I eeney-meeney-miney-moed the topic for this blog and the tiger's toe today is conflict.
There are a variety of conflict issues to choose from in fiction, but the one I consider most challenging as well as fascinating is inner conflict. This personal battle of the id is core to your character's story arc so it's loads of fun to mess with as you get into your plot.
Whether you begin planning from your story's premise or from its characters, the inner conflict driving a character's actions will be the engine that runs your plot. And it's up to us as authors to use torture as fuel to spur a character into action. Life isn't perfect. People aren't perfect. And readers enjoy reading about real people in pain who struggle with family, lovers, careers, their health, and all the other stuff they can relate to. The deeper an author delves into character, the richer the experience for the reader.
We like our characters. So it isn't easy to turn the knife and send them screaming from scene to scene, but that's what readers want from the fiction they read. I'm exaggerating (as usual), but my point is that no one wants to read about the world of the happy people. B-o-r-i-n-g. There are various degrees of torture from murdering a character's rare orchid worth thousands of dollars to having a character's family member succumb to cancer. Nevertheless, the experience of both examples will influence a character's behavior in the next scene. One bounces off the other, creating another crisis, which yields yet another, and another… The tension increases with each torturous episode in a character's life. And that's what makes a story compelling.
Is it possible to go overboard with inner conflict? Can an author push the envelope too far and end up in the gaudy land of melodrama? What's worse: going too far, or not going far enough?
9 comments:
Great topic and post Karen!
When I write, I find that I fall in love with my main characters too much and then it makes it impossible for me to torture them with too much inner or outer conflict. ARGH!
This is sooo irritating because I cant' move on. But my secondary characters I abuse terribly and then they become the focal point of my story. Does that make sense? It's totally lame! Not to mention frustrating.
Now to your questions...
I'm sure it's possible to go overboard with inner conflict and fall into whiny-ness or melodrama; but inner conflict, done well, is such a great read. Yes, I realize I just stated the obvious. Duh. LOL
But what about external conflict? It makes me think of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. I could only get through the first book and part of the second because of the external torture on the hero Jaime. He was tortured and raped by a man over and over in that book and it was sickening. I felt physically ill while I read that book and I cried profusely during so much of it I had to wonder at myself for finishing it and trying to read the next one. Finally, I just gave up and sold them all to a used book store. I couldn't put myself through the torture of it again. It was so physically and mentally draining, it wasn't worth it any longer. Does this make sense?
So, heck yeah, authors can go too far for some of us, but for others it's needed. Other readers might need that great inner conflict or external torture to even feel at all. Maybe it's cleansing for some. Know what I mean?
Okay, that's my two cents. I hope it made sense and was what you meant to discuss. LOL
Karen said: "Is it possible to go overboard with inner conflict? Can an author push the envelope too far and end up in the gaudy land of melodrama? What's worse: going too far, or not going far enough?"
Karen--Hmm...
That's a hard one to answer. No inner conflict and the character is a cardboard cut out. Even happy people suffer conflict, don't you think? It's part of being human. And the depth of the conflict is open to how a character perceives their problem, right? So a child worried about a lost kitten and a woman worried about a lump in her breast might both share the same amount of conflict, at least as far as they are capable of perceiving it.
On the other hand, too much inner conflict can lead to melodrama, just as you said, and then you risk suspending your reader's belief. Romance is not fantasy and people approach it with certain expectations and one of them is that they will read about people much like themselves. Maybe bigger, better, stronger, prettier, etc with more interesting problems than ho-hum life, but people they can relate to. You can alienate them when you go too far. (You can also alienate an editor, ask me, I know.)
What do you think Karen?
Alice
Inner conflict- my nemesis!
I can throw all the outer conflict I can find on my characters- it's the inner turmoil I have problems with.
But I do think some writers go too extreme with it in some cases. I don't read whiny, can't get themselves motivated characters. If they have inner conflicts, I want them battling them not sitting around feeling sorry for themselves.
Doesn't really answer your question, but that's how I feel. :)
I think it's possible for inner conflict to be overdone. Melodramatic Perils-of-Pauline type fiction is out of fashion, but torturing characters is still a big hit with readers.
I see what you're saying, Piper, about the literal torture being more than you could handle. It's like some horror fiction that goes over the top. And even some literary fiction that's so intense you want to cry STOP! I felt that way reading The Book of Ruth and also House of Fog. Talk about intense, but both are award-winning novels. So more can be better than less.
Alice's point about pushing believability is so true. It becomes like satire when you pile on the complications to the point of making the reader go, "Oh, come on!"
For instance, let's say, in the spirit of lovely Pauline and her perils, you have a heroine whose daddy died and left her the deed to the ranch and Dastardly Dan threatens to foreclose if she doesn't marry him, but her heart belongs to Duddly and she's carrying his love child, and the fate of the town depends on her keeping the ranch, and her mother lays dying in the hospital and needs a transplant but Pauline doesn't have health insurance and Dastardly Dan will pay for everything if she marries him, blah blah blah. See how over-the-top it can get? Sigh.
That said, there are some readers who love that kind of stuff. But I do believe it's less publishable today than it was 20 years ago.
Karen
Hmmm...interesting topic. I was going to say no, you can't have too much internal conflict (I love tortured characters!), but after reading the other responses, I'm ammending my answer. Yes, melodramatic, whiney characters who do nothing about their inner conflict bug me to no end. I think it depends on the character though. Some characters are not going to be tough and go after what they want. They can debate their internal conflict over and over, it's keeping them from becoming whiney that's the key (IMHO).
I don't like books where the internal conflict drives the story, then love heals all at the end. Sure, love can change your viewpoint on things, but I think the healing of the internal conflict has to come from - where else - within. The main character has to learn something significant about themselves along the way. Not just that they found someone to love them, but that they're capable of being loved and loving in return.
Paty, inner conflict for me is about personal choices characters make based on situations they're faced with. So Pauline faces a multitude of choices, but in comic book fashion. I can just see her swoon.
Inner conflict is a powerful tool for humanizing our characters and making them live on the page. One event can happen to Pauline and it might be enough to trigger a landslide of inner conflicts as it relates to family, self, and her love relationship. Piling all that other stuff in there dilutes the strength of her arc and takes away from the story instead of adding to it. Does that make sense?
Good point, Eli. I don't like whiney characters, either. Their whininess may not be directly related to their inner conflict, but it's their personality and how they choose to respond to conflict that makes them appear weak. Ugh. Who wants to read about someone with such a poor-me response to adversity, though that's probably more true than not in the real world, lol. 8^)
Inner conflict should drive the character to react in a story, but not drive the story itself. That's part of the joy of writing, at least it is for me, to throw something at a character and see what they do with it. Their motivation will come from issues of inner conflict, at least it works that way in my stories. That strong inner conflict, IMO, is what keeps the character true to his or herself and makes them consistent.
Karen
Karen--Write the beleaguered Pauline story you outlined! Sounds great.
I agree with Paty and the others that whiny characters--like their real life counterparts--get old real fast. And I also agree with Piper--reading or watching extreme physical torture is impossible for me. The minute someone is cruel to a child or an animal, I'm out of there. But you do have to embrace the famous cliche--drive your heroine up a tree and keep throwing rocks at her. Or is that outer conflict???
Like Paty, I have had trouble identifying and creating inner conflict. It's getting a little easier as I think of it in terms of how did this character get to be the way they are--what roadblocks did life erect that would would thwart their search for happiness? What must they learn or do to attain their heart's desire (as spoken in romance) true love? What are the emotional obstacles they have created for themselves and how are they going to get past them? I guess we all write wounded characters to some degree.
Eli told me the other day that she loves a character who is denying their inner self. At least, I think that's what she said. What a great inner conflict that makes!
Alice
zfbgtkjSorry I've been such a blog slouch everyone.
I love gritty, tortured characters, a little on the sassy side, and I love to write them too.
Yes, an author oculd go overboard with the torture, I suppose. It seems there's always a death -- a parent, a spouse, a child. Or, like in Disney movies, let's kill the mother.
Sometimes it gets old, yet what am I currently writing? A character whose grandmother just died, whose husband died 10 months previously, her father left when she was two, her mother left when she was in high school and the love of her life dumped her six years before. Tortured.
Man, I hope I'm not melodramatic over the top...
Post a Comment