Conflict

By Vitora

I’ve been in so many role plays that I can’t even name them all—or even all the characters I’ve used (on average, I use one new character per role play). Most of them were started at Starfire’s Redwall Forum, and all—yes, all—of them didn’t go anywhere. They fizzled out after three pages or so.

What was missing? I can answer that in one word: conflict. The characters didn’t do much, and what they did do was in perfect accord with what the other characters were doing.

Bo-ring!

Here’s a little example (actually, I made this up, and it wasn’t easy—I can’t figure out how we managed it so effortlessly) of what a typical Starfire’s—in other words, “host-of-newbies”—role play looked like:

Violet: Violet walked down the path (NOTE: There was so much walking on paths, it wasn’t even funny) and came to a tree. She sat down and opened her pack.

“Mmmm!” the squirrel said, taking out a piece of bread. “Good Redwall food!”

MarlfoxTaggerung: A tall otter strode out of the trees. “Hello, miss,” he said, tipping his tail to his head.

Violet: Violet smiled kindly at the newcomer. “Sit down, please, sir! Have some food.”

MarlfoxTaggerung: “I think I’ll do just that. Thankee, miss,” said the otter. “My name is Jared. What’s yours?”

Violet: “I’m Violet.” The squirrel looked up calmly as the sound of crashing echoed all around them. “Hmm, I wonder what that is?”

MarlfoxTaggerung: Jared shrugged. “Probably just some vermin.”

Ferlor: OOC: Can I join? IC: Two weasels spotted the otter and squirrel.

Violet: OOC: Sure! IC: Violet stood up and said to Jared, “Hey, maybe they’ll try to kill us.”

MarlfoxTaggerung: Again, Jared shrugged. “Let’s get our weapons, just in case. They’re probably not hostile, though.”

Ferlor: One of the weasels came up to them. “I’d fight with you, but I’m too nice…”

Okay, okay. Enough with that sickening mess. (Heh, exaggerating is fuuun!) Now you’re all yawning right now and wondering when I’m going to get to the point of this article, right? Right.

So here’s the deal: if you want good stories, you’ll have to slather a generous amount of conflict over the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mean that you need to have every other sentence be the slaying of a dragon, or an epic battle, or even the execution of a minor character. Dialogue serves quite well as minor conflict. Take, for example, this. It’s a modified version of the above “role play”.

Violet seated herself against a tree. The squirrel glanced up sharply as a tall otter strode out of the trees.

“What do you want?” Violet snapped, teeth bared in a vicious snarl.

The otter took a step backwards, his eyes wide. “N-n-nothin’, marm. Just—”

“Well, get off my territory!” the squirrel growled. The otter suddenly seemed to gather some measure of confidence.

“Don’t you think you can push me around, missy,” he retorted, poking at his own chest with a hefty paw. “Jared’s not one to be shoved around by…girls.”

“Girls?!” Violet shrieked, leaping to her paws and yanking her sword free of its sheath…

A bit over the top, but still—you should see now that dialogue is an excellent tool for adding conflict to the recipe. There are, of course, other methods for adding conflict, but before I go there, I want to let you in on a little secret.

Every work of fiction has its slow moments (save short stories, I suppose, which, if written properly, should be full of action the entire way through). As an author—who creates a work—and a reader—who knows how nasty those slow parts can be…and how one just might skim through those parts, perhaps missing some valuable information (*is guilty*)—you are under obligation to eliminate as many of the jading sections of your story as possible. If that means reordering something so that important facts are dropped by a different character or in a different section of narrative, then so be it. I have read so many works (mostly fan-fiction) in which the writer had completely irrelevant scenes that I completely glossed over that now I double, sometimes even triple, check to make sure that I don’t have any of those.

Another thing to think about is this: “Dialogue in a story is the juiciest parts of the conversation, and those parts alone.” (My writing tutor said that.) It’s so true—I mean, dialogue that sounds like the first example is just plain dumb. Unless you’re planning on dropping a clue that absolutely has to have those exact words as build-up, then delete it. Yep, highlight it and press delete. Keep your dialogue trimmed down to the significant sentences.

All right, back to conflict.

While dialogue is, of course, an excellent tool for adding conflict, it is certainly not the only one. Actions, too, can clash; for instance, a motion by one character can make another character mad. The first example that comes to mind for that is gestures made by someone from a foreign country that mean something quite different in the other person’s culture (did you know that in one African country, sticking your tongue out means you’re declaring war?). Another way that action can cause conflict is—to establish a cartoon picture in your head—when two characters try to run the same way at the same time. Ouch.

And then you can blow that up onto a larger scale. As mentioned earlier, battles, executions, dragon slayings, and an almost infinite host of other big events grab a reader’s attention—but, if sustained for an extended amount of time, they can also make the reader throw down the book or close the Internet page and sit there yawning.

So when you’re writing a story, working on your novel, or posting in a role play, don’t forget one of the most important elements of fiction: conflict. Otherwise…

*snores*