“I wanted it to go smooth. Why don’t it ever go smooth?” — Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly
Last month I posted about throwing too many obstacles at our characters. Even at the risk of repeating myself, today I’m going to consider the importance of these obstacles in the plot and why its just as dangerous to have too few as to have too many.
If there’s one story element people love, it’s a will-they-or-won’t-they romance. Jim and Pam, Booth and Brennan, Ross and Rachel, Mulder and Scully, Niles and Daphne — look, just go here. (Warning: TVTropes, you will fall into this website and not crawl out again for hours.) The reason why this element works so well is because it’s an easy way to create conflict. And there are so many things that could hold a couple back from getting together that the conflict gets old. There’s a reason why people lose interest when couples get together. It’s just not as interesting to watch a couple in love as it is to watched two people dance around each other. (Look up the TV show Moonlighting for an example — a lot of people blame its demise on the main couple finally hooking up, but a variety of things contributed to its cancellation.)
Anyway, the point is that conflict is interesting. No one wants to read the book or watch the movie in which Frank gets up, goes to work, comes home, and goes to bed. They want to read about Frank being attacked by a zombie dinosaur. Or derailing the assassination of a local restaurant franchise owner. Or something.
One conflict isn’t enough, though, to make a whole book. It’s a start, but if Frank is able to defeat the zombie dinosaur without breaking a sweat, then the story is over and it hasn’t lived up to the full potential of what it could be. It makes a better story if Frank has to deal with failure, jump through hoops, travel the ends of the earth, overcome hardship and loss, and run for his life first. The depths of Frank’s character and situation can be completely explored. So don’t be afraid to look at what your character wants, dissect the plans he’s got underway, pick out the worst thing that could possibly happen, and then MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Chuck Wendig (who is a master of writing advice and has great things to say about plot in general) suggests looking at conflict in this way:
“Whenever your character reaches for That Thing He Wants (a girl, a cookie, world peace, a leprechaun’s little hat), slap his face. Throw a tiger in his path. Chop off his hand. Thwart his every grope for the brass ring. That said, don’t let your story become torture porn. A character needs smaller iterative successes to match the longer, larger failures. ‘I didn’t get the leprechaun’s hat, but I got one of his little shoes. We can use it to track him.’” (link)
He says it better than I do, but the point is the same. Conflict makes plot more exciting. Emotional resonance is born of conflict. We all like to see our favorite characters suffer a little in order to win the prize at the end of the story. In fact, watching them deal with the problems that they have to overcome probably makes up love them more.
(image copyright Fox Broadcasting Company, used without permission)
Love that quote with Mr. Wendig! And I totally agree with this article and the one from last time.
I just read The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, and it was one that sometimes felt like torture porn in terms of bad thing after bad thing…sometimes ASOIAF can feel like that too. But even those stories will sometimes have little, very, very tiny successes, which is why I think I can continue with them at all.
And you can always tell when a writer didn't throw enough challenges at the characters – those are the books that tend to be boring.
Yes, I totally agree about ASoIaF. It's the kind of series that will break your heart into itty-bitty pieces and then set the pieces on fire.
I'm not good enough about being mean to my own characters, and so my conflict is usually pretty dull. Working on it, though!