Posts about conflict

Jul92011

Savants Make Me Nervous


I’ve never quite trusted people for whom things come too easily. Anything I’ve ever found worth doing took patience, practice, and craft. When another writer asks about my work, they aren’t asking about my leisure. Granted, the effort of writing a book is mitigated by the sense of enjoyment it gives me and the love I hold for it, but the sweat still falls. The apprenticeship doesn’t end, regardless of your success. This holds true for most things: effort and struggle are not only the rule of life, but they bring results.

This sense of reward for effort, the goal achieved after endless practice, is what makes me leery of over-powered protagonists. We’ve all seen them: the unbeatable swordsman, the uncatchable rogue or the mage who effortlessly slays demons and binds gods with his spells. Sometimes a protagonist embodies all of these types. He’s so powerful that he might as well not bother with companions. After all, he’s smarter than anyone else in the party, stronger too. Companions are only there to reflect upon how powerful and perfect he is. No matter what conflict arises, you never truly believe that the super-protagonist will be defeated, and this makes his epic journey (and it’s always epic) a terribly hard read.

When I read about an unbeatable protagonist, I never buy his backstory of poverty or struggle. He’s a savant, a natural hero destined to save the day. I put the book down, and then I think about Frodo.

Lord of the Rings kicked off our genre with a protagonist whose very people were the weakest, slightest, and least warlike in the world. Tolkien didn’t just saddle Frodo himself with some serious handicaps, but the other hobbits share them. Gandalf, the most powerful member of the Fellowship of the Ring gets his ass kicked pretty early on, letting us know the odds against Frodo’s mission to the Cracks of Doom is no cake walk.

Tolkien might have really stacked the deck against Frodo, but you do need some sense that a protagonist is truly facing a challenge. The antagonist or adversary needs to feel like a real threat. That’s the essence of conflict, and without it you’ve got a very boring book.

Jun42010

On Writing a Series: Conflict and Endings

Last night I had one of those stressful dreams, the kind where you need to be in two places at once as the universe throws up every possible obstacle to your goal. In this case I needed a haircut to avoid looking like Shaggy Peter, but it was my barber’s birthday and I wasn’t going to get any service without bringing a bottle of wine. But the downtown liquor store was closed, and it was raining, increasing my bedraggled state. I overcame the obstacle by ducking into a restaurant and ordering a bottle of wine, remembering that Denver allows you to take your bottle to go, but the victory came with a call from my boss. I was supposed to be somewhere else, a crucial meeting for my day job, while simultaneously realizing that I needed to get to my writing class, which started in a few minutes. I woke with a flood of relief that it had only been a dream. Yet the conflict and frustration I’d felt were very real. The possibility for the dilemma was realistic, as was the setback after a little victory. The tension inherent in the need to be in two places at once is common enough in a modern life.

I’ve been trying for a while to find a microsm of conflict, something that embodies the tension that fuels a story’s forward motion. The dream did a great job of that. It also pointed me to an obvious truth: conflict isn’t just a factor in engaging fiction. It’s a constant in our lives. A character with an ideal existence, without a compelling conflict, isn’t someone we can relate to. One reason serial characters work is that reality is always messy, always full of strife, so the protagonist in a series is never going to run out of issues needing resolution. A good series will keep a few conflicts bubbling, issues that must be dealt with sometime but aren’t going to be addressed right now because a more immediate problem is draining the main character’s attention. Isn’t that like life? We have so much to handle and only so much time or so many resources to do it. Good conflict is Sisyphean. You get the stone up the hill a little farther each day, but it rolls back down. A strong series lets its protagonist win, make some gains in where the stone ends up, but there’s always going to be more pushing. Simultaneously, your hero needs a victory now and then. Without it, your readers will despair. The story has to satisfy and yet ring true.

This brings us to the ending and the topic of wish fulfillment, which is a problem I think largely inherent in my genre. You commonly encounter “super characters” in fantasy, and the problem in being superhuman, in having a vast well of power which comes without a cost, is that such a character is above us, and again, isn’t relatable.

The ultimate victory, getting the rock to the summit or a milestone, needs a price. We seldom achieve anything important in life that’s not costly: the time we put into a degree, the loss of our idealism as we grow up, the stress of planning a wedding, or the pain of giving birth. Good stories have a bittersweet ending. If everybody lives, if everyone makes it out of the trap, the conflict is revealed as artificial and the ending rings false. There is a good reason why only fairy tales regularly end with happily ever after. It’s no coincidence that many of Shakespeare’s tragedies begin with a wedding while many of his comedies end with one. Life gets in the way of happily ever after. The wedding may end the conflict between two rival families, but now the couple must negotiate the difficulties in producing an heir, changing diapers, managing their money, and dealing with treachery in the household. Happily ever after is a pleasant dream, but you’ve got to wake to reality sometime, and that means conflict.

Mar272008

Writing from the Cave

My writing sometimes feels very distant from me, like a thing I’m looking for but cannot locate in a cluttered closet. That is how it feels right now: like Eastlight is a world spinning out there on its own, and I can’t connect with it. One thing I’ve always struggled with and need to master, is the ability to just pick up a book I’m writing and be able to work on it regardless of what’s happening in my outer life. It’s not quite the same as inspiration. If I feel uninspired, I can always edit. In fact, that’s the best time for me to edit: when I can read it without wanting to take an idea off in a dozen directions. Right now if feels like going to the gym: a good habit that I’ve gotten out of.

In defense of my laziness, it’s been a hell of a year so far. I do not know if it’s the leap year effect, as some have suggested, the stress of the impending election, the economy, or a dozen other things, but 2008 so far felt very chaotic, like a lot of changes are happening very quickly.

Of course that turns my mind to fantasy. Change can happen so quickly, on such a large scale, that a kingdom can turn from peaceful to oppressive nearly overnight. Coups and political machinations are slowly plotted but often quickly executed. Keeping the people fed and in shelter requires a delicate balance between order and nature. Our world is filled with political strife and starving people. Fantasy mirrors these problems.

Conflict is essential when writing. You don’t want to read a story where everything is idyllic and your main character is completely unchallenged. How can they possibly grow if they don’t experience change? How can we? Change can come quickly, without warning. That is true in life or in fiction.