It’s time to talk and think about conflict again. I just noticed the last time I touched on this topic was March. I should have paid more attention to it then and maybe I wouldn’t be such a tight corner now.
The craft books keep hammering on how you need to have conflict to make your characters work for their goals. Nothing can come too easily for them or it’s just not believable. That’s exactly where I’m stuck. I’m in the last third of FQD and everything’s just falling into place and it’s just not interesting. If I’m not interested, there’s no way anyone else is going to be. I was telling Andi, I’ve got all these loose ends to tie up and she asked if it was really necessary. Well, yeah, if it’s a romance, they have to get together. That’s a pretty big loose end to be flopping in the breeze. There’s lots of smaller things too, like why the heroine was off at this house party in the first place. What if she gets home and her father could care less if she brought what she thought was this big prize for him back home with her? Arrrgh.
Methinks something seriously went awry in the planning of this one. I looked back at my early posts and they focus on the hero. Somehow my working outline only brings through the heroine’s story. What’s REALLY annoying is that this is the same thing that happened with Revealed. I started out with the hero in mind and whoosh, everything ended up flipped upside down on the heroine’s side.
I suspect this happens because in both cases I had an idea of the hero in my head and absolutely none of the heroines when I started working on these stories. Thinking I was in good shape with the heroes, I neglected them to concentrate on what made the heroines interesting both to me and the heroes. Yeah, good, but that’s only HALF the equation. In both cases, there’s very little conflict between the main characters. They’re both on the same side. There’s very little tension either and there’s definitely nothing keeping them apart. There’s nothing grand and passionate or filled with sacrifice or even really a question in anyone’s mind as to why these characters have to work through anything in the end.
Andi’s challenge brought up some interesting ideas for the main character in FQD, but I’m going to have to go back and restructure everything again. I guess it’s a good thing that I’m not satisfied with these two as they are and I want to go back and fix them instead of just abandoning them as would have happened by now in the past.
So what I need to do is come up with some good ways to put my heroes and heroines on a chair like the one pictured. Make it so no one is satisfied and on solid ground until the very end. I think I’m going to have to revisit Leigh Michael’s book again. I’m also going to have to take my time building those conflicts and tensions into the story and not just hope a basic situation is enough. The more facets they have that exist in contrast, the more interesting it will be for me (and the reader) to untangle the knot while still getting them to their Happily Ever After.
Thanks for putting up with me thinking out loud again. 🙂
I’m sure you’ll figure it out. OR you can simply do a break down/ simliar traits in one column and dissimliar traits in the other–and how they’re on the same side, put it up and ask for trouble shooting thoughts. Somtimes, a fresh look (you have lots of readers!) can help you firm things up.
An interesting thing about almost any creative endeavor is that it ends up being autobiographical in some way or another.
Is there some way in your life that you have the hero all figured out and the heroine ends up upside-down? Do you end up avoiding conflict IRL?
Of course I don’t expect answers! My lumpy first draft is still awaiting an edit because I realized I liked all my characters EXCEPT my heroine. I have a sneaking suspicion that until I improve my self-esteem, my main characters will all be disagreeable to me. LOL!
Conflict and tension are both oh-so-necessary in a romance. Methinks you need to come at this from a totally different perspective. You’re not having fun with this anymore, are you? It seems you’re trying to overthink everything. Not sure if I’m right or not, but if I AM and you are indeed overthinking due to your curse of perfectionalism, I have a suggestion for you.
Think of your favorite daydream, whether it has to do with this story or another story, or none of them. And hey, the more unlikely, scandalous and embarrassing, the better.
Then write it, just as it appears in your head. No overthinking, no planning, just writing.
If that suggestion doesn’t work for you, how about thinking of one of your favorite scenes in your current or NaNo WIP? The scene should be of a sonic boom kind of excitement, something that really gets your blood pumping, the kind where your hands get all clammy and your fingers are sticking to the keys. Not because it’s a sex scene, but because you’re just SO in to what’s happening.
Then write that scene. Just that scene. Not the SAME scene, but with new elements and ideas you might have been hesitant to write before.
Create huge, insurmountable problems for your characters, problems and situations you, as the writer, have no fricken clue how to solve. (Worry about that later. This is just for fun, remember.)
I dare you, woman.
Hey, Tiny Froglet! I keep meaning to stop by your LJ more often. I always find something of interest there. I love the pictures you take and I’m jealous of the walks you get to take.
Your questions are likely very relevant. I think there’s something to it. I definitely avoid conflict and confrontation if possible in real life.
The character in my other wip is very shy and very not liking to face confrontations or conflict either. Somehow, I made that work for her. I just need to figure out the hero’s role in it and what about him changes so that she can accept him. That’s next on my drawing board.
You’re early covering as many bases as my DH: music, art, and writing! You go, girl! I think we’re going to be up LA way again around Aug 8th to 10th. Something about Siggraph, I think. Maybe we can get together on the way up or back or something. I’ll drop you an email.
Some good thoughts, Andi. Maybe I’ll try those when I get bored with playing with the other WIP again.
“Conflict and tension are both oh-so-necessary in a romance.”
Yes. Like I said, I need to go reread Leigh Michael’s. Lots of good stuff on setting up romantic tension (not just sexual tension) and how to make it work.
“Methinks you need to come at this from a totally different perspective. You’re not having fun with this anymore, are you? It seems you’re trying to overthink everything.”
I think I just hit an attention span wall too. I am likely over analyzing everything, but that doesn’t usually pull me to a frustrated stand still. That’s more like an “oooh, shiny!” pulling away and forgetting where I was.
I’ve actually been happily futzing with adding needed layers to my NaNo project from last fall. I’ve been working on the edits Bria suggested and playing her Random Page Editing game. So far I’ve added two pages to my total count, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but I’ve been really looking at what I’m putting down and searching for scene themed words and digging for emotion and tension. Oh, I still need to go back and fill in his storyline, but I think I needed a break from first drafting and let the IE play a little. Lord knows I’ve got enough talking head sequences that need grounded still.