Using Conflict in the Short Story

Writing a full-length novel gives one far more leeway to practice the craft of storytelling without the pressure of trying to put all you need to say in 5000-7000 words or less. There just seems to be more anxiety when you attempt to create characters and story lines to fit into a concise, well-developed short story. So much to say, so little space. However, it's an art form that can build a loyal readership, and sometimes even put a few bucks in your bank account if you hit the right publication. At the least, you just might find your work published in an anthology that affords you bragging rights and the opportunity get your name "out there".  

While there are "literary" or "quality" short stories that are based mainly on characterization, most general market short stories require strong conflict to entice a reader to read on. Instead of pondering or musing about a universal condition or truth, or questioning the philosophies of the masses, mainstream short stories need to present a specific conflict.  

The scenes in a short story are used to characterize, to convey information, and most important, to produce conflict, whether that conflict is emotional or physical. Short story conflict has four main elements. 1. There must be a meeting between two opposing forces. 2. There should be exploitation of  the conflict.       3. There should be a suggestion as to the result of the conflict. 4. The conflict should set up the transition to the next scene. 

The meeting between two opposing forces sets up a win or lose situation. Somebody, or something (a force of nature, etc.), wins or loses, concedes a point, is forced into a decision, or brings about a revelation. And in those plot points lies the exploitation of the conflict, and the result, and thus sets the next scene.

There are three plot reasons for conflict: To eliminate an opponent, to overcome an obstacle (physical or mental), or to divert disaster. And although it's been said that there are only three plots to choose from, there are many variations for which conflict is possible.
Man against man.
Man against men (war).
Man against woman.
Woman against man.
Woman against woman.
Man against nature.
Man against disaster.
Man against environment.
Man against himself.

 Short story scenes are created for conflict in each stage.
Beginning: 
1. Set the scene.
2. Introduce characters, pertinent information, and point of view.
3. Suggest the type of story it is through tone, style, and voice.
4. Relay background circumstances which led to the conflict.
5. Use a narrative hook to raise interest in the protagonist's welfare.
Middle:
1. Present the complication.
2. Relay the series of efforts and attempts to solve the complications, and the failures to do so.
3. Present a situation that suggests a failed resolution of the conflict that convinces the reader that there is no hope of a satisfactory solution.
4. Present a decision that will point to the solution of the conflict, and put that decision into play.
End:
The decision and the solution must be satisfactory and believable to the reader.

There's a lot that goes into a successful short story, but if you break it down into manageable components, 5000 words is no harder than 80,000 words.

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story."
                                                                                  Toni Morrison  

What Kind of Driver Are You?

"If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." Toni Morrison.

Great advice, but what kind of novel do you want to write? In addition to choosing your genre, you also have to decide whether you want to spend more writing hours working on your exciting plot, or on those fascinating characters that live in your head. Often, your chosen genre dictates the structure of the book, but sometimes the lines can cross.

Although literary purists would say that you need to focus on one or the other, it's perfectly acceptable to blend the character-driven story with the plot-driven one. The key is balance.

A plot-driven novel focuses on the anticipation and excitement of what happens next. It involves physical events, and unexpected twists. There are often large-scale concepts involved in this type of novel. Like car crashes and kidnappings, aliens and avalanches.

Adventure, fantasy, horror, sci-fi, crime, and mystery novels are most often plot-driven stories. They are external, and considered commercial fiction by agents, editors, and publishers.

In a character-driven novel, readers connect with people like themselves, how they would or would not like to be seen. These are emotional stories and don't need a complex plot to progress from beginning to end. Of course, there is still a plot but it is based on character growth and change. There are goals and personal issues to resolve in a character-driven novel. Characters usually have to overcome obstacles to their happiness, and plot happens because of a character's desires, deeds, and needs. Decisions are made, whether they are right or wrong, and there is more internal conflict than there is action.

Romance, coming-of-age, friendship, and family novels are character-driven and are usually considered literary novels.

But there are no longer concrete rules for fiction, as in the past. Today's fiction often incorporates both types of stories in one. It's okay to create a story wherein you display your character's most intense emotions and psychological traits with an active plot that highlights their soul's journey. There's no reason your "hard-boiled" detective can't sign up for meditation classes, and you won't commit literary sin if your introspective, mousy librarian transforms into a kick-ass roller-derby gal on Friday nights.

 As writers, I believe we write what we enjoy reading. The kind of book you should write is probably sitting on your bedside table right now.

How to "Raise" a Character

Characters don't need quite as much as your real children. For instance, you don't have to take them to the dentist, or rent bouncy houses for their birthdays.

But you do have to give them gifts. You have to endow them with the same kinds of interesting qualities as your kids might display as they grow. Some of these things are probably not qualities you would wish for your own children, but who's to say she won't give up that stoner boyfriend with the bad haircut and no job or driver's license on her own? Or that your son might actually attend a classes at the community college he enrolled in because he didn't want to go away to an Ivy League school and leave his gamer buds behind?

Oh. Wait . . . Never mind.

Anyway, your characters are going to have to have things.

Here's a list of five things your characters should have.

Personality.
Flat, dull characters don't sell novels. Scarlet O'Hara wasn't flat or dull. She was unique, complex. She had contradictory traits. Characters need to be strong-minded, outspoken, but hiding insecurities. Genteel, but with an iron will.
Bashful, but charming. Characters are people, we have personalities.

Interests.
Personality is nothing without interests. A character who doesn't read books, jog, collect teapots, study philosophy, love game shows, paint portraits, enjoy scuba diving, or has a passion for something, is not a character I want to hang out with for 300 pages.

History.
Humans are the products of their environments. And their upbringing or past circumstances. A person's history plays a large part in how that person thinks and feels. A child who grows up in a ghetto with abusive parents will probably have a far different outlook than one who has grown up in a blue-collar home with conscientious parents. While it's true that violent or deviant characters can simply be born violent or deviant, background and history will still dictate much of that character's story. Give your characters a history, it will affect their reactions to what happens to them in your story. Their history will reflect in their situations.

Goal.
Give your characters something to work toward; whether the goal is good or bad, depends on who they are. Obviously, if the character is a bad guy, his goal is to get rid of the good guy. Or vice-versa. A character who is poor can want to reach a goal of having money. Or a would-be lover will work toward capturing the heart of his perfect lady. Give your protagonist something to want. A goal creates motivation.

Obstacles.
Nobody would read a book where the pretty protagonist grew up in a happy home, became head cheerleader in freshman year, was voted homecoming queen for four years, attended Harvard and aced every class, got the degree she wanted, sailed around the world, met the man of her dreams, got married, had a child who grew up in a happy home and became a beloved high school quarterback . . . Well, you get it. No setbacks, no failures. No story. There have to be obstacles. Something has to prevent her from being named homecoming queen. He has to overcome something in order for him to become the quarterback instead of that pimply-faced guy nobody likes, who gets sacked every other play, and who made the team simply because he knows where to get the steroids. Throw bricks at your characters. Give her some strange disease that puts her in a wheelchair and make her go through physical therapy in order to walk again. Let him find out that his grandpa is the town heroin dealer. Put him in jail for something he didn't (or did) do. Obstacles.

Remember, characters are like children. They're going to demand things. 

"Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works."
                                                                                                    Virginia Woolfe

How to Give Birth to a Character

Eyes of blue, hair of gold, and she's got Dolly Parton dimples. He's tall, dark, and handsome, with a twinkle in his eye. She's a sweetheart. He helps old ladies cross the street.

First chapter in, I'm bored to tears by these people, and I'm pretty sure they're not going to get any more interesting in chapter two.

These characters couldn't possibly be real people, because real people have depth. And that depth needs to be apparent the minute they leave the womb of your imagination, or your readers might just close the book on those babies.

Stereotypes don't sell books. I mean, that's the goal, right? You're wanting to market this thing that's taken you months or years to write. (Unless you're James Patterson and you began writing the book last Tuesday night and finished it Saturday morning for publication on Monday afternoon.)

In addition to whatever physical qualities you might bestow upon your characters, you have to add some mental and emotional quirks if you want them to grow up to be interesting enough to read about.

Even the most fascinating plot can't carry a novel for 300 pages or more without characters who come off as human. (Unless they're aliens, of course.) They have to have emotions, passions, and attitudes to back up their physical appearances. They must have personalities that express their needs and fears, goals and desires.

Even though your protagonist, antagonist, and supporting characters might change in ways you can never anticipate while you're writing the story          
 -- characters quite often do that -- there should be an initial outline of the most important characteristics to draw from as you write. In addition to physical appearance, a personality outline is the place to note all those things that will round out the people in your imaginary world.

Here are some pertinent questions and suggestions for outlining fascinating characters before you send them out into your world.

In addition to outward physical descriptions (and please don't do blond, blue-eyed cardboard cutouts), create body language and gestures. What happens to their faces when they smile or frown? What is it about their eyes that indicates that they're shy? Do they chuckle at a joke, or break out into a full-blast belly laugh? They curl their lips when they see a cat to show that they're not animal lovers. Describe the tone of their voices when they talk to a child, or to their own mothers, or a waitress. These things go a long way in identifying character. (Remember show don't tell?)

Know your characters' favorite activities, the kind of clothes they wear, their favorite alcoholic drinks. What are their interests -- art, travel, museums, acrylic nails? Give them specific kinds of cars, or make them take the bus. Do they play golf, do Pilates? When they cook, do they wear aprons?

How do others see them? Who are their friends, their enemies? How do they handle stress? Are they optimistic, or pessimistic? What are they afraid of? Snakes? Rabbits? Lightning bugs? Money? What are their favorite colors? What makes them sad, happy, pissed off? Note their favorite books, the TV shows they routinely watch.  

Where did they grow up, what childhood games did they play? What is the worst and the best things that ever happened to them? Give them family backgrounds, economic positions, educational experiences, religious or moral beliefs.

Fill a notebook or file cards with this information. Give each character a page or color-coded card of his/her own, even if they have just a minor role in your story. Background characters might never display any of these traits or speak of their particular histories anywhere on those 300 pages. But they are just as important as the setting of your story. They are the people who will ooh and ahh over, or torment and torture, those unique, colorful characters born of your labor.

You brought them into your imaginary world, now give them lives. 

"A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer."
                                                                                                     Joseph Conrad

Creating Scenes

Until I started writing Bloody Hollow Summer, I had only a surface knowledge of what scenes in a novel should accomplish. I thought, Well, something is supposed to happen here, so I'll just put my characters someplace and have them do something and say something. I soon had a bunch of boring, lazy, worthless so-called "scenes" that a twelve-year-old might have written.

I believe I've said this before, but this writing stuff is hard.

After many revisions (ongoing, perhaps until I'm old and gray -- oh, wait, I am old and gray) I am learning the importance of writing scenes that serve a purpose.

Every scene in a novel must work toward something. A good scene should move the story forward and engage the reader. It should highlight character motivation, enhance setting, foreshadow future events, complement the tone of the story, or add some other important element to the whole. Obviously, a scene shouldn't just be there for the heck of it, or just so the characters can talk about what they had for breakfast.

Even though the rules of writing are broken for any number of good reasons, there are patterns which have been proven successful with regard to creating scenes. Those who have been doing this writing thing for a long time advise that scenes that open with long, involved descriptions, history or backstory, are a distraction. Avoid launching a scene with paragraph after paragraph of narrative. If a particular setting, or pertinent information about a character's thoughts or intentions contribute to the action of the scene, keep the summary short, no more than 2 or 3 quick paragraphs, if possible, and then get quickly to the action.

Good scenes should incorporate 3 elements: The point-of-view character must have a clearly-defined goal, must face obstacles and conflict in order to achieve that goal, and must face disaster because of that goal. These 3 elements should lead naturally to 3 more scene points which are called the sequel: An emotional follow-through, a dilemma for the character, and a decision which involves new goals. This 3-part sequel allows the reader to absorb what has happened in the scene.

Scene endings are the perfect place for cliffhangers, surprising revelations, and emotional turmoil. The ending of a scene should always involve a promise of further compelling situations.

Building a novel takes almost as many tools building a house, just in different forms. That, I think, is what makes us writers unique. We have to use tools that nobody but another writer can see. We have to build something from nothing.
It's a hell of a job, but somebody's got to do it.

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
                                                                                              Ernest Hemingway

Editing and Revision: The Difference Between Fine Tuning and The Big Picture

Editing means to change passive words to active, being mindful of repeated words and phrases, and eliminating unnecessary adjectives and adverbs such as very, quite, so, just, really, and suddenly. 

It means determining if you've allowed confusing pronouns to disrupt your story. For instance, you have two male characters in the scene performing two actions simultaneously, and you've referred to both as he instead of using one or both characters' names. Your reader can become confused -- is John trying to push the car out of the mud, or is it Steve? Which he is in the car steering?

Are your dialogue tags necessary --you know, that he said, she said thing -- or could you put one character to work, as in "This doesn't look right."? Harry is speaking, but instead of he said, you could identify him by writing Harry looked perplexed  in order to identify him as the speaker. You can place the action (looking perplexed) either before or after Harry speaks.  

Editing also refers to that fine tuning you do for typos, misspellings, punctuation, missing words, extra spaces. It refers to combing through the manuscript for awkward phrasing and sentence length variation.

Revision is looking at the big picture and tweaking the structure of the whole novel, if necessary. This is the big deal here. This is cutting the fat, involving character, plot, sub-plot, the story world or setting, theme, and style. It's when you examine scene and chapter issues, removing whole sections that don't     belong, or adding specific, vivid details in all the right places.

This is when you decide whether there's excessive exposition -- telling instead of showing. Or that certain paragraphs aren't advancing the story, but have slowed the pace when the plot should be moving along more quickly and clearly. You might find that you have to cut whole passages of empty narrative or dialogue.

Are your characters well-drawn, or are they stereotypes? Is the plot too complicated, or so simplistic that it encourages your reader to throw the book aside (or across the room), turn off the light, and go to sleep?

Revision is when you ask yourself if the story makes sense. Is the plot compelling, does the prose flow smoothly or is it choppy? Is there enough to keep your reader interested and anxious to know what comes next?

Although there are writers who can edit and revise their work during the actual writing process, most polish their work after the manuscript is completed because it's the first time the material is seen as a whole, and any missing or weak elements will be more apparent.

But if you just can't resist making changes as you go along, use a notebook. Keep pen and paper beside your computer, a notebook, file cards, or writing pad, and make notes while you compose. You can implement your own particular system for this, noting chapter and scene, sentence, or entire passages you might want to change or delete. At the end of your writing day, or at the beginning of the next, organize your notes in order of importance, then go back to work and write like your brain is on fire and words are the only way to put out the flames.

"One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom you can neither resist or understand."                                                                                                                      George Orwell, on writing a book.

Looking Back to Go Forward

When it comes to flashbacks, there are two trains of thought. Some writers say no, no, no, don't ever use flashbacks, they distract. There are others who simply shrug and say go for it. Both types write excellent novels.

Flashbacks are used to convey valuable plot information and insight into character motivation, to build tension or create mystery before the current story action. A flashback can be almost like the author is whispering a secret into the ear of the reader, revealing something of importance about a previous event, or hinting at something yet to occur. Flashbacks are perfect for foreshadowing what is to come.

 Flashbacks are often introduced by a character's memory trigger, such as a smell, sight, sound, an event, a person. Triggers aren't always necessary, but the flashback must always be relevant in some way to the current story scene.

Just as with any other literary device, there are rules for using flashbacks.

A flashback must seem necessary and relevant -- it must propel the story forward while looking into the past. The placement of a flashback should follow a strong scene of the current story, you should never just drift into a flashback.

Reader confusion seems to be the number one complaint about the sudden intrusion of a flashback. Always orient the reader as to time, space, and characters' ages if necessary. If your character is 42-years-old today and your flashback takes him back to childhood, get the information across quickly.

(I've just finished re-reading It, and was amazed at how easily and clearly Mr. King continually moved the children of 1958 into the adults of 1985 without any confusion whatsoever. Early events meshed smoothly with current happenings and yet stood out as individual scenes without a bump. Of course, he is Stephen King.)

The mechanics of opening a flashback scene are the same as any opening literary hook -- the first sentence should be strategic. Whether smooth or jarring, that first sentence must be intentional, and used to full advantage.

If the story is being told in past tense, begin the flashback in past perfect (had said, had dressed, hadn't seen), and continue using past perfect for about the first five sentences, then move into past tense. When the flashback is coming to a close, revert to past perfect for the last few verbs to signal the end. If the story is being told in present tense, then the flashback should be told in straight past tense to differentiate between past and present. 

Very short flashbacks, a paragraph or two, can be written into the current story as a quick memory. Many writers who use flashbacks use italics as a way of setting it apart from real-time story. But if you are including a long flashback passage, whether you use italics or not, it is always best to give it its own section, separated from the body of the current story.

Just as a person often considers his past in order to understand his present, so, too, can literary flashbacks shine light on a current situation. It's just a matter of looking back in order to go forward.