Choosing Your Own Adventure

I've been blogging about making any piece of writing more literary.  As any writer knows, conflict (confrontation of obstacles) is key when it comes to story.  As literarydevices.com points out, "The absence of conflict amounts to the absence of story."  Also, conflict builds character.  Conflict types include man vs man, man vs. nature, man vs. self, man vs. machine, man vs. society, and man vs. fate.  One way or another, your character has to face difficulties, or your story will flatline quickly.  Your reader will go find someone willing to tell a real story.

But what makes conflict, and by extension, characters more interesting?  It's critical that conflict is actually challenging.  Conflict is about a character coming upon a difficulty (either posed by someone with different motives or by something else) and making choices about how to resolve the obstacle.

Remember that if your character consistently makes the best choice the reader can imagine, he or she may inch toward perfection and the dangers of being a Mary Sue, a stereotypical and perfect character.  The important thing is to know your character as you decide on a conflict.  Know what would challenge him/her the most.  Know your character well enough that you know what mistakes he/she can and will make and what strengths and weaknesses will come into play with each choice.  Don't be afraid to let your characters decide things and make mistakes. Those decisions shape your story and your character.  Make sure your reader is invested enough in your character beforehand that the risk feels real to the reader and the character's choices feel authentic to the character.  Good storytelling is all about characters meeting challenges and making choices that may make things even harder for him/her/them or may get them out of trouble.  Keep it challenging but not so ridiculously impossible that only the perfect will survive.

Let's say you're writing a story about a hero deciding whether or not to enter a darkened tunnel to save the damsel.  A darkened tunnel may become a great challenge if your hero is either afraid of the dark or enclosed spaces or both.  A hero that is too perfect will charge ahead without thinking or hesitating, facing his fear with his strong jaw set and his sword clutched in his perfect hand at the end of a perfectly chiseled arm.  Your reader may find such perfection fun at times, but it's going to wear thin quickly.  A more interesting and shaded hero may hesitate or find a way to save the lady without having to charge through that tunnel.  So what if your character is so cowardly, he decides the lady isn't worth the risk?  Your reader may fall out of love just as quickly with a character that isn't heroic enough.  Unless you can find a way to move the story forward, anyway.  What if he turns back, but the lady frees herself?  Twist.  But does such a twist fit with your story and/or advance the characters and/or story in an interesting way?  Can your characters grow this way?

Let's say it's a romance instead.  There is no challenge, no story, if the man always says and does the right things to woo the lady.  He begins to feel too much like the writer's puppet instead of a strong and interesting character.  What keeps them apart?  How do their choices play into that?

Dealing with conflict should be about characters making choices with room to make mistakes and fail.  There should be room for growth, so the character can be further developed through the choices he/she makes.  Few people have much patience for a flat character, a character who doesn't grow, who may be so perfect already that there is no growth possible.  Create conflict that is difficult, that challenges your character in all the right ways to help them grow.  Avoid predictability, cliches, and the easy answer.  If you do all that, your conflict is likely to be more literary.

When Dialogue Runs Deep

I've been suggesting how to make any piece of writing more literary.  A big part of this is making sure your piece is meaningful.  One thing that helps is when your dialogue works on more than one level, that it suggests more than it says.  It's important that your dialogue develops the story and/or character, that it's more than just an excuse to data dump on the reader.  It's also important that the purpose of each conversation is clear, that each character within that dialogue have an understandable motive for the things they say.  You don't want the characters to be talking heads or interchangeable with the narrator, or your reader is likely to take a nap sooner than read your book.  

Nap-worthy example: 

    "Did you see that ship?  It was a Morgan 2-26,  a new kind of battleship made with cutting edge technology."  

    "Yes, I noticed that.  Did you know Mega Dark, our greatest enemy loves those?"  

    "Oh, really?  I wonder if he's on this one.  If he is, that would be bad." 

Note:  There's no drama here.  The nightly news has more tension and suspense than this kind of dialogue. 

Better example: 

     "The Morgan 2-26 is upon us, Captain." 

     "No!  You swore that couldn't happen, that such technology was beyond their grasp!" 

     "Our agents assured me this could not be." 

     "I was a fool for buying into your false sense of security." 

     "We suspect Mega Dark is on it."  

     "Then we all die here."  

Note:  There is more suspense, tension, drama, and conflict here.  The same information is shared but it is shared as part of the storytelling.  

It's better yet when not all information is on the surface, when much of the meaning is shared through texts and subtexts, through suggestions and hints.  There can still be a lot of drama and tension but with fewer words.  The reader feels clever when he/she is able to feel what's under the surface and make the connections for themselves.  It also means more and is more memorable.  

Better example still:  

"What is it?" 

"The Morgan 2-26, Captain." 

"No!  It can't be his ship." 

"We're readying the cannons." 

"For all the good they'll do."

  More is suggested here than is said.  When everything is on the surface, it can be dull and uninteresting.  The more meaning your story suggests rather than spells out, the more powerful your story for the reader.