to over the years. The begin to feel conflicted
between these two choices as they must battle with their own sense of loyalty
and kinship established at their place of work now. This opposed to going into
a new and better work environment that is also an unfamiliar one as well.
Perhaps even burning a few bridges as she crosses that line and having to
accept this as an outcome or at the very least trying to justify it to
themselves. It becomes a great character-building moment as when you force
someone to make a choice their reasoning for that choice may show more
character to not only the reader, but to you as the writer as well.
What was their
reasoning for taking the other job? Why not just stay in a familiar environment
since they’ve gotten this far already and could go further if they wanted to?
Is there a chance that this character won’t just be stuck at that position for
the rest of their career, never advancing beyond that point? It’s never just
because, once you ask yourself why, your character will give you an interesting
answer.
Moving onto the
others, the lines that separate each type of conflict will blur and bleed into
one another. Such is a case of Character verses Nature as one of the two
examples I can think of is also a case of character verses technology. The
first example comes from an older book titled Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.The premise of the book is that a young
man by the name of Brian survives a
plane crash after the pilot suffers a heart attack and he’s left stranded in
the wilderness with nothing more than a hatchet and the clothes on his back to
keep him alive. Throughout the story Brian lives off the fat of the land,
forging for survival, creating shelter and even thriving all together till
rescue eventually finds him.
The second example
and one that begins to bleed over to Character verses Technology is The Martian by Andy Weir. Our protagonist Mark
Watney must use his knowledge of botany and science to survive on a dead
planet, using bacteria in his own feces to grow his food in the arid Martian
environment. Where this starts to become character verses technology is when
Mark suffers set back after set back due to several technological mishaps, thus
forcing him to compensate for that as well. This goes to show that once again,
most books will almost never have only one type of conflict in them.
Keeping with the
subject of Character verses Nature, what this offers to the story is a
nameless, faceless, antagonist that doesn’t need motivations or morals. These
events that occur just exist within the world and just crop up in a case of
wrong place wrong time. It’s this removal from morals and motivation that can
create an interesting roadblock for your characters to overcome since there is
no real bad guy we can’t help but cheer for the character when they manage to
overcome these obstacles using nothing more than basic human ingenuity.
A third example that
doesn’t require Character verses Nature to be at the forefront of the novels
premise is using nature as an insurmountable roadblock. A case where they can’t
overcome what nature has thrown at them and thus must go back, or go around.
The first story I thought of for this comes from the Dark Tower Series by Stephen
King where Roland and his friends
see a city off in the distance. Thinking to themselves that they don’t want any
conflict, they offer up the idea to just go around but realize that may take longer
than just going through it. They also point out that there might even be
something out in the wasteland that will force them to go through the city
anyway. This sets up the rest of the book for a wild adventure through the
ruins of a city and a race against time plot with great set pieces for a
post-apocalyptic universe.
Character verses
Character conflict is probably one of the more common types of conflict in any
given story as its one of the easier types of conflict to manifest. Two or more
characters with conflicting ideals or needs face off against one another for
their own moral, political, or other selfish reasons. Take your pick from any
piece of media since you can’t throw a rock without hitting at least one of
them. For the sake of education, I’ll name off at least two examples for this
as well because if you’re like me then the first thing you think of when you
read Character verses Character is a physical fight between characters. I.E.
when Katniss Everdeen of Hunger Games finds herself forced to
fight to the death against the other contestants. While this example is extreme
in terms of Character verses Character conflict, its one of the more popular
ones as it’s more appealing to audiences and doesn’t require a lot of
forethought about what’s going on in the story. It’s simple, gratuitous action
and in the case of Hunger Games, its
Katniss’s survival above all others.
A less extreme
example, relatively speaking, that doubles as a great character-building moment
comes from The Reburialists by J.C. Nelson. While I didn’t enjoy this
book as much as I would have wanted, the nicest thing I can say is that it was
interesting in its concepts. What I’m referring to is the constant fights that
Brynner and Grace get into. Brynner is a field agent for an organization that’s
like the FBI but with zombies and his father taught him to use religious and
mystic artifacts to kill the zombies he goes up against as he assumes they’re
dealing with magic and necromancers. Grace on the other hand is an atheist and a
scientist for the same organization. Because of this, she doesn’t believe in
the whole holly water and chanting idea, she looks at it as a viral or
bacterial infection in dead tissue and looks for ways of eradicating a virus.
It’s through this difference in outlook that we get a few head-butting points
through the book while also giving us a character-building moment between the
two people. Its with their difference in out look that we get a good sense of
how exactly they handle these zombies leaving the reader to wonder who is right
or wrong.
Delving back into
the classics for a moment, the next point of conflict is that of Character
verses Society, best exemplified by George
Orwell’s 1984. Once again, not a book I was a fan of and if I had to say
why, it’s because it’s a product of its time that hasn’t aged well and reads
like a series of essays more so than a story. Opinions aside, it is perhaps one
of the earliest cases of Character verses Society and with dystopia genera
being what it is today, its more prevalent than ever because of its
antithetical themes towards the end. Character verses Society has our
protagonist going up against an insurmountable and almost immeasurable force.
The society Winston Smith goes up
against isn’t antagonistic the same way nature is. Through our own perspective,
the society of 1984 is inherently
evil. While Winston does rebel in his
own way with another character, it’s towards the end of book that Big Brother reels Winston back into society and forced into conformity and apathy
under their regime. There is no happy conclusion, there is no revolution, there
is no better tomorrow. Just Big Brother.
While that example
is a serious downer, its great because with Hunger
Games and books of the like, there is eventually a win for our heroes
however bitter sweet it might be. But what 1984 does is it creates an insurmountable enemy that our hero couldn’t overcome.
It’s scary, it’s depressing and it makes us feel for our own world and makes us
think. That is exactly what character verses society can do in a novel that has
this type of conflict. That is not to say that it should only do that, in fact
a great case of a fantasy romp that is easily part of my top five favorite
books comes from Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan.
The
premise of Promise of Blood is that Field Marshal Tamas feels the
aristocrats of his nation no longer have the common man’s interest at heart let
alone the interest of the country itself. What he does is removes them from
power in the most violent and honestly horrific way possible. Via execution at
the guillotine at the town square. With such a display of violence and swift
execution for arguably innocent people, were not exactly likely to cheer on the
Field Marshal. It takes the architype of the revolutionary and turns it on its
head, almost making Tamas to be the
bad guy or the lesser of two evils when in fact the book later paints him as a
patriot for the people. All throughout the novel Tamas has his resolve
consistently tested in the face of danger, treachery and a dwindling bank
account. It takes Character verses Society conflict and puts the character as a
member of society themselves. What lengths with a father, a patriot, and a
military general go for his family, his country and his men?
The
last two types of conflict don’t have a less-extreme means to their story
telling. Rather both are very extreme in their own cases. Both examples of
overblow ideas in either theology or science. Sure, you could grade this on a
curve as one example isn’t nearly as out there as another, but all the same its
not like you can tone it down to the point where this is an everyday
occurrence. Those types of conflict being Character verses Supernatural and
Character verses Technology.
Visiting
the maestro of macabre himself yet again, Stephen
King’s ‘It’ is a perfect example for Character verses Supernatural. The
plot of It follows a group of kids
inside a fictional town of Derry Maine
where children are vanishing by the dozen and the only thing the town is
willing to do about it is put up a few missing persons posters. Its not until a
group of friends encounter a series of horrific visions playing on their fears
that they begin to realize that something is going on in Derry. Upon further investigation, these events have happened
before in their town every twenty-seven years. Faced with no other option than
to become prey to the monstrosity that is Pennywise
the Clown the children hunt down the beast and face the manifestation of
what they fear the most.
Character
verses Supernatural allows for an unrestrained beast to take on the characters
and delve into numerous concepts present within the human psyche or even just
create an interesting set piece villain. Unlike the prior examples like Nature,
Society, or even another Character, the supernatural, the unexplained doesn’t
have to be something that makes sense and for all intents and purpose can just
exist because that’s the only way it makes sense for it to. It becomes this
bottomless well for any idea that comes to mind be it a fantasy romp about a
monster slayer or a take on the fragility of the human form. These are your Shadow over Innsmouth and At the Mountains of Madness, these are
the unexplained and often the horrific. It is also a point of conflict that
needs to be more than just making your character a vampire as well as that does
fall into a sort of supernatural type of character, it isn’t necessarily
Character verses Supernatural point of Conflict unless you’re talking about Dracula.
Going
from the concept of the unknown and the unknowable, we transition into the
known and the yet discovered with Character verses Technology. These are the
stories like Terminator, and I Robot by Isaac Asimov. These are the stories wherein an advancement of technology,
what is supposed to be a miracle of science and bring forth an age of
prosperity, becomes a monster and turns on its creator much in the same way Doctor
Frankenstein’s Monster turned on him. These are the stories of Icarus brought
into the modern age with humanity flying too close to the sun and seeing their
wings of wax melt before their downfall. This type of conflict is unstoppable
and the other half of the fictional conflict like Character verses Supernatural.
The real strength it plays is the way everything can be explained. This is the bogyman
that really exists under the bed, this is the destructive capabilities of the
nuclear war head, the horrors of science pushed beyond the brink.
The
added benefit this can yield is matters of discussion similarly to how
Character verses Society can do the same though on a different subject. Where
as Character verses Society can comment on philosophies of Voltaire in that “Absolute
power corrupts absolutely,” Character verses technology can comment on safety verses
freedom argument that we are still facing to this day. An example comes from an
anime by the name of Psycho-pass
where in people are given a score on their psychological health like a credit
score but in reverse. Its with this sort of credit score that decides what you
can do for a living and thus the potential of your quality of life. Additionally,
if the score gets too high then the individual is considered a threat to themselves
as well as others and they’re promptly incarcerated and forced into therapy or even
outright killed. But what the system fails in any sort of empathy for those
that live within this society, it makes up for with results and crime rates
being near nonexistent.
Psycho-pass asks a series of questions.
Is it better to see someone in a job that benefits society or is it better to
let everyone follow their dreams? What’s more important, safety, or freedom?
Just because someone has the potential to commit a crime, does it mean they
should be treated as a criminal? Psycho-pass
offers up all these questions and more using a single almost simple bit of technology
that the heroes and even the villain of the story face off against. Unlike Terminator or I Robot the technology of the world isn’t the enemy, rather it’s an
indifferent being just executing a series of programs, but it’s very existence sparks
controversy and conflict.
In
the end, a story can’t hold itself together unless it has that driving force,
unless it has some means of conflict going on that the reader or audience will
want to see resolved in some form. Just like anything broken, its not going to
be the same once you try and put it back together.
Questions, comments,
concerns, and especially critiques are always appreciated and thank you so much
for reading. If you have an idea for the next episode or have something else
you want me to cover, please message me by whatever means you’d like. Till next
time!
Dama Cherepaha 