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Conflict! My thoughts on Why most authors use politics

 
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DragonWolf_keny
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 8:18 pm    Post subject: Conflict! My thoughts on Why most authors use politics Reply with quote

most authors use politics to avoid boring plot development. So I guess I'm really curious as why that is?

Most tales worth telling involve at least some form of conflict. Even if it is something trivial, somebody is willing to start a war over it. Most authors use this to keep a story from being too boring. But I like to ask myself, why? Why does my story have to be about conflict? If I can be interesting but still benign why cant I right about it?

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Rabbit
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The generic answer is that you _can't_ be interesting without conflict of some kind. Or at least 99.9% of us can't. I certainly belong to the majority, in this regard.

I've never in my life read an interesting story that wasn't based around some sort of conflict, that I can recall. And, given my interest in these matters, I suspect that if I had, I'd remember it.
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Nameless
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Put simply, every story is about conflict. Unless of course you're doing something weird like write a story about two people doing nothing but sit in front of the TV all day. Of course, even there they might fight over the remote.

Conflict is what makes a story interesting. It doesn't have to be external conflict (like a war), it can be an internal conflict of the protagonist or whatever. In general it is difficult to avoid external conflicts of some kind in a story and in any case internal conflict is usually driven by the needs imposed by external conflict.

Conflict doesn't have to be violent (like war), the normal struggles of daily life count as conflict for this just as well, but repetitive struggles tend to get boring after a time, at least if you're only reading about them and not experiencing them yourself.

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DragonWolf_keny
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think I mostly agree. conflict is that which makes a story. but even a boring event can be made interesting if it is followed by a conflict.

think about it, how does Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy start? some boring bloke losses his home, then some outrageous stuff happens and well suddenly he isn't boring anymore. this way conflict seems to be the payoff for sitting through the boring part.

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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 6:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

DragonWolf_keny wrote:
think about it, how does Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy start? some boring bloke losses his home,

Conflict! If you remember, Arthur was pretty upset at the time.

DragonWolf_keny wrote:
then some outrageous stuff happens

Right, more conflict. Such as the Vogons wanting to eject the Arthur and Ford into the vacuum of space.

DragonWolf_keny wrote:
and well suddenly he isn't boring anymore.

Yes, but consider why that is: conflict.

DragonWolf_keny wrote:
this way conflict seems to be the payoff for sitting through the boring part.

I will agree that the opening to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy isn't the best.
Douglas Adams wrote:
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Hitchhiker's goes on in this mildly interesting way for about two pages till it gets to chapter 1, then we get another page that's only slightly interesting. It's not until the fourth page that something happens.

There's the hint the story might be interesting in that first sentence: "unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy." One could wonder who might find it unfashionable. But how many people who'd never heard of the book picked it up, read a few paragraphs, then set it back on the shelf?

I think one reason the book worked with such a low key opening is because it was a BBC radio play before it was a book, so there was a ready-made audience. Plus the rest of the book is brilliant, if you like that sort of thing, and it sold by word of mouth.

Another reason the book worked is subtle. Readers like to know what a book is about. Not stuff like characters and plot, but stuff like what sort of emotional payoff can they expect from the book? When a book promises the reader up front--and it manages to deliver on that promise--then the readers who pick it up, read a few paragraphs, and take it to the cash register--will be satisfied at the final page and recommend the book to their like-minded friends. One only needs to read about half that first page to know the book is about the absurd. The promise of that first page is that if you read the book, you'll be treated to the absurd twists and turns of the author's imagination.

But Hitchhiker's is still full of conflict--that's the engine that drives the story from one absurd event to the next.


There's a writing style amongst the newbies that could be characterized as, "A day in the life." The main character wakes up in the morning, goes about her day, and that night lies down again. This works if the author manages to insert some interesting events into that day. If you think about it, most people lead pretty safe and boring lives. They already have their own safe and boring life so why would they want to read about someone else's safe and boring life?

The antidote to the reader's safe and boring is a story full of excitement. And excitement is born from conflict.

Even when exciting things happen that day, it will be necessary for the author to skip over the boring bits--such as walking out to the curb, getting in the car, fiddling with the rear view mirror, putting their key in the ignition, etc. Unless of course the reader watched the villain plant a bomb in the car during the previous scene. But no bomb? Then skip right to the part where the character is at her destination.

The trick is to decide what the story will promise the reader, then construct the plot and characters so they fulfill that promise, and finally to make sure every scene moves the story along the plot. Some people do this at planning and some do it during editing. Doesn't matter just use what works for you.

Scotty

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DragonWolf_keny
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree conflict is necessary for a story to keep interest. I was only using the work as an example. I'm not an avid fan the movie but the book was a rather cool read.

let get back to the my thoughts part of the thread title Razz

I think most commonly the overall subject of conflicts are usually political in nature. politics are always being used somewhere in a story to drive the plot line somewhere.

take star wars for example it is rather political, but power and it's misuse is more personal than political in my opinion.

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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:16 am    Post subject: Re: Conflict! My thoughts on Why most authors use politics Reply with quote

DragonWolf_keny wrote:
I think most commonly the overall subject of conflicts are usually political in nature. politics are always being used somewhere in a story to drive the plot line somewhere.

Politics is one-on-one interaction scaled up to groups. So there is a range of interactions available and politics is only at one end of that range. Personally, I prefer the more personal story, such as two guys shipwrecked on a beach fighting over the last can of Spam.

DragonWolf_keny wrote:
But I like to ask myself, why? Why does my story have to be about conflict? If I can be interesting but still benign why cant I right about it?

Several have answered why your idea won't work, but I'm going to tell you how to make such a story work.

Your writing must be impeccable. An insanely fantastic interplay of words and punctuation that flows, gurgles, and dances about the brains of your readers.

Accomplish this and your story can be about nothing and there will be some editors who will buy it, and some readers who will read it. Such a story is called "modern literary", or just "literary", I like to add "modern" because there was already a "literary" genre before some folks got all worked up about beautiful words.

The New Yorker buys and publishes such stories. If you're ever stuck in a jury selection room waiting to be called, pick up a New Yorker (magazine) and start reading.

Today I seldom waste my time with such stories. Sure, a couple of years ago I tried to read one of Mervin Peake's novels. I must admit, the instant I started reading I was jealous. "My god, but I wish I could write like Peake!" However, after a few pages of relentlessly beautiful prose, I changed my mind. It may have been beautiful, but it was mind-numbingly boring.

Funny thing, there was conflict in Peake's novel. But by the end of the novel nothing had really changed--except for the birth of a baby prince. The villain had committed what amounted to vandalism, and the butler killed the cook, but other than the butler and cook no one in the story seemed to care that any of those things happened.

So while conflict is important in a story that the average reader will find interesting--it's critical that the characters care about the conflict. And it's critical that the author care about the characters or the readers will pick up on that. If you don't care, the readers won't care.


BTW, I have an outline for a yet unwritten short story about a novelist who is upset with his critique group because they all said his manuscript was junk because it lacked conflict. Who he is and what he's trying to accomplish with a no-conflict novel is the crux of the story.


Scotty

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