Teaching Conflict

[Valerie A. Person]

In my creative writing course, we've spent a significant time on the short story genre and ss elements, but the one that seems to be the most challenging for some of my students as writers is writing a story that has conflict. Last week, we spent time on flash fiction and had some of the best discussions yet as we examined models and talked about conflict that was even hinted at or implied. But I still have a few who are not getting it. Of course we've discussed external and internal conflict and then listed man vs. man, man vs. himself, man vs. nature, man vs God and so on. We've talked about conflict in terms of something your character wants and the obstacle(s) to that. We've talked a lot about the fact that something needs to have changed by the end of the story. It doesn't have to be a big something, but it needs to be something, rather subtle or small. And yet I still have a couple of students who are writing more of plot summaries than short stories with conflicts. We've talked about how it's easy to confuse "action" with "conflict." I think one of the issues is my students are very visually-oriented and tend to think of the dramatic, high-action movies with violent conflicts when they think of conflicts. I'm wondering how others teach writers to develop a conflict. How do you get students to see the difference between what a true story is and what a summary of events are?

[Michael Umphrey]

I'm wondering how others teach writers to develop a conflict.

Yes. "Develop" is the right word. While plot is king, we need to identify with the characters, and so we need to experience the world they're in, almost as if we are in a waking dream. So finding and including all the right details--both of psychology and of the sensory world--is much of the work.

Bill Kittredge in his MFA workshops used to point out the the difference between a soap opera and Shakespeare or Dickens is just development. At the level of plot, they're not much different.

[Tamara Doehring]

Have you used the idea of Somebody Wanted But So... model. Then you can create a bunch of examples from their suggestions and you can see if the conflict is really worth a story. If a student's sentence is...Ned wants a cheeseburger but doesn't have the money so he asks his mom for it...well, we can discuss the level of conflict there.
Also, mini writing activities such as having them write a scene where one character wants something and tries to get it without saying anything.
Tam

[Valerie A. Person]

Thanks, Tamara. I have used a character wants but . . . model but I'm going to have them make a list of say 10 of these and then choose one to expand upon in a scene and then discuss it as a class. I appreciate the suggestion.

Michael, I'll keep working on the "development" part.