More on the Conflict that Conflicts Us
I’ve been thinking a lot about conflict lately. Well, not a huge surprise since I’m knee deep in my WIP and I have to worry about things like that!
Conflict drives a story forward. And by conflict, I don’t mean yelling and screaming and fighting. And by conflict, I don’t even necessarily mean kidnappings and car accidents and various and sundry other near death experiences. (though, if you’re writing suspense, you might need those)
The conflict I’m talking about specifically is the internal conflict (IC). Internal conflict comes from withing the characters and should be what’s really keeping them apart. (not a half heard conversation or a snide remark from a wicked stepmother)
Something I’ve really been dealing with in my last three MSs has been conflict that needs to be solved in stages. I think to a certain extent, that’s natural, but it’s also tempting to keep everything going until the last six pages. Well, that was something that simply wasn’t possible with my last few books.
In my WIP, my heroine especially has an internal conflict that really needs to be solved in layers.
She first has to fix the way she sees herself, so that she can then begin the process of changing her worldview. Neither of those things is going to happen all at once. She doesn’t believe in love, and more specifically, doesn’t believe she’s loveable.
The way I tackled this, was by, first, realizing there was no way they could solve all of this right at the HEA. The second, was the try and figure out what events need to happen for her to begin to heal.
Her first personal turning point came when she was willing to let go of some of her past hurts. And now she can progress from there.
This is just another example of why it’s important, in the shorter cata romance especially, to keep things character driven so that you’re focusing on the characters and not simply plot points.
Because, and you all know I’ve been guilty of this, hence the title of Revision Queen, when you let the plot steer your characters you’re crippling their development.
I’m a little bit of a panster when it comes to the actual events and scenes in my books. With the past few MSs I’ve approached the synopsis by plotting my character journeys.
The way I do that is I outline their conflicts, I explain what they need to do separately to deal with their issues, and ultimately, figure out how much growth needs to take place before they can have a happily ever after that will ring true.
And somewhere in the there there’s a plot. 🙂
Anyway, just a little insight into my process. (at least my process as it stands at the moment!) What are your thoughts on conflict?
Oh, and I have to share this! Apparently, Hoo went to the shops today (my little octopus friend lives all the way in New Zealand!) and he snaffled the LAST copy of His Virgin Acquisition from the shelf. And then he went to Starbucks. Cheeky little octopus.
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Hey, love hearing your process. Think I need to do a layer by layer investigation about my characters to keep myself on track too. I just keep getting distracted and wanting to throw more conflicts in there to up the angst levels. Sigh. And it’s always those ‘events’ that I have problems thinking of too.
Glad you liked Hoo’s shopping trip. He was very greedy with HVA AND Starbucks too. He wanted to be on the other side of the cup so he could look at Elaine but Marco was NOT happy with that. Told Hoo to get in behind. Which, as you can see, he did. 🙂
Oh no! Marco would NOT be keen on that.
Yeah, I have those tendencies too, Jackie. I’ve only arrived at this point in my WIP after two false starts and revisions on the third. It seems like I need to start with complicated before I can really pare it down and find the essence of the conflict.
Heh. essence. 😀
I love the sound of your WIP heroine. That’s a great piciture of your book and cheeky Hoo!
Essence! I need some essence! Going to sit down with Dr Jax right now and get the essence of my soldier story since I am complicating it too much. Sigh.
Lacey, you’ll love her current WIP heroine. She’s soooo cool!
I LOVE hearing your process too!! As you know I’ve been reading lots of Romance (line) books and STs lately so I still havne’t read your fab book, even though its on my ereader! But my CPs are already talking about how brilliant your second book is and I can see I’ll learn a lot on conflict (everyone’s bugbear and I’m no different) from reading your work. So… guess what’s on the weekend’s agenda!?
Lacey, thank you! She’s a character that’s had quite an evolution…and is a bit different to the heroine’s I usually write. I’m finding I really like her!
Jackie…ESSENCE! God bles Dr. Jax. And really, all the men who put up with us crazy writer types. Eesh.
Rach, first of all, kiss your CPs for me. 😀 Glad the second book is being received well! (it was almost scarier than the first!) Second, I know how the reading thing works, so no worries. 😀 Third…conflict is tough for me too. It’s all been a very big learning process. And if reading my books helps…then yay! Because it’s just such a tough thing to nail down.
I take it one MS at a time. Every conflict is so different I don’t know that, in a broad sense, I’ll ever feel I have conflict ‘nailed’. Maybe just this particular conflict for these particular characters!
Hope you enjoy the books!
Nice post Maisey. I am so lucky to be able to see you work through your process first hand. I love your books and I am so looking forward to starting ‘A Mistake, A Prince And A Pregnancy’ tonight. Your writing is turning me back into a reader. I hope you’re having an inspired time at Starbucks this evening! 🙂
Aww…thank you, Haven! I’m so glad you enjoy my books! 🙂 husband who is supportive AND likes what I write…how did I get so lucky? 😀
I love to hear about other people’s methods! If you don’t mind, tell me specifically (I’m sort of a detail person *g*) how you outline…
What works for you – Word, post its, whiteboard…?
Jessica, I’m sadly informal.
I write out my character journey, just in a word doc. Sort of like a synopsis, only I don’t include very many external elements. (you know…since I don’t know what’s going to happen yet.)
Otherwise, I spend a lot of time just thinking about what I need to accomplish in the next scene. I rarely take notes. Though I probably should. Most of it lives in my head. 🙂
Thanks for sharing some of your writing process Maisey. I usually have way too much going on, rather than focusing on what the central conflict is and layering that. It’s like I think the reader will be bored if I don’t keep throwing new stuff at them. I like your method of focusing on the character’s journey.
Anne, I have that tendency as well. I think I tend to start with too much and pare down as I get to know my characters…and after my ed reads my partial. 😀
I tend to think, as a writer and a reader, that with these shorter books, when there’s too much going on, you don’t get enough of any of the threads and the book becomes dissatisfying.