Sparks of Conflict

Conflict is one of the fundamental elements of fiction, according to Janet Burroway, the author of Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft.

"It's fundamental," Burroway writes, "because in literature only trouble is interesting."

Lots of writers, not only Burroway, argue that a story isn't a story without conflict.

But what, exactly, is conflict?

Webster's Third New International Dictionary suggests that the origin of the word "conflict" is from the Latin conflictus--past participle of confligere... to strike together, to fight--and defines "conflict" as follows:

"...a clash, competition, or mutual interference of opposing or incompatible forces or qualities (as ideas, interests, wills); an engagement between men under arms: struggle, contest, fight."

Isn't it interesting that the origin of the word comes from "to strike together," an action which produces sparks that draw our attention immediately?

In terms of story, perhaps the most helpful of these definitions is the idea of conflict as a clash of opposing forces.

It's this clash of opposing forces, suggests Garry Disher in Writing Fiction: An Introduction to the Craft, that is at the heart of storytelling.

"In most traditional stories and novels," Disher writes, "conflict will be one of two kinds: trying against opposition to achieve a goal, or having to choose between two courses of action or values of equal strength. In the case of characters forced to choose, the dilemma is more intense if the choices available are equally undesirable."

Without a struggle on the part of a character, there's nothing to hold our attention. No rising suspense. No dilemma to solve. No clash. No sparks. No trouble.

But, as Disher explains, it's not enough for a character simply to engage in a struggle. The struggle itself must seem important, not only to the characters... but to the readers, as well.

"Conflict will be convincing to readers," writes Disher, "if they can see that it's significant to the characters, and that its outcome is of obvious importance to them--especially when difficult decisions are involved, with the good and bad of one course of action equal to the good and bad of the other."

Conflict isn't necessary to all forms of writing, but it's essential to storytelling because, as Burroway reminds us, in fiction only trouble is interesting.

Conflict, in other words, is the force--the spark--that sets the story in motion.

What's the conflict at the heart of your story, the spark that ignites the reader's interest and holds it from the first page to the last?

Try summing up the conflict in a brief sentence or two.

See if the process of defining the conflict sharpens the story, pulling your reader (and you) even deeper into your character's struggle.

Finding the North Star.

Finding an ending for your story can sometimes feel like searching the sky for the North Star on a cloudy night.

You have a sense of where the star might be... but it's hard to pin-point exactly.

So, how do you go about finding the "right" ending?

Well, some writers say they need to know the ending of their stories before they even begin to put words on paper; others write their stories in order to discover how they end.

Either way, an ending needs to work like a combination lock.

As you write the final scene, the tumbler has to fall into place, opening a new door on the story and allowing you (and, eventually, your readers) to look back at the story--all the way to the beginning--in an illuminating light.

Whether you write knowing your ending or write to discover it, the ending needs to emerge out of your main character's basic desires.

From the very beginning of your story, a character's deepest yearning will point toward the ending, even if the character is unaware of the goal toward which he or she is striving.

Like beginnings, endings are part of the promise that a writer makes to a reader. If that promise is unfulfilled, readers will walk away from the story disappointed and, ultimately, frustrated by the "broken" promise.

What is that promise?

At its heart, the ending promises this: a resolution that brings the reader a sense of satisfaction. The character or characters get what they deserve (either for good or ill); their desires are fulfilled (or unfulfilled) in ways that a reader finds satisfying.

According to Janet Burroway in Writing Fiction, "Whether or not the lives of the characters end, the story does, and we are left with a satisfying sense of completion."

And how does a story arrive at a satisfying sense of completion?

Burroway shares novelist Michael Shaara's definition of story as a power struggle between equal forces, and, about endings, suggests this: "Finally an action will occur that will shift the power irretrievably in one direction."

"The crisis action is the last battle and makes the outcome inevitable," Burroway writes. "There can no longer be any doubt who wins the particular territory--though there can be much doubt about moral victory. When this has happened the conflict ends with a significant and permanent change--which is the definition, in fiction, of a resolution."

Whether an ending shifts power in one direction or another, or serves as the inevitable outcome of a battle over territory (emotional or physical), one thing is certain: endings ultimately need to reflect in a deep way the change a character has undergone since the beginning of the story.

The arc of that change--and the character's gradual growth along that arc--should be able to be traced throughout the story, from beginning to end, with the end reinforcing all that has come before it to shed new light on the arc and on the character's journey.

Perhaps a "true" ending is like the appearance of the North Star once the clouds have cleared.

It sheds a clear light on the direction the characters have been traveling, and, at last, reveals their path in a way that illuminates not only their journey but ours, as well.

Getting Words on Paper.

It's a matter of style, I think, how you write and revise your work.

Word by word, not proceeding until you feel each word is perfect.

Or letting the words pour out in a rush, ignoring form or meaning, just wanting to swim in words.

In her excellent text on writing, Writing Fiction (5th ed.): A Guide to Narrative Craft, Janet Burroway explores the way two writers with very different styles and temperment--Anne LaMott and Annie Dillard--approach the task of getting their words on paper.

LaMott is the author of her own book on writing, Bird by Bird, in which she shares this observation about first drafts: "Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it."

"The first draft is the child's draft," LaMott explains, "where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later."

When she was writing food reviews for California magazine, LaMott relates how she started writing just to get something on paper. "It was almost just typing, just making my fingers move. And the writing would be terrible."

What LaMott found over time is this: "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something--anything--down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft--you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft--you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy."

Annie Dillard, well known for sharing her insights into the writing process in her classic book, The Writing Life, describes her way of getting words down in a much different way.

"When you write, you lay out a line of words," Dillard writes. "The line of words is a miner's pick, a wood-carver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year."

Amazing, isn't it, that so much of this process of getting words on paper is filled with uncertainty... for both LaMott and Dillard?

You can go to sleep thinking what you've got on the page is gold, only to find the next morning that what you thought was gold was really fool's gold.

And knowledge of what you've got on the page only comes with time... as more words accumulate... and as you begin to discover what it is that you're actually writing about.

How you learn what it is that you need to write is different for each writer, as Dillard suggests when she describes these differences.

"The reason to perfect a piece of prose as it progresses," Dillard writes, "to secure each sentence before building on it--is that original writing fashions a form. It unrolls out into nothingness. It grows cell to cell, bole to bough to twig to leaf, any careful word may suggest a route, may begin a strand of metaphor or event out of which much, or all, will develop."

But...

"The reason not to perfect a work as it progresses," Dillard counters, "is that, concomitantly, original work fashions a form the true shape of which it discovers only as it proceeds, so the early strokes are useless, however fine their sheen. Only when a paragraph's role in the context of the whole work is clear can the envisioning writer direct its complexity of detail to strengthen the work's ends."

Do Dillard and LaMott occupy opposing ends of the writing scale? Or are they merely re-affirming in different ways what Babel had to say about the writing process?

Remember Babel's introductory remarks, his admission that his own first drafts were terrible? (See Wordswimmer: Polishing Wood Into Ivory.)

His goal, like LaMott's, was to get something on paper. And then, like Dillard, he would go over each sentence again and again, until he found the words he wanted.

So...where does this leave us? What's the best way to get the words down on paper?

Burroway, in addition to sharing the above excerpts from LaMott's and Dillard's work, offers a comment from William Stafford, a remarkable poet and teacher, that may prove helpful as you begin your own work.

As a way to start writing, Stafford "advised his students to always write to their lowest standards."

Not their highest standards. Their lowest standards.

And Burroway's own advice?

"...remember: Writing is easy. Not writing is hard."

However you must, in whatever way works for you, get the words down.