Conflict

LOCK

There are four elements that will make your foundation solid. I summarize these with the acronym LOCK:

1. Lead worth following
2. Objective (with death overhanging)
3. Confrontation
4. Knock-out ending

Honing Your Lead’s Objective

• What is your Lead character’s primary objective in the novel? Define it. It should be one thing, to get or to get away from.
• How is death involved? Name one kind of death—physical, professional, psychological—that is primary.
• Write a page or two of voice journal (i.e., first-person narration) explaining why death is on the line. Make up any backstory you need to justify this outlook.
• Edit the paragraph into a form that you can place in your novel. For example, you could place some of the first-person narration in dialogue.
• Find a place before the midpoint of Act Two in your novel to place this material.

The reason for this placement is that your character must realize, with full force, what the stakes are before the midpoint. Because after that midpoint he’s totally committed, can’t resign from the action, and must spend the rest of the book in a full throttle attempt to avoid death.

Door Way #1

Something needs to force the Lead character into Act Two, into the death struggle, into the dark world. He wants to stay in Act One if he can. That’s home. That’s safe.

But there’s some occurrence pushing him through a Doorway of No Return. The Lead is forced through the doorway, and—most important of all—the door slams behind him. He is then forced into battle, the conflict, the confrontation, the trouble.

See how that will make the reader worry?

Door Way #2

It’s the event that enables the Lead to engage in the final battle and settle things once and for all. Usually this event is some major clue or discovery that provides the essential information to proceed toward the climax. Or it may be a major setback or crisis that forces the Lead to dig deep and make a final push toward resolution

ACTION AND REACTION

There are two basic beats in fiction: action and reaction. If you understand these dynamics you’ll know 90 percent of what it takes to write scenes packed with conflict and tension.

Remember our definition of a novel: the record of how a character deals with the threat of imminent death. When these stakes are established, you raise a question in the reader’s mind: What things will the character do in order to prevent his death?

The character has to do something. If he doesn’t, death will happen. And your character will be a spineless patsy who lets it happen.

Thus the action element in fiction; that is, a record of those things the character does to gain the objective (which will prevent death).

Thus, in The Fugitive, we see what Richard Kimble does in order to keep from being captured by the law and also to find out who killed his wife.

In The Catcher in the Rye, we see what Holden Caulfield does in order to find authenticity in the world (if he doesn’t, he’ll die inside, and maybe kill himself as well).

What about reaction beats? These are moments, perhaps even whole chapters, where a character is reacting to the events, and feeling or ruminating about them. But these feelings and thoughts must be organic, tied to the overall objective (avoiding death). They will then have tension attached because it’s still an open question whether the character will win and live, or lose and die.

SCENE OPENINGS, Fear and Reaction

Openings-There are, in general, two ways to open a scene:

Establish the location and proceed to the action.

In media res, in “the middle of things,” starting with action and dropping in location details as needed.

FEAR IS THE ESSENCE OF SCENES- especially fear of the unknown

Reflection-When you get to a section of your manuscript where the character is alone, reflecting, do the following:

List all of the story elements that the character is worried about.

1. List life issues the character may have (as when Jesse Stone considers that it might not matter much if he’s killed).
2. Weave those into a long section where the character is observing a setting that does double duty (not the gray, isolated setting for Jesse Stone’s thoughts).
3. Overwrite this section. Put in all the emotion you can.
4. Edit the section down to get just the tone you want.

These reflective passage can be some of the most powerful in your novel. When readers get a look into the conflict within a character, there is an immediate increase in interest.

Why do readers respond emotionally? When does it happen?

Readers respond when the character experiences disequilibrium as a result of his actions—in particular, when he expects change and instead frustration is the result.

Action Scenes

Do This:

Turn to an action scene in your manuscript. This is any scene where your Lead character is after an objective that will help solve the death problem in the story.

• Read your scene over once. Now open up a new document and write for ten minutes without stopping. Write only the inner thoughts of the character. Feel free to explore every aspect of these thoughts: current feelings, philosophies, self-reflection, thoughts about the past, flashback glimpses, and anything else that occurs in the writing. Don’t stop and don’t censor yourself. This is stream of consciousness. Go.
• Put the document aside for at least an hour. You can also wait a day or two, depending on your writing schedule. When you read it over, highlight the lines or words that jump out at you because they are fresh and insightful.
• Put these highlights into your scene. You might combine them into one paragraph or place them strategically throughout. The point is that you get us inside the character’s head.
• Remember, the more intense the action, the more of this style the reader will accept. Be sure the inner life matches the outer intensity.

Chase Scenes

Long a staple of action movies, chase scenes are no less valuable in fiction. They usually occur in thrillers but can appear in any kind of genre if used in the right way.

One can imagine a character-driven novel where the Lead is being followed by someone for an unknown reason. Maybe she’s walking down the street of her hometown and suddenly notices a man following her in the shadows.

Is it some random guy with something on his mind?

Or is it an old friend?

Whoever it is, you can use the chase to increase the sense of dread. You’ll need:

1. The chased
2. The chaser
3. A narrow margin of escape
4. A view of character emotion

Fight Scenes

For a fight scene to work in a novel you need three things:

1. The fighters
2. A closed environment
3. An emotional component

1. Be clear on the motives for your fighters to be engaged in combat.
2. Picture clearly the environment where the fight is taking place. A lot of writers actually map out their fight scenes, looking at the location and charting moves. It’s not a bad practice.
3. Give us a glimpse into the emotions of the POV character in the fight scene. How does he feel about what’s going on even as it’s happening?

Setup Scenes

Even a scene that is a “setup” for other scenes will work if infused with conflict. Don’t ever write a scene that is simply for the purpose of giving information.

1. Look through your manuscript for scenes you wrote primarily to set up other plot points or scenes.
2. Have you left out the conflict?
3. List some possible ways you can add—or intensify—the conflict in the scene.
4. At the very least use dialogue to create a minor argument or back-and-forth between the characters.

Romantic Scenes

Love scenes are great fodder for conflict, and they should be. A love scene where everything is rosy is boring. There needs to be something happening that offers tension.

1. Utilize conflict in any romantic situation.
2. Look to both inside and outside obstacles. Make a list for each and choose which would work best for your purposes.
3. At the very least, employ the fear factor. What is it that each character fears in the passion of the moment?

Comedic Scenes

Comedy needs conflict as much as any other kind of writing.

1. Look at the most dramatic moments in your book. Can you find an opportunity, within those moments, or before and after, to inject a bit of humor?
2. Look to your minor characters. Can you intensify their eccentricities? Remember the grave digger in He is a complete personality. Look to your minor characters and to conflict between them, or between them and your main character.
3. Don’t force it. Let the comedy arise naturally from the situation. Look for places where the trivial can be blown out of proportion.

The Sit-Down Scene

I know you like to sit down and have coffee or tea with your friends and talk pleasantly about many things. But don’t let your characters fall into that trap. In a novel, you don’t ever want just two characters talking.

1. Look through your manuscript and find any scene where two or more characters are sitting and talking.
2. Make a list of ways to inject some conflict.
3. Make a list of ways other characters might add conflict.
4. At the very least, give one of them an inner conflict (based on fear) that keeps him from being perfectly comfortable in the scene.

FLASHBACKS

Flashbacks, by definition, interrupt the forward momentum of the story. So they had better contain enough conflict in and of themselves to sustain reader interest.

CONFLICT AND BACKSTORY

When you reveal some of the character’s backstory, you have the opportunity to do more than explain. You can create a sense of ongoing conflict within the character, with the past as a form of opposition.

Past Guilt

John Harvey is one crime writer who has managed to please both readers and literary critics. It’s easy to see why. In Ash & Bone, retired Detective Inspector Frank Elder must return to action to solve an old case. But life has not gone well for Frank the last few years.

His marriage fell apart. Bad enough. But worse was what happened to his daughter. The guilt haunts Frank s

Past Secrets

In Cornelia Read’s A Field of Darkness, Madeline Dare, a woman from old money and the upper crust, believes her very proper cousin may in fact be the killer of two young women—a crime that had gone unsolved for two decades. Talk about secrets.

But that’s just the start as Maddie sets out to find the truth about what really happened

1. Make a list of the names of your primary and leading secondary characters.
2. Next to each name, list three or four possible secrets they might have. Look especially for secrets that could have an impact on some of the other characters.
3. Choose the best one from each list and brainstorm ways they might come out in dramatic, surprising, or shocking fashion in the novel.
4. Write three or four scenes where a secret is revealed. See if you can work one or more of those scenes into your manuscript.

EMOTIONS IN CONFLICT

1. Find the place in your manuscript where your Lead feels the most intense emotion.
2. Now, what is an emotion that would be in conflict with what the character is feeling? Where does it come from?
3. Write a paragraph in which your Lead feels the opposite emotion in conflict with the intense emotion, and provide a physical action to demonstrate the conflict.

For example:

John exploded with rage. He picked up the hammer and started smashing the furniture. Every stick that reminded him of Mary he whacked.

Converts to something like this:

John exploded with rage. He picked up the hammer. He raised it over the coffee table that had been their first purchase together. And froze. Smashing it would be like smashing the part of his life that had once been good. Killing the memory of love. A memory that was keeping him sane. His gut turned over like a pig on a spit. And then he brought the hammer down with all his might.

INNER THOUGHTS IN CONFLICT

SHOWING AND TELLING EMOTIONS

The Chair Through the Window Exercise

Imagine your Lead character in a nicely appointed room of an admirable home. There is a big bay window looking over an expanse of lawn with some pleasing trees and a blue sky.

Your character picks up a wingback chair and throws it out the window:

• Now why did she do that?
• What caused her to take such an action?
• What emotion compelled her?
• Find that emotion and name it. Then justify it.
• What in her background could explain her doing this?
• What does this emotion tell you about your character that’s new?
• Where can you place a moment of emotion this high in your manuscript?

It doesn’t have to be a scene where she literally throws the chair out the window. But it does have to feel this intense.

What other scenes can you ramp up with emotion now?

Brainstorm answers to those questions, then pick the best answers and find ways to insert them in your novel.

Remember, conflict and suspense do not grip a reader unless and until she bonds with a character. Inner conflict is one of the great bonding agents. Explore deeply the inside of your Lead and give us glimpses of the psychological struggle. If you do, we will turn your pages.

CONFLICT IN DIALOGUE

Until you have that fortieth novel published (and maybe not even then) write compact dialogue with conflict.

The best tools for creating conflict in dialogue are:

1. Orchestration
2. Subtext
3. Opposing agendas
4. Sidestepping
5. Dialogue as weapon
6. Parent-Adult-Child

ORCHESTRATION

The concept of orchestration was covered in chapter three. Remember that great dialogue begins before you write it, with characters you create for contrast.

Pay special attention to how each of your characters sounds. Give them unique voices in your own mind, and that will play out in more conflict on the page. Do this for each main character:

1. Voice journal. Use this to give each character a distinctive sound.
2. A statement, in the character’s voice, of their reason for being in the story.

My name is Sam Gerard and I’m a U.S. Marshal. Why am I in this story? You have to ask? I’m the Big Dog, and I have one job. To bring in fugitives from justice. I don’t care about their case. I don’t care if they say they’re innocent. Hell, they may be! That’s not my job. Don’t tell me it is. I want to catch guys. That’s what I do. I love it. I love my team. And I will not accept failure as an option.

Try it for all major characters. Get to know them as individuals. Find backstory elements that will contrast with the other characters. Look especially at the Big 5:

1. Education
2. Religion
3. Politics
4. Type of work
5. Economic status

. SUBTEXT

A scene should be about more than it is about. On the surface it is what the characters are doing and saying. But underneath the surface, other story deposits are bubbling up toward the top.

You have previous character relationships. This character web might be known to you but not the reader. Not yet. But the way the characters speak with this hidden knowledge will create uncertainty in the scene.

There is backstory, or events that have happened before the scene. You may have written about these events in previous parts of the novel, or they may have occurred before the novel’s time line. But events from the past that affect the present create possibilities for conflict on the surface.

You may also be aware of the theme of your novel. Even if you’re unclear about it, just giving it some thought will automatically offer subtextual elements. List several possibilities of what your book might be about.

OPPOSING AGENDAS

Always know what each character wants in a given scene.

If a character in a scene is just taking up space, give him an agenda or get him out of there. Or cut the scene entirely.

Scenes require conflict or tension, even if it’s subtle.

Before you write the scene, note what it is each character wants.

Then spend a few moments playing with those motivations.

List three other possible motives for each of the characters, then mix and match to decide which ones will make for the best conflict.

It is also important to create tension among allies.

One of the danger points in fiction is when two friends, or people who are at least on the same side, have a talk about what’s going on.

The trouble is there might not be any trouble between them. So much of the dialogue becomes a friendly chat.

This will violate Hitchcock’s axiom, however, so we have to do something about it.

The fastest way to handle it is to make sure there is tension manifested from the start.

Create tension in at least one of the characters, preferably the viewpoint character.

For example, when you have Allison meeting Melissa, her college friend, for coffee, don’t have them sit down and start talking as if nothing’s wrong in the world.

Put the trouble of the story into Allison’s mind and nervous system and make it an impediment to her conversation with Melissa.

In Melissa, place something that might be in opposition to Allison’s needs. Allison needs to ask Melissa’s advice about a crumbling marriage. Maybe Melissa is full of news about her sister’s impending wedding to a wonderful man and gushes about the prospects.

Spend some time brainstorming about the ways two friends or allies can be at odds. Then weave those things into the dialogue.

SIDESTEPPING

You instantly create conflict in dialogue when you avoid “on the nose” responses. On the nose means a direct response, sometimes even echoing the previous line:

“Are you ready to go, dear?” Bob asked.

Notice the ways you can avoid direct response:

1. A statement that is unrelated to the prompting dialogue.
2. Answering a question with a question.
3. A line of dialogue that is going to need some explanation.

Also consider using silence:

“Are you ready to go, dear?” Bob asked.

Sylvia said nothing.

Or use an action response:

“Are you ready to go, dear?” Bob asked.

Sylvia picked up the mirror.

DIALOGUE AS WEAPON

Look for places where you can use dialogue as a weapon, a means for your characters to charge ahead in order to get what they want. Keep in mind that dialogue is action. It’s a physical act used by characters to help them get what they want. If they don’t want anything in a scene, they shouldn’t be there.

Note that not all weapons are explosive. They can be small and sharp, too.

PARENT-ADULT-CHILD

A great tool for creating instant conflict in dialogue is the Parent-Adult-Child model. I first read this idea in Jack Bickham’s Writing Novels That Sell (1989). Bickham, in turn. picked it up from a school of psychology popularized in the book Games People Play by Eric Berne (1964). This school is called Transactional Analysis.

As I explain in Revision & Self-Editing, the theory holds that we tend to occupy roles in life and relationships. The three primary roles are Parent, Adult, and Child (PAC)...

Do This:

1. Look at all of your dialogue exchanges, especially ones that run for a page or more.
2. Analyze what roles the characters think they’re inhabiting.
3. Rework the dialogue by getting each character to be more assertive in their claimed role. (Also note that a character can change roles as a matter of strategy. For example, if the Parent isn’t working, a character might switch to pouting like a Child in order to get his way.)

Much of the dialogue I see in manuscripts seems loose and without real purpose. That is a waste of potential conflict. When you follow the guidelines in this chapter, your dialogue will take on an added verve that agents and editors appreciate.

Theme

DON’T PREACH

But everything must ultimately be filtered through the characters. They should never be only a mouthpiece for you, the author. John Gardner, the novelist and writing teacher, explained it this way:

[W]hen I write a piece of fiction I select my characters and settings and so on because they have a bearing, at least to me, on the old unanswerable philosophical questions. And as I spin out the action, I’m always very concerned with springing discoveries—actual philosophical discoveries. But at the same time I’m concerned—and finally more concerned—with what the discoveries do to the character who makes them, and to the people around him. It’s that that makes me not really a philosopher, but a novelist

But what about Ayn Rand? Her novels are filled with speeches, most notably the long address of John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. Does that work?

For many it does, as continuing sales numbers attest. What this may tell us is that questions of ultimate concern do still matter to a large block of readers. Rand was only trying to fundamentally shift Western Civilization (that’s all!). And a large portion of the reading public gave her a listen.

If you want to write philosophical rants like Rand, you can certainly give it a whirl. But almost always it is best to have the characters truly interacting with each other, not slyly preaching to the reader. So make sure:

1. You make each character a truly complex creation; and
2. Justify every position. That is, each character must have a reason, or motivation, for doing what they are doing. We may not like it, but they believe they are right. You have to make that clear. And you have to be fair.

Then, when the thematic argument breaks out between the characters, it will seem natural and not forced.

One Thing

• Write down the one thing or person you would die for.
• Write a diary entry, for your eyes only, on why this is so. What is it in your past that brought you to this point? Imagine a circumstance where this choice is presented to you. What feelings does it evoke in you to contemplate death for what you have chosen? This is the sort of feeling that is a clue to what your fiction should have pulsing through it.
• Write down five characteristics you most admire in other people.
• Under each of those, write a short paragraph on why you picked that trait. Is there someone you know who exemplifies these?
• Write out your obituary. That’s what I said. Write out what you would want to appear in a story written about your death. No, this is not morbid. It’s one of the best ways to get at the beating heart of your own existence. This is the stuff thematic arguments are made of.

Use the feelings these items evoke and place them in your characters. Note this: Your characters do not have to be exact analogues of you. But when they care about something, it should be with the same ultimate concern you care. Lasting, memorable fiction is about extremes of passion. Those extremes may be controlled by the characters to one degree or another, but they should be running underneath the surface.

Now you’re ready to put ultimate concern in your books.

GUY WITH A GUN

This was a Raymond Chandler idea. If you’re writing along and the going gets dull, he said, just bring in a guy with a gun.

Justify it later.

It’s a great trick (yes, it’s okay to call these things “tricks of the trade.” If you’re angling for a position on the Yale faculty, you can call them “advanced literary operandi”). It brings instant conflict, and juices up your story.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be a literal gun. It can be almost anything:

• An unexpected guest
• Someone from the past
• An upsetting phone call
• An accident
• A process server
• A cop
• A nun
• A con artist
• An animal
• Geraldo Rivera
• A news item
• A death
• A sudden shock (“You’re fired!” or “Will you marry me?”)

And so on. It’s up to you, as always. Try stuff. See what happens. Let the justification come later.

Just continue to think trouble, trouble, trouble. Make it worse. Turn up the heat.

Let conflict come out and play.