The Fiction Writer: Create Passion and Conflict
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So I delete them. You just commented before I could delete the comment. So maybe it's not only about the words.
It's voice and pacing and dialogue The reader will focus on what stands out. Turn the reader's attention where you want it to go. Thank you for reading The Editor's Blog, an Internet resource for fiction writers, freelance editors, and everyone who loves words.
Affiliate The Editor's Blog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Subscribe to RSS Feed. Write What You Know? September 16, at 2: September 16, at 3: Fiction Editor Beth Hill says: September 16, at 8: Morgyn Star MorgynStar says: September 16, at 9: September 17, at September 17, at 4: September 17, at 9: September 20, at 8: September 20, at 4: September 20, at 9: September 20, at September 21, at 6: September 21, at 5: September 22, at 4: February 9, at 8: February 9, at February 9, at 4: February 9, at 5: February 11, at It's about characters with character.
As a writer you need to shape the plot events so as to force the hero to face his fear, over and again, until he defeats it or, if the story is a tragedy, it defeats and destroys him: He runs from his fear at the inciting incident, and on several other important occasions in the story see Resolving Inner Conflict, below ; But finally he overcomes it at the climax; And this gives him the strength, courage and new insights he needs to beat his adversary and obtain his story goal.
Progressively raising personal stakes. This makes the reader care more, because inner motives drive a character powerfully. What could make this problem matter much, much more? Your hero must have a really good reason to go through all the agony in the story. Find ways to incorporate these raised stakes in your novel.
Heightening inner turning points. Take the same moment and underplay it. Which works better for the story at this point? Do this at another ten to twenty places in the story. Greatest fear or worry; Greatest courage; Greatest sorrow; Greatest hope; Greatest joy; Deepest shame; Most profound guilt; Darkest despair; Most redemptive forgiveness. Taking any turning point except the climax: How does your hero feel about himself ten minutes earlier? How does he feel about himself ten minutes after the turning point?
Write a paragraph describing his inner change in that time. Show powerfully and vividly how his life, or his view of the world or himself, has irrevocably changed. Do the same at a handful of other places in the book. Pick a moment when your hero is talking to another important character. Write a paragraph where the hero assesses the other character qualities, mood, situation in life etc. Alternately, have the secondary character look at the hero using the same criteria. Show how differently these characters see each other in a later scene. Resolving Inner Conflict The outer conflicts the events of the story should force the hero to choose between his conflicting inner goals, over and over again Vorhaus, writerunboxed.
This can be shown in a number of ways: This is easy to do, but hard to do well. To build warring emotions within your hero, identify his strong motives for reaching his goal — then find an equally strong motivation for not pursuing it, and pit the two against each other. Or a solution that seems good … but leads to an even greater inner conflict. In many, if not most scenes, the conflict should be greater at the end of the scene than at the beginning.
Then, identification of the inner needs relating to both sides of the conflict; Then, both sides of his conflicted mind working together to try and find a new way to meet these needs; and Finally, overcoming the problem and resolving the inner conflict. However the most intense and dramatic moments in the story, particularly times of powerful inner conflict, do need to be shown because: Showing creates clear mental pictures for your readers Sawyer , and modern readers are so used to the storytelling style of TV, movies and games that visual storytelling works best for them.
Telling just lists generic actions and emotions. Intense conflict is best shown exactly how the hero experiences it, i. In real time, as it happens Cleaver. Only describe things your hero can actually perceive from where she is at that time. What are her expectations? Does she expect the best outcome, or the worst? Either way, constantly build her expectations up — only to dash them. Show the specific details that make the things she perceives vivid, clear, fresh and original. Your hero must have attitudes to, and make judgements right or wrong about everyone she meets, and everything that happens.
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In every scene, and on every page, she has to react to the encounters she has and the conflicts she faces in a way the reader can see and understand. Show her attitudes and judgements in her emotions, thought, dialogue and actions; Her reactions must be specific, personal, and affect whether or not she achieves her goal. Your hero might think, Why is she telling me this? What does she really want?
33 Ways to Create Inner Conflict
He hates me — really hates me. But what did I ever do to him? The Emotion Thesaurus Ackerman and Puglisi is an excellent resource. Or from unease to worry to fear to terror. This is far more effective and convincing than having her emotions jump from a low state straight to an extreme. There should be an emotional change through every scene, eg if your hero begins the scene with positive feelings, she should end it feeling down in one way or another. Show the physical reactions and sensory details that evoke the emotion — Her knees shook so badly that she could barely stay upright.
She choked back a scream. She had to get away, but how, how? She thinks about what caused those feelings — He forgot to pick up the kids again! Or shows it in what she says and how she says it. A scene consists of a series of beats, each a stimulus followed a response , repeated over and over. In detail it goes like this: Event The hero realises that the killer is hunting her through the abandoned mine.
Emotional Reactions She reacts emotionally eg wild urge to flee, panic, graphic images of what could happen to her. And viscerally — the inner physical signs of her emotional state eg racing heart, stifling a scream, dizziness or faintness. Analytical Responses She gets control of herself and analyses her situation; She thinks of various options to escape her predicament, or achieve her current goal. She assesses the risks and benefits of each, and her ability to carry them out.
She makes a decision for reasons that seem good to her at the time. Action She takes action physically or verbally or both which either succeeds, partly succeeds or, much of the time, makes things worse. Review sequel to the scene Most scenes should end with things getting worse for the hero, and again she should go through the process emotion-thought-decision , reacting to what happened, reviewing what she did and why it went wrong, and forming a new plan to try and reach her goal. This can occur very quickly in a fast-paced action story, but may take pages in a romance. Follow the outline presented in the dot points above, but also: Only describe things she can actually perceive from where she is.
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Bell, James Scott Probably the best book on the topic of plot and structure. Also a great book; a wealth of practical info and examples. No one has ever explained the craft of storytelling more clearly or simply. Writing for Emotional Impact. Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint. Excellent book on these topics. Terrific chapters on characterisation, suspense and conflict. In my view, the best book on revision and self-editing.
Writing the Breakout Novel. A very useful book. Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. The Fire in Fiction.
Many writers shy away from writing intense or passionate scenes because they can be difficult to write and yet they add so much to any work of fiction. Providing . We often think that to create conflict we need to show spectacular events. For example, a car chase, affection isn't respectable? Is foolish passion still love? Write a short scene showing one of your character's values. Then test that value.
He identifies the problems his agency sees over and over again in manuscripts and tells you how to fix them. Two critical features for creating memorable characters are their attitudes and their passions , because these go to the heart of their individuality. A protagonist who has both, sharply defined, will be memorable see Lyon for details. Attitude often has a negative slant, as being against something. Out of attitudes will come moral codes and behaviour, political and religious beliefs, personal and lifestyle habits and choices, job choices, opinions, values, biases, judgements, prejudices, superstitions and pet peeves.
Attitudes are formed by beliefs, upbringing and past life experiences. Having a point of view expressed through an attitude makes characters unique because they see the world, and life, through a particular lens. This colours how they react to everything: A character can have attitudes about a myriad of things: Whenever your hero is about to reach a goal, block him, thwart him, injure him, betray him, or otherwise prevent him from getting what he wants or needs. Give your hero pre-existing difficult relationships with many other characters. He already has relationships with many relatives, friends, work mates, acquaintances, and perhaps enemies.
Some of these relationships are freighted with hostility, disagreement, pain, misunderstanding and other emotions. By showing such relationships you deepen your character, make him more human and relatable, and help to make his motivations clearer. By increasing the relatedness of the characters to each other, you also increase the potential for conflict between them. An inveterate womaniser might think of himself as charming and attractive, whereas others know him to be a creepy sleazebag. Even the most exceptional people are bad at some things — besides, a protagonist who is good at everything would be insufferable.
By making your protagonist a complete duffer at something, you make him seem more human and real. You can also make his goal more difficult to achieve by using this weakness against him. Obsessed characters are driven.
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This creates conflict and urgency, and reveals character. The obsession can also be used against your hero. Make sure that these things are constantly under threat see Wendig. List the things that matter most to your hero, then rob him of them one by one. Some things may merely be lost or stolen, in which case your hero may decide to try and recover them. Other things may be destroyed, forcing your hero to deal with her loss.
List the aspects that make your hero who he is: Then, through the various disasters of the story, undermine every aspect of himself until your hero is forced to question who he is. How does he recreate himself, and how different is he afterwards? Everything she believed about her origins, her family, her upbringing or whatever, is revealed to have been a lie. What does she do? Force your character to lie and see the conflict escalate. Will her lies be believed, and if so, how much more deception will it spawn before her duplicity is revealed?
And how much will she sweat, knowing that she must eventually be exposed? Let your hero be lied to.
What vital decisions will she make based on false information — and how disastrous will the consequences be? Have your hero make bad decisions based on a misunderstanding. Have your hero form two important goals which turn out to be in conflict — if he goes after the first he must abandon the second.
Using dramatic irony, make your readers squirm by showing your hero making what they know to be a disastrous decision. Or have your hero refuse to listen to reason. Then show the terrible consequences, and the impact on your hero when he realises his folly. Allow your characters to be as flawed as you and me. Show their reasoning before a big decision is made, using all their experience and weighing all the evidence in front of them, then making a decision that they believe is the right one, but turns out to be a disaster.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , Harry insists on going to the Ministry of Magic to save his godfather, Sirius, despite many arguments to the contrary. Heighten the conflict by making it almost impossible to save them. Make sure you hero has plenty of quirks, foibles, blind spots and failings — anger or violence issues, addictions, prejudices and so on — then use them against him.
Every character has a past. Give them a deadline, then shorten it. Foreshadow the confrontation to come. Weaknesses can include physical, mental or psychological handicaps, fears and phobias.
Remind yourself that those passions are life, life to you and to anyone else who reads your words. It may also cause her to: He hates me — really hates me. As an exercise, list your closest friends. Give them a deadline, then shorten it.
Characters who have a destiny eg to become king, president of the company, leader of the revolution, or sporting legend are interesting because readers want to know if the character will achieve his destiny, or fail — and either way, what the consequences will be for him and others. A destiny can be positive, or an unbearable burden, or a terrible threat. Make it worse — and even worse. But why would you want to? Because character is revealed not in good times but in adversity.
The worse you can make it for the hero, the greater the conflict, more his true character will be revealed by what he does and the more the reader will engage with his plight and his quest. Bell, James Scott Probably the best book on the topic of plot and structure. Also a great book; a wealth of practical info and examples. John D Brown Key Conditions for Reader Suspense part article. An excellent series of articles. No one has ever explained the craft of storytelling more clearly or simply. Writing for Emotional Impact. Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint. Excellent book on these topics.
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