Why Can't They Just Get Along? A quick secret about writing conflict

Why Can't They Just Get Along?
A quick secret about writing conflict
by
Karin Story

Not long ago on one of my email lists, one of my writing pals was telling us that the previous night she'd run a new story idea by her critique partners. They told her she had a lovely plot, nice characters, enchanting settings...but no conflict. "Do I have to write conflict?" she groaned to us. "Can't the characters just get along?" She said this tongue in cheek. She's an experienced writer and knows the importance of conflict. But knowing you need it is one thing. Being able to pin down what it is, on the other hand, can be surprisingly difficult both for beginners and those with several books under their belt.

Many years ago, when I first started writing, I went through a long phase of feeling the same as my conflict-less friend. Why can't the characters just get along with one another? And, as individuals, why can't life run smoothly for them? I used to get downright cranky when someone told me my characters were "too nice." I would stomp my foot and demand that someone tell me WHY the hero and heroine always had to fight. You see, I thought conflict was when the hero and heroine snapped, snarled and glared at each other throughout the book. I was up on a serious soapbox about how I was NOT going to write books like that. If that was conflict, I didn't want any part of it. No way. Uh uh. Never.

So I wrote my gosh darned characters my way. I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages with my characters doing things "my way." My characters never snapped at each other. They looked at each other with goo-goo eyes and had friendly, rational conversations, and they helped each other, and most importantly they liked each other. (They also had quiet movie nights at home, long leisurely dinners where they chatted about work, and they went shopping...you can begin to see the pattern here, can't you?) I was really quite smug about it all. I was going to show the world how it was done, how to write great stories with nice, friendly, getting-along-together characters.

But finally (I can't say for sure when it happened) I began to realize that my stories were, well, kind of boring. And I also started to realize that the passages of writing that really pulled me in emotionally weren't when the characters were "being nice," but rather when they were struggling against adversity. I know, I know, I said I wasn't going to write adversity. But when I gave the characters their lead and let them tell the story their way, difficulties seemed to arise in spite of my good intentions. Like the hero who was suddenly faced with having to choose between saving the world and saving the life of the woman he loved. Naturally, this not only led to an internal struggle for him, but to problems with the heroine as well. That's when I finally started to realize that "conflict" didn't necessarily mean snap, snarl, glare. Real conflict meant taking the hero's (or heroine's) worst fear, twisting it around and making it particularly nasty, then throwing it back at him (or her) at the worst possible moment and saying, "Here, baby, think fast!"

Give your characters flaws. Give them fears. Then make them face those fears in the book. If your heroine is terrified of the dark, make sure the only way she can save a child's life, or the hero's life, is to find her way through a dark cavern. If your hero is terrified of loving because everyone he's ever loved has died, make sure the heroine works in a high-risk job where she's in more danger than the average human being.

Needless to say, I long ago tossed out every page of quiet movie nights, long dinners, shopping, and goo-goo eyes. And now...I confess, I'm downright cruel. Heh, heh, heh. I'm forever putting my characters into situations where they are confronted with their worst fears, and they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I love saying to them (as I cackle with glee), "Too bad. Choose!" Because, you see, it's those tough decisions our characters have to make that define them as true heroes and heroines. They don't always know if their decisions are going to give them what they dream of, and that is exactly what keeps a reader on the edge of her chair turning pages.

Go ahead, torture your characters! They won't love you for it, but your readers will!

You can read Karin's most recent tortured hero and heroine in her young adult romance, LONELY HEART. In the meantime, she's currently at work thinking up new and deliciously wicked conflicts for the characters in her current project, a romantic adventure/suspense due out in December 2002 called SHADOWS OF RAGE. Please visit Karin on the web at: www.karinstory.com