Demons without, demons within: the conflict in our stories

Author Jaye Wells didn’t mince words on her visit to a recent Writers Guild of Texas meeting. “All stories need conflict!” she proclaimed, noting that the reason editors report rejecting 90 percent of the manuscripts they receive is because “nothing happens!” 

Were we starting to get smug, each of us telling ourselves, “but lots of stuff happens in my stories. My characters run around like Energizer bunnies on meth?” 

But do those plot bunnies ever learn, do they ever grow, do they ever change? Or are they doomed to run endlessly around a track?

As Wells said, “External conflicts are common in genre, i.e., plot-driven fiction. Internal conflict relates to a hero’s mores, doubts and fears. The best stories, the most memorable stories,” balance both external action and the characters’ internal conflict – the metaphorical demons a hero/heroine must battle in order to grow.

Think back to the character building worksheets from last week’s post, which list not only characters physical descriptions, but the main qualities that define those characters, their beliefs and values. How have they been embarrassed, how have they failed, how have they been humiliated?

In Wells’ terms, what psychic and emotional wounds have they suffered that make them long for healing?

image: pixabay

Then consider the moral crisis that defines the book, and what challenges those defining characteristics, what makes those wounds ache unbearably?

Now, we’ve got internal conflict, which, Wells said, should give the characters, good or bad, a chance to become “authentically themselves. . . Even a terrible character, a villain, will have deep wounds and longings.”

Although literary fiction tends to be more character-driven, genre fiction more plot-driven, not even genre writers can slight character development. “It’s what makes your character memorable, even if readers can’t remember all the plot points. The more shallow your understanding of your character, the more shallow your story will be.”

Her term for the character’s emotional/psychic arc: “an internal plot.”

Fictional characters (like living human beings) are notoriously prone to believe that if they only have some external good – if they get rich, if they win the race, get the promotion, become famous – just name it – their inner longings will be healed. 

Wells terms these, “self-limiting beliefs – the lies you tell yourself, that if you receive something external, your ‘wound’ will be healed.” These external goals that drive the external plot of a story are often, in fact usually, at odds with what the character most needs. 

“Know your character’s lie,” Well told her audience. “Most characters should be lying to themselves at the beginning of the story.”

The “dark night of the soul” – a term possibly coined by the late screenwriter Blake Snyder of Save the Cat! fame – is the point in a story arc at which a character realizes that pursuit of the external goal will not assuage the inner wound. Although the internal and external plots may have been interwoven throughout the book, the one point at which the two must mesh is the “dark night of the soul” moment immediately before the climax.

Now the hero must either renounce the external goal – in Wells’ words, “face up to the lie in order to win,” or continue the pursuit despite the increasingly-obvious tragedy of its consequences.

The writer’s job, Wells said, is to ask herself, “What can I do to my characters to make the grow?”

Wordcraft -- Where did I park my plot?

Reading an overflowing inbox of stories for back to back writing workshops left me with an overriding question. Too often, after reading five, ten, even twenty pages of a novel, I had no idea where the story was going.

And these aren’t the only writers suffering from missing plot syndrome. The fearsome gong show at this spring’s DFW Writers Conference included more than one opening page that left agents asking, but what’s it about?

I think it’s a symptom of a deeper problem -- fear of foundering under all the freight the opening of a story must carry. In his guide to writing, Plot & Structure, suspense writer James Scott Bell tells us the beginning of a novel must “get the reader hooked.” Oh, and establish a sympathetic lead character, provide setting and context, set the story‘s tone, provide compelling reasons for the reader to keep reading, and introduce the opposition. No wonder we freeze.

Screenwriting guru Dan Decker complained in his Anatomy of a Screenplay that “novelists can write and write and write” while screenwriters are bound by predetermined lengths, and Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! guide to screenwriting insisted on setting, theme, and character within the first ten pages (translating to the first ten minutes of screen time). But even though books have longer page counts than screenplays, I’ve heard the same ten page limit mentioned by agents looking for novels. If they don’t say: first page.

Here’s a suggestion to get that plot moving -- open with the main character. Then add the problem she must solve. Practice to see how close you can get the two together.

Remember the character’s problem is not that she’s in a new school or at a new job or on a battlefield. Her problem is not that she’s unhappy or has a crazy family. It’s not even the antagonist, although he’s important, too. The problem is something specific and concrete, something potentially solvable, with enough power to draw her through an entire story.

Want an example? “Elizabeth Ferguson looked around at the Saturday-morning comings and goings of townspeople, and saw parents who had lost or were losing their kids, kids who had lost or were losing their minds.” That’s on the first page of Anne LaMott’s Imperfect Birds. Who it’s about -- Elizabeth -- and what it’s about -- the drug problems preying on her community’s children.

But you’re writing genre fiction, you say, and your critique group tells you to start with immediate, violent action. How about this: “I knocked on the green door and knew that in the next five minutes I’d either be dead or I’d have the truth I needed.”

That’s the first sentence of Jeff Abbott’s thriller, The Last Minute. The violent action hasn’t happened yet, although we know it’s coming. But violence is not the character’s real problem. His problem -- what the book will be about -- is his search for a particular truth, a truth he’s willing to knock on the door for, a truth he’s willing to die for.

A final example, this one from Linda Castillo’s mystery, Gone Missing. “My mamm once me that some places are too beautiful for anything bad to happen. . . I had no way of knowing that some predators come from within and beauty has absolutely nothing to do with the crimes men commit.” Now you know the essence of the entire book about crime within the Amish community.

  

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Next Monday, guest blogger Julianne McCullagh brings news from this year’s Mayborn Conference sponsored by the school of journalism at the University of North Texas. Her writing has appeared in Loyola Press and the Mayborn’s Best of the West anthology.

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Looking for a small press? After two years of publishing only nonfiction, Arizona press Moonlight Mesa Associates will start accepting fiction manuscripts this fall, probably in September, publisher Becky Coffield reports. See www.moonlightmesaassociates.com/ for details.

Wordcraft -- Character: The likeability factor

I''ve lost the likeable character lottery -- again, after being turned down for the Sword & Sorceress anthology with a rejection letter from editor Elisabeth Waters that said, "This is a perfectly good story, but. . . "

Hey, wait!  She didn't actually say the characters were unlikeable, did she?  But I'd better turn to those who can write with more authority on the magic that makes a character -- specifically the main character, the protagonist -- someone readers (and that includes editors) will want to spend their valuable time with.

One of my favorite books adddressing this subject is the late Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat!"  Not least because it makes me laugh.  Although it's aimed at screenwriters, his discussion of story structure and character can apply to other forms of writing.  As he describes the concept, the "save the cat" scene is "the scene where we meet the hero and the hero does something -- like saving a cat -- that defines who he is and makes us, the audience, like him. . . . You must take the time to frame the hero's situation in a way that makes us root for him, no matter who he is or what he does."

Or as writer and agent Donald Maass puts it in his "Fire in Fiction," our job as writers is to create a bond between our readers and our protagonist.  And that's an immediate bond, on the first page if possible, not the last page or hidden in the depths of the story.  To do this, he said, we must give the readers a reason to care.

I love and care about all my characters, as you love and care for yours.  They're the children of our imagination.  And like good parents, we love our children no matter how weird or naughtly or -- let's be frank -- how unloveable they can sometimes be.  But passing out snapshots of our kids at their unloveable moments isn't going to make random strangers care about them.  We need to show pictures of the kids at their best, remembering that their best may be when they're soaked in sweat and mud.

Show the picture of her standing up for a bullied friend.  Or the one of him hugging his brother instead of hitting him.

In Maass's words, "Demonstrating a character trait that is inspiring does cause readers to open their hearts."

(While pondering editor Waters's words, I read fellow blogger Deborah Walker's wickedly funny post "Rejectomancy," about finding meaning in rejections.  See her post at http://deborahwalkersbibliography.blogspot.com/  Next Wednesday:  "The Passage" author Justin Cronin tells us what it's like to get a multimillion dollar advance for a novel -- and what happens next.)
 

Just tell me a story about a guy who. . .

In looking over previous posts, I wonder if I’ve put too much emphasis on the elements of a scene and slighted the importance of character.  Even though I don’t write screenplays, I love the late Blake Snyder’s guide to screenwriting, “Save the Cat!” for his insistence that a movie (for “movie,” substitute “any fiction”) has to be about someone.  As he credited his father with saying, “Tell me a story about a guy who. . .”  Of course, it doesn’t have to a literal guy.  It can be a woman, a child, or as we fantasy and science fiction writers know, a sentient robot – any character that you and your readers can identify with.

I also sympathize with Snyder for admitting that he usually got an idea first and then had to come up with a lead character to carry that theme.  So where does a writer – you, for instance – come up with a character to match those story elements you drew from your ideas folder?  For novels, I use a seven-phase, multipage character worksheet I got in a creative writing class at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, although I don’t know its ultimate source.  It starts with the character’s ethnic background and ends with a description of what the character will become over the course of the book.

I don’t usually do quite as much for short stories.  But for any fictional characters, I add my secret ingredient – a long, lonely, boring drive with nothing to do except converse with them.  The last conversation occurred during a trip to a destination several counties away.  Somewhere I’ve been so many times I could drive it in my sleep.  But your conversation doesn’t have to happen during a drive.  You could be gardening.  Or doing housework.  Or just daydreaming and goofing off.  Whatever it is, seriously, schedule some time alone with your characters, a date, if you want to think of it that way.  A few hours isn’t too much to ask them to spend with you before a word hits the page.  Only don’t tell your friends you’re dating a sentient robot.

(Although Snyder died in 2009, his website is still out there along with lots of dishing, including a site that says the real way to write a screenplay is to start with, gasp, the character.  Whatever – just tell me a story about a guy who. . . .)