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.