In reading novels lately, I’ve certainly come to see the need for an importance of drama. Even when built and sustained by mini-eruptions of conflict, there must be an underlying grunt or moan that explodes into climax, and it must be more than self-revelation or your siblings not speaking to you.
The best background of course, is war. But major war that elicits the sympathy and interest of more than a few head-nodders who relate. Especially good if you can create a setting of civil war on foreign soil. Even without having lived through it, a reader can usually be inspired by the characters to react appropriately. The characters are then tools so to speak to humanize the booms and flashing bombs and blood.
Natural disasters are great instigators of conflict as well: A coast wiped out by flood or tsunami; a town dropped into a crack of earthquake; a flow of lava that enbalms a village; an inferno that charcoals a city. Awesome and frightening in themselves, they still depend upon a cast of inhabitants to realize the drama.
And the characters are thus called into an event beyond their control, except for the decisions made in the immediacy of a string of moments that build the arc then skillfully fall into resolution. A brave new world is formed.
The conflicts of my life are so minor in comparison to the wrath of God or armies of men. Yet the emotions are real and heart-twisting. My neighbor faces major crisis on a regular basis; this week it’s where to find a new snowplowing service for the winter ahead. I listen, sympathize and suggest, biting back the words that would trivialize it for her in view of where my life is lately. But neither her story nor mine are fodder for a book unless fictionalized with added dimension of urgency (beyond winter coming) and peril. Perhaps I need pack my bags and head for Bora-Bora.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Even the least eventful life has its share of conflict—it’s just more subtle. I can recall being terribly conflicted at times regarding how to pay the rent or how to deal with a difficult teacher, assignment, co-worker, or boss. All of these can, in my opinion, make good fiction. But we also live in a high-adrenaline world where if the entire earth isn’t threatened with destruction few people are impressed. It’s all a matter of scale. But it’s also a matter of the writing itself.
You know, as a young writer, it took me what seemed like forever to realize fiction had to have conflict at all. I had read novel after novel, and still for some reason I didn’t get it—when I finally did I felt like an idiot.
You’ve hit the nail on the head, Barbara. What we suffer through is the worst for us personally until the next bigger one comes around. I also feel your meaning in scale. Size seems to matter to most people. When I think of 911 or Katrina, or any other mass disaster, I feel for the individuals more than the masses. A husband loses his wife; a wife, her husband; mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. The biggest loss in a war is the death of your own child.