Frustrating Story Conflicts
I was reading Ludanta Retero and ran across this snippet in an article about Hope:
So you’re reading a book, right? And there’s this character who’s cute and engaging and he’s had some hard lumps so far, and in the part that you’re reading, things are finally turning his way and it looks like he’s getting a brief little spot of sunlight. And you think to yourself, oh, I hope that he’s going to get to be happy for just a little bit; I hope that nothing goes wrong to spoil it. And of course, since it’s a story, something does go wrong. Something has to go wrong. In fact, things have to keep going wrong on a regular basis or else the story will just dissolve into rainbows and bunny rabbits. And you know this. It’s lurking in the back of your mind that it can’t last, and you want to hope but you know that you shouldn’t, cause sure enough, something comes out of the bushes and screws up everything even more for the character. And when that little hope is crushed, you aren’t really that disappointed, cause you knew it was coming. Right?What he has to say is so right, and yet so dangerous and possibly misleading. A story without a conflict is a story largely bereft of interest. Conflicts drive plots and give characters something to do. What would a person do without conflict other than enjoy life, and who really wants to read hundreds of pages of someone watching TV, lounging on the beach, and drinking their weight in tropical beverages? Knowing, then, that we need conflicts in our stories the question remains, “What kind of conflicts should we have?”
It seems to me we have two basic categories of conflicts, those that encourage and those that discourage. Encouraging conflicts can be anything from passing a challenging test, to overcoming one's fear of rejection and finally confessing your secret love; the nature of an encouraging conflict is that it seems quite possible if not rather difficult: an encouraging conflict maintains hope of success. Conversely discouraging conflicts work against hope; a lone warrior surrounded by a vast horde of his enemies, a kingdom thoroughly infested with conspirators, a kidnapped woman who's hero was slain before her, all of these seem daunting and overwhelming to the point that hope is in question.
On the one hand most endings are predictable, and we like it that way. The good guy always wins, he nearly always gets the girl, and justice prevails. There are exceptions of course, and there are a growing number of pyrrhic victories, but we largely know how things will come out. This can make it hard to develop good conflicts because somewhere in the back of the mind of every reader is the knowledge that things will ultimately turn out glowingly well. This, more than anything else I can imagine, is likely the cause for more agonizing conflicts of the kind that work against hope.
People read books for various reasons, and people enjoy books for a wide range of reasons too numerous for any one person to count. Some people like dystopian visions, others want to see utopia born anew. Some like to know the hero doesn't stand a chance, others want some reassurance the hero will be okay in the end. Some want to see romance work out, others want to see it fail. There seemingly is no right or wrong way to frame and conduct your conflicts. Chances are there is an audience out there for whatever you come up with.
That being said, allow me to bring a warning about discouraging conflicts by way of an example. Imagine a band of heroes; imagine they are questing for a weapon of great power; imagine it will turn the tide of an evil war, and there is a race on to see who will possess it. Now imagine the heroes obtain the weapon. Now imagine they lose it before they can turn the tide of the war. Now imagine they go questing for it again and find it. Now imagine they lose it, or it is nullified, or they can't return. Now imagine they fix that. Now imagine . . . you get the picture? Sure the conflict(s) are driving the story, and sure it's not all that unreasonable to assume such a series of events can (and do) happen in real life. However, that does not make for good reading.
Conflicts should be varied. If one is resolved as a success leave it as a success, and rarely counter it. If you don't like the implications of a successful resolution to the conflict then either change the conflict or have it fail. Be careful with your conflicts; know what is at stake and know the ultimate resolution you want. Don't use conflicts merely to move the story but use them to move the story, but give them careful thought to create a good tension. Above all, don't toy with your readers, most of us don't like that.
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Hey, Seth.
Conflicts are funny things. They get even funnier when you move from fiction into games, because in fiction, you get to plan out how it's all going to work from the start, and you don't get that option in games -- if it's a conflict, it very well might go either way, so you've got to be really, really careful of how you set up your conflicts and how you play with them once you've got them.
The thing is, they're absolutely necessary, both in fiction and in games. The conflicts have got to engage the players/readers or else they're not interested. But the conflicts also need to not disappoint the players/readers -- whether by crushing the hope that they've invested or by resolving the conflict too easily too early. So not only are they necessary, but they've got to be done right.
-- Josh