Over the next few (Cheryl) posts, we’re going to discuss things that can tragically go wrong with your plot and give you some tips on how to fix them. Number one on the hit parade is lack of conflict.
Lack of conflict can cripple your plot
Conflict is vital to a story. Without it, there is no character change. Without change, with its accompanying tension, why should your reader care?
Conflict is the fuel that feeds the plot and makes the character take action he normally wouldn’t. In his everyday life, the reader avoids conflict, but she can live vicariously through your character, taking on demons, saving the world from Armageddon, or simply falling in love. She’ll get caught up in the protagonist’s problems, understand his motives, celebrate his successes and commiserate with his losses. She wants your character to struggle and come out victorious, a better, stronger person.
Conflict should be twofold, external and internal. The external is the easy part. Villains are fun to write, and their goals, just as important as the protagonist’s, push the protagonist into making choices with uglier and uglier consequences. An antagonist will force a normal person beyond his comfort zone, stretching him beyond what he thought himself capable of doing. Even if your external conflict isn’t a person, if it’s the weather, an earthquake, a tsunami, it should be a major obstacle between the protagonist and his goal.
The internal conflict is harder to writer, but you shouldn’t shy away from it. The protagonist needs to call on reserves he didn’t know he possessed, to question his values, to face his internal demons. Would “Vertigo” have been the same movie if Jimmy Stewart, as Scottie Ferguson, hadn’t climbed to the bell tower in search of the woman he’d loved and lost? Would “Rocky” be the same if Rocky Balboa had continued to not believe in himself? The literary and film worlds are filled with examples of ordinary people who have overcome their greatest fears and triumphed.
Be on the watch for serial conflict, whereby the problem in Chapter 1 is resolved in Chapter 3, to be replaced by another short-lived problem, a virtual string of pearls, until the end of the book. You need to write an ongoing problem that grows deeper and deeper and continues to make life miserable for your protagonist.
Also stay clear of incoherent conflict, thrown into a story to spice it up, but in reality, have nothing to do with the character, his journey, and what he needs to do to get to his goal. It’s distracting, the reader won’t buy into it, and soon, he’ll forgo your book for someone else’s.
For more on conflict, visit The Princess Bride Guide to Character Conflict.
I’ll be back Wednesday to talk about beginnings, sagging middles and climatic endings.
Keep safe until then.
Cheryl
