Okay guys. Sorry that this post is a couple of days late. Midterms really suck. On top of that I’ve been freaking about some work related things, and I just couldn’t really decide what I wanted to do with Conflict from here. But I finally got something. So here we go,
Secrets of Plot: Conflict: The Problem
Types of Conflict
So, we’re going to talk about the different types of conflict. I’ve already talked about the ups and downs. Each scene has its own ups and downs of conflict, the small conflicts that keep the larger conflict interesting. So now I’m going to explain what the four types of larger conflict are. In a story there is one, overarching conflict that is the main point of the story. That smaller conflicts that make up the scenes are all things to get your character to the final conclusion of the larger conflict. These four major conflicts are as follows:
Man vs Man
Man vs Nature
Man vs Themselves
Man vs Society
Each of these is a different type of conflict. First off, Man vs Man. These are the typical bad guy/ good guy type stories. Character is protagonist. Character has some great enemy. This great enemy is the antagonist. These two characters are constantly in conflict with one another to achieve a goal. A common example of this is a drama. Any drama where two people want the same person (the typical love triangle) can be considered a man vs man conflict. On the surface, a whole lot of stories are man vs man conflict stories. Witch and Wizard (which I mentioned in my last post) could be seen as Wit and Wisty vs The One who is the One. This conflict may seem simple on the surface but there can be all sorts of twists to this conflict. Maybe the story is actually in the point of view of the villain who thinks he’s doing the right thing like Brawn in the books Stronger by Michael Carroll. I personally don’t write a whole ton of Man vs Man stories but I do think that they are interesting to read, especially when the author has a new twist on it.
Man vs Nature is also a very good conflict. Although, this conflict is not often used it’s still really interesting to think about. A good example of the man vs nature conflict is the book The Martian by Andy Weir. The main character in The Martian is stuck on Mars and has to find a way to survive with what was left behind by his crew until someone can come and save him. And so he struggles to keep control of his little environment in the nature of a world that seems dead set on killing him. Although we know that the planet is not really trying to kill him, the struggle that the character is involved in almost makes it seem like the nature of the planet is really a villain. This is Man vs Nature.
Man vs Themselves is one of my favorite conflicts to read. Usually these get tagged with the genre psychological but that doesn’t always mean that the characters are crazy. It usually just means that the story is about a character who is struggling with something about themselves. Usually it’s self-loathing. Not always, but usually. I don’t think I have ever read a story that is a super super great example of this. I have read several books that could be seen as having a sub conflict of man vs themselves. The closest one I can think of is The Young Elite by Marie Lu. That whole series centers around characters with a lot of internal conflict but I don’t know if I’d label the overall conflict as Man vs Themselves.
And finally, we have Man vs Society which is super overdone. Man vs society is typically seen dystopian novels. We have a group of teenagers with a lot of gumption who hate how the system works but they decide to rise up against the government and somehow, with no power of their own, manage to win. Man vs society. But I think that you really need to have a better twist to the whole thing to make the man vs society story work. Sadly, my story is an overall man vs society plot twist. Alien’s destroy characters home planet, character decides to take revenge against whole society. Pretty simple plot line all in all. But I do have hope that somewhere out there, there are stories with a man vs society conflict that are better than the usual ones.
So, when you lay the conflict out like that it makes it seem a bit more simple. I have one last thing that will make this even easier for someone. I know that a lot of writers will tell you that you need to know all these things about conflict before you write.
THIS IS A LIE!
You don’t have to know when your scenes change. You don’t have to know what each and every up and down in your scenes are. You don’t have to know exactly what category your overall conflict falls into. You don’t really need to know all of that in the first draft. If you know it, it will help you edit the first draft because sometimes identifying these things helps you to catch and fix the sections that aren’t interesting. There are three questions you shouldn’t ask yourself.
What is my story about?
What’s going to happen?
Why is it happening?
The three questions that you should ask yourself, the best advice I’ve ever received from another person, where the following:
Who is my character?
What does that character want more than anything?
How can I prevent them from getting it?
In the end, the conflict of your story is the problems your character faces in reaching a goal. When they reach this goal, that is the climax of the writing. After the climax you have falling action. Then your story ends. All of the conflict is caused by events happening that cause your character to fall farther away from achieving their goal. So that’s what you need to do.
That’s all I’ve got today! Sorry that it was a little bit late! Next week we’re going to talk about the final part of the plot in the three stages. The resolution! Yay! So I hope that you guys can tune in for that. As always,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!