When Nothing Is Happening . . .Why We Shy Away from Writing Good Conflict and What We Can Do about It

Many people shy away from writing good conflict into their books.  Either they avoid the external side of conflict by keeping events low risk, or they don't let the characters grow through internal realizations.   

Unless you have both external and internal conflict in your story, you won't build enough tension to capture and hold the reader.  And not enough tension usually means a "Thanks but not for us" letter from the publisher or agent you're hoping to charm.

This was verified for me years ago in a writing workshop taught by the editor of a famous literary journal.  Two elements stood out for me.

This editor received over 400 submissions each week.  (I can imagine that number has gone way up now.)  He commented on the stories and essays; accepted manuscripts ran a challenging gauntlet. 

Then he said this:  "Ninety percent of these submissions got rejected because nothing happened in the story."  That surprised me.

We discussed why.  Not enough good conflict, he said.  Or there was good internal conflict within the characters or narrator, but this conflict was not externalized.   So it was impossible to engage the reader. 

The writers, he said, needed to raise the stakes.

Raising the Stakes

A great way to raise the stakes in your story is to ask yourself two simple questions:

Who is this person fighting?    

What are they fight­ing for?

In other words:  What do they want, and what stands in their way of getting it?  

In fiction and memoir, characters want things.  A story is about the struggle to get this desire.  It could be the desire for freedom, to avenge a wrong, to secure a mate.  To make the story interesting, there must be a challenge.  If the desire is met without challenge, there is no good conflict.   

What about nonfiction?  This editor received many nonfiction pieces.  In nonfiction, there is conflict in the reader.  The writing must create a need in the reader, and a learning curve to satisfy that need.  A reader picks up your story because she has a question, a desire to learn something, for instance.  So the conflict presented in nonfiction is the effort to change or learn.

How do you raise the stakes?  Listen to John Truby, Hollywood screenwriting guru, who asks:  Who fights whom for what?   

If you can't answer the "whom" (the obstacle) or the "what" (the desired result), you don't have a good conflict.

Using the Storyboard W to Raise the Stakes

Storyboards are used by many publishers to check out this question.  If the stakes are high enough, when the story is mapped on a storyboard, you can see it immediately.

I use storyboards for all my books--fiction, memoir, and nonfiction.  I love the way they instantly tell me where my story slumps.   

(If you haven't yet seen my short video on storyboarding, check it out (click here) before you read on.  It'll explain a lot about the W and how to use it to raise the stakes in your story.)

One of my students, Matt, was working on his storyboard in class.  Matt was writing a thriller. De­spite a compelling plot idea, we could both see that Matt's storyboard fell flat.  We doublechecked each of his major plot points (the five points of the W structure of his storyboard), but only the first (triggering) event in chapter 1 had enough conflict.   

Act 2 was disturbingly peaceful for a suspense novel, causing the middle of Matt's book to really sag.

 

I suggested that Matt list the name of every major and minor player in one column. Next to each person's name, Matt would write down who this person was fighting and what they were fighting for, using John Truby's question.

It was surprisingly hard! Matt could answer these ques­tions only about his villain, his favorite character in the book. All the other characters, including the protagonist, came up blank.  

As we talked, I realized that Matt liked these characters way too much. He wasn't letting them get into trouble--or grow!  So he had no external conflict or internal conflict either.

I took a different tack. I asked Matt to scan the character list and begin pairing up characters as dance partners. Then imagine these two people having a conversation. What argu­ment could evolve? The goal was to leak out tiny moments of conflict.  

This exercise really worked. Conflicts started com­ing fast as Matt visualized these players tangling with each other as they danced a tango.

Externalize the Action

By asking Matt to create an external action--a dance--it became easier for him to imagine dilemma. This is because it's hard for the mind to sense dilemma if it's not dramatized, or made external. We learn about characters by watching them move around their worlds.  

Dilemma is rarely believable if it's passive--thought about, talked about, put in letters or emails, or discussed on the phone--without any active outer risk.

As you externalize the action in your book, you can complicate dilemma beautifully. You can see if there are any characters who are stalled between what they want and what they think they should have.  

A great example of this is Ann Patchett's award-winning novel Bel Canto, whose main character is a Japanese businessman who loves opera. For his birthday, he and other elite guests are invited to a private villa where a famous opera singer will entertain them. The busi­nessman is more than a little in love with this opera singer, but his desire to get closer to her is not something that can be realized unless some outside event happens, a dilemma that will force change--in this case a terrorist take-over of the villa during the recital. Once the businessman and the opera singer are trapped, more action gets externalized. He sees the opera singer ev­ery day, in difficult situations. Emotions begin to play out, because desires are spoken aloud. This is typical during trau­ma--witness the deep friendships and sudden romances of wartime.  

Patchett took characters who were safe in unex­pressed interior worlds and forced them into a dilemma in the outer world. If she hadn't, there would be no story.

What about Conflict in Nonfiction Writing?   

My student Carol is writing a self-help book for women who do too much. Carol's ideal reader is a generous soul, a people-pleaser who spends her days doing for others. Carol was like this too, and that's why she is motivated to write this book.

Carol's book contains some great anecdotes, as most modern self-help books do. For Carol's triggering event, she chose an embarrassing and true story of one of her clients who got "caught" tending to herself instead of a sick friend. The shame that resulted caused the woman to completely turn her back on her own needs for many weeks, until she got sick herself. Act 1 contained a series of stories like this, as well as good information about the mindset of people pleasers.

In Act 2, Carol's book slumped. She only had low-key scenes with little external action. It was pretty easy to build the rising action--stories about women who would simply sneak away by themselves to get some peace and privacy, hid­ing with a good book and glass of lemonade in their bed­rooms. But the falling action, which brought us to a bigger turning point, was more difficult.

I suggested Carol look for stories that showed a woman about to burst from being too contained for too long. Yes, the first story showed someone getting sick. Did Carol know of anything worse that had happened when needs were really repressed?

Carol thought of a story of her own: a serious confron­tation with a neighbor, who called Carol for a committee favor on a morning when Carol's son was suspended from school.  

She remembered how she blew up at the woman. Although it was embarrassing, it beautifully demonstrated what happens when two desires clash--the desire to main­tain the aura of being everyone's helper with the extreme need for privacy to cope with personal pain. When desires clash, there is surprise, drama, action.

Carol's willingness to include this "island" made a big difference in the overall depth and credibility of her book.  

If you're in a similar situation, take a clue from Carol's story. Don't feel your conflict has to be highly shocking to be ef­fective. It just has to be unexpected.  

"The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish," says writer Terry Southern, a screenwriter who worked on films such as Easy Rider and Dr. Strangelove. Shock is "a worn-out word," wrote Southern, but astonishment always makes for good literature.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise 

1.  Make a list of potential conflicts that could be brought out in your book. What kinds of trou­ble could people get themselves into? If you’re writing fiction or memoir, list desires and dif­ficulties for each of your main characters. For nonfiction, make a list of possible problems that readers might encounter and how your book solves or addresses them.

2.  Pick one problem and write about it. See if you can create a scene where the person faces this problem.

3.  Now spend a few minutes with your writing notebook. Ask yourself how the conflict writing felt—did you notice anything in your own body as you wrote? Tense shoulders? Headache? Put those sensations into your characters. 

Get Real: How to Stop Dreaming about Your Writing and Actually Do It

In her brilliant memoir, A Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion describes the aftermath of her husband's unex­pected death, how she soothed herself with a year of magical thinking: aligning his shoes just so in the closet, ordering the bills in his wallet, in case he returned. A part of her believed these rituals and ceremonies would make the impossible come true: her beloved husband's death would be reversible.

In her memoir, Didion writes how her rational mind came up with rituals and superstitions and magical ideas to fend off going insane from the uncontrollable pain of grief.

Many writers resort to magical thinking when faced with pain in their book-writing journey.

This magical thinking surfaces whenever we feel over­whelmed by our own goals and expectations. Instead of ad­justing the plan or goal, we malign ourselves as bad writers. If you don't believe me, recall your last diet or exercise plan. Maybe you followed it perfectly for weeks. Then a crisis at home caused you to skip your workout or eat ice cream from the container.

"I've blown it big time, might as well stop," you tell your­self. And you stop. When the blocked day, week, or month leads to "I'm never going to get the momentum back, and I might as well stop now," this is also an alarm sounding.

Re­mind yourself that it's unrealistic to blame yourself that way. Unless everything is absolutely perfect, you're not going to be able to write your book? Not true. A functional writing life is about adjusting and accommodating, making changes as we go. It's not an all-or-nothing lifestyle.

A writer who successfully finishes a book expects and allows for the unexpected: getting a winter cold, kids home from school, the dog throwing up on a manuscript, computer glitches, frustrating delays in research.

Five Ways to Stop All-or-Nothing Thinking

These five simple steps work well to create balance, to overcome or outwit writer's block.

1. Embrace Creative Multi-tasking

Multi-tasking has gotten a pretty bad rap. Legions of burnt-out high achievers of the eighties and nineties lived on the adrenaline high of multi-tasking and it will certain­ly wear out anyone if it becomes a habit.

But I discovered it brings welcome stimulation and perspective and lets me avoid the all-or-nothing syndrome. I just train myself to jump subjects.

I learned this in one of my painting classes, when I was struggling with a still life I wanted to kill. Nothing was work­ing; everyone else in the class seemed to be doing beautifully. I happened to be standing next to an empty easel, so I moved my still-life-in-progress to it and started a new painting.

When I took a break, the abandoned still life caught my eye. Suddenly, because I hadn't been glaring at it for hours, I saw what it needed.

I spent the rest of the class toggling between them and produced two good pieces. When I paint at home now, I of­ten set up two canvases at once. My two easels, side by side, let me get unstuck. I switch often. When I come back to the other canvas, the break has refreshed my eye. I see with new enthusiasm the subject that bored or frustrated me minutes before. I now do this with my writing.

I open two documents on my computer and toggle back and forth. While my mind's solving one problem, an idea comes for the other piece. Toggling from a freewrite to a revision keeps me engaged, surprisingly alert, and free of magical thinking.

2. Flex Your Routine

Writers who completely avoid structuring their writing time often never complete their books. There's a deep fear of routine in many creative artists.

No one stays the same throughout the long process of writ­ing a book. Assume you are going to change as a writer. Make your writing structure flexible enough to change as you do.

When I first began writing seriously, routine caused me great anxiety because I thought I had to stick with plans. I thought routine was terribly uncreative-what if an intrigu­ing detour emerged? Could I follow it and still produce a finished piece of writing? Now I know detours are often helpful, but only within a dependable routine to reorient me when I need to remember my original purpose for writing.

I now hold a loose structure around each writing ses­sion, showing up for my planned time, producing pages, re­viewing my goals. I'm now willing to stay committed, but also willing to vary my routine.

3. Use Your Life

A New Yorker cartoon shows a man sitting on a screened porch in front of a typewriter. Crumpled pages litter the floor. Everywhere are dogs--big dogs, tiny dogs, panting dogs, sleeping dogs. The writer's wife stands in the doorway to the screened porch, hands on hips, exasperated at her ob­viously blocked spouse.

"Write about dogs!" she tells him.

What's on your plate? What are you grappling with right now in your life? Maybe you can use it to unlock the block, get you back on the page. Writing about the ordinary, the life in front of you, will help you reconnect to yourself, restore inner balance, and get you back to your book.

4. Force Yourself to Have New Experiences

The opposite of fear of routine is obsession with it. If we're not writing, the job is to write regularly. If we are writ­ing about the same stuff, we could be caught in a rut. Too much repetition can lead to creative blocks.

If this happens, you need to (1) recognize it, and (2) force yourself to go out into the world so you have something new to write about.

When I am repeating myself, it may be that the well has run dry. Or life has become too fast to look deeply. I'm living on the surface without time to think, to find the original in myself.

Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way suggests a choosing brand-new place to go for an hour, solo. Use the time to fill the creative well, open yourself to new experiences, expose your senses to something that nurtures in a new way.

Cameron spoke of how regular creative outings were the hardest task she proposed in her book. People loved writing morning pages, doing the other activities, but resisted these dates with their inner artist. Exposing yourself to something completely out of your normal life or to your own inner life-without the speed of distracting activity-can be frightening, but things held at bay suddenly come forward. In a good way.

Some outings to consider: visit a new museum, take a walk in a never-explored neighborhood, go for a hike.

5. Keep Filling Your Well

The writing life requires intimacy with your own self. Intimacy is about getting close and letting go of what stands between you and your subject.

If your writing feels repetitive or dried up, if you aren't writing regularly, consider the level of intimacy you have with your book topic. Are you bored with it? Is it connected with your life?  

Consider filling your well.

I polled published authors: how did they fill the well? Many suggested activities fostering internal slowness.  

Your Weekly Writing Exercise
1.  For thirty minutes or so, write about your per­sonal life in each of the areas below. Consider your minimum requirements to feel happy, bal­anced, and healthy. How are you doing in each area? Add any others that are essential to your well-being.
 

physical (getting enough sleep, regu­lar exercise, eating good food, keeping healthy)

emotional (time for relationships with your family and friends, enough self-care, enough private time)

job/finances/career (meeting your work commitments, bringing in enough money, keeping up with your savings goals)

creative life (learning and growing, explor­ing creatively, staying current with your interests)

spiritual (practicing your faith, having enough private time with yourself, serv­ing in your community)

2.  Take twenty minutes to explore what you need to have in your life, to get your book written.

privacy

time

feedback

supplies

resources

good, working equipment

flexible schedule

3.  Compare the two lists. Does one neglected area on the life list also show up in the writing list? For example, no privacy?

4.  Starting small, choose one area from the life list and one from the writing list that could improve.

5.  This week, begin one small change.

What Are You Really Writing About? How the First Essential Revision Tool--Content Analysis--Makes Your Book Engaging to the Reader

Publishers buy manuscripts when they communicate passion for a topic, presented in a unique way that speaks to a reader. To get this passion, revision lets the emotional truths we've learned during the process of writing this particular story come forward. We revise to make this truth as unim­peded and clear as we can.  

It's a bit like cleaning a window to let more light in, or as Pulitzer-prize-winning author Wal­lace Stegner said, "All you want in the finished print is the clean statement of the lens, which is yourself, on the subject that has been absorbing your attention."

Another way of looking at this: Revision's goal is to let the manuscript become strong enough to stand on its own without the author having to make any interpretations.

In my writing classes we talk about "getting out of the room" and letting your book and its readers have that wonderful conversation that all good literature fosters. Without you, the author, having to be there to make sure the reader is get­ting it.

This concept was frightening to Tom, a first-time book writer, who wondered, What will happen to my theories if I'm not there to explain them? Or worse: If it changes entirely-will it still be mine? Will revision cause it to lose its original spark?   

 

This is where Tom was stuck.

Content Analysis--The First Step

For me, the refinement that comes in revision lets in the real music of a book.  There's a sense of multiple sections in an orchestra finally playing together. They create a sound larger than any individual part.

But to get this richness of sound, Tom needed to look at revision in each of its three aspects, and in this order: first content, then structure, then language.

This week's post talks about the first step--content analysis.  To read about structure and language revision, check out chapter 19 in my book Your Book Starts Here.   

Content is the foundation of any book. It's the plot in fiction, the defining events in memoir, the information in nonfiction. There's a certain amount that must be present for the book to make sense to a reader. In a writer's head, the content is there. But when revising for content, you want to make sure it's also on the page.

So we take an inventory of the book's content.

I like to do it in two stages. I start with the whole man­uscript, reviewing the table of contents or my storyboard of topics. Does each larger section have substance?  

If yes, I examine the book's chapters and the material within each chapter, looking for any parts that feel incomplete, where in­formation is missing or extraneous.

It is in content revision that you'll discover if you are a naturally contracting or expanding writer. Do you prema­turely edit your "islands" too much, so that the first draft feels more like a brief sketch, with sentences counted out like coins? If so, the richness of your book's sound may be underdeveloped and content revision will show you where you need to expand your story.

Or maybe you feel unsure about whether your reader will get the picture you're trying to paint, so you add a bit more than is really needed. You sense it doesn't contribute to the story's flow but you're worried about leaving it out. You may need to take a deep breath and choose to delete some content. Less is sometimes more in content revision.

Your Questions List

So, as you read for content, you are going to see prob­lems. You will be tempted to make notes on your manuscript, such as, "fix this description" or "make dialogue longer."  

Don't do this. Why?  

Because it will turn your manu­script into a deadening list of chores that can stop you in your tracks. Instead, craft the problems you see as questions.

The first task I asked Tom to try was the questions list. A list of questions will automatically put a writer in the position of cu­rious observer, the fascinated inquirer. They allow you to become open to new ideas that maybe you weren't ready to grasp during the planning and writing stages of your book journey. And ques­tions always attract answers-in a truly synchronous way.

Some examples of content questions from Tom and my oth­er students:

*   Does the reader need to know more in chapter 2 about listening skills?

*   How does John get from the cabin to downtown Poughkeepsie? Do I need to add a

     traveling scene as transition?

*   Which of Mary's phone calls is most important to the plot? (This writer saw the need to 

     delete one.)

*   How can I best explain the backstory on page 45 in fewer pages?

The Extras File

As I review each chapter during content revision, often I find material that is missing--but equally often, material that has to go.  

All that work! I'd spent weeks on some of those paragraphs.

Rather than just delete them, I open a new document on my computer. I name it "Extras." It becomes the holding tank for excess sentences, phrases, and paragraphs I still love but don't serve the manuscript. (Once I even put four chap­ters in my Extras file!)

It always makes me feel better to know I am not throw­ing these gems away forever. They are safe in my computer, waiting for their right place.  

Not surprisingly, I find myself using them later-during other parts of the revision process, for example, when I need a bit more backstory or another line of dialogue.

Want to hear more about the content analysis exercise, step by step, and what it's done for other writers?   

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

1.  Skim through each chapter of your manuscript; then, at the top of the chapter’s title page, write one sentence that describes the meat of that chapter—its purpose in the larger story. Con­tinue until you have all chapters described.

2.  Carefully read these sentences in sequence. Are there any places where you see missing steps or scenes that would be needed to make your story flow better for a reader? Are there any places where you’ve added unnecessary material? This may show you exactly where you need to expand or contract.

3.  Now open to a new page in your writer’s note­book. On the top of the page write “Content Questions.” List what you discovered during your review, but write these problems as questions, as in the examples on the previous page.

Going beyond Critique: Structuring Feedback to Best Help Your Writing

One summer I attended a workshop with an award-winning short-story writer.  His writing astounded me, and his stories were favorites for years as I studied the craft.   When I learned he'd be teaching at a well-respected conference that year, I was thrilled.

We were asked to prepare a short story for critique.  I polished my very best one, which had won a couple of writing contests, and prepared to learn how to take it to the next level.  I looked forward to this great writer opening doors for me, creatively.  But I took a writing friend along, since at heart I was nervous about his feedback.  If it proved heart-breaking, I could cry on my friend's shoulder.   

Each day we listened to this writer rant.  Midweek we began to talk about the stories we'd brought, but he decided only to work on a few stories by previous students of his who were also in the workshop.  Mine got a cursory discussion, as did most of the others.  To say I was underwhelmed would be an understatement.  No creative doors were opened for me, but I did learn a lot about the writer's fame and struggles with his own work--interesting to a point but not for five days.  He was not able to give good feedback because his own writing was his only world.   

Sadly, many of us went away from that workshop confused about the writing journey.  Does it really lead to this kind of self-absorption?  Can't writers learn to help each other succeed?  The flatness inside gave me no real idea how to take the next step with my short story.  It found its way to a drawer in my closet and never got looked at again after that summer.     

Critique--Only One Model for Feedback

Many years went by and I learned more about this feedback and especially critique, the academic method for giving feedback.  The goal of critique is to find what is wrong--it looks at writing with a critical eye and the sense grows in the writer that she will never quite be enough.

Critical feedback has it uses at certain stages.  But it works best if delivered with the intent to open doors in the writer's creative self.  Not close them.  I had made the mistake of thinking that this famous writer would know how to teach as well as how to write.   

That he would be able to help me.  Actually, he was really only able to help himself. 

How Do We Get Help for Our Writing?  How Do We Learn to Give it to Other Writers? 

Writers learn about their writing in several ways.  There's the harsh experience of rejection letters--which tell you everything is bad.  There's the gentle experience of support--which tells you everything is good.  In the middle is constructive feedback.  This points out both strengths and weaknesses in writing.  It lets the writer know the solid ground to stand on, as well as the next step to take to grow.

Most writers aren't born with an inherent ability to give good feedback. Even professional writers, as I learned that summer, can be lousy at it. They don't necessarily offer comments that the writer can actually use. And they give feedback for all sorts of wrong reasons-to show off how much they know, to make every­one aware they'd never be caught dead making a mistake like that, to boost literary egos.

Obviously, this does nothing good for the receiving author-to-be.

That's why I've come to believe that questions are the most untapped form of good feedback. In teaching writing for over twenty years, I've found that questions open door­ways for the writer. They let us see (1) there's something unaddressed or unanswered here, and (2) there are ways to find out what it might be. When we are asked a question, it allows new information to come up organically from our in­terior worlds. A lot of my first-time students don't believe in the power of questions. But after one exposure, they get it.

You really had to be there, to get the full impact of the question, to see the writer light up with new awareness and love for his manuscript, but perhaps some of these questions will trigger ideas on this form of feedback.

1.  What would happen if Jonah didn't say yes to Ann at that moment? (In response to a chapter where two characters fall into a pseudo-agreeability, where they really need to get more separate, this question caused the writer to catapult into an new realization of Ann's angrier side. We'd seen Ann simmering for weeks, but this writer hadn't yet, and it was deadening the chapter.)

2.  What's the most outrageous thing this woman could do? (In response to a stuck character, this ques­tion caused the writer to have her go into a bar and bargain sex for a ride to L.A., a totally unex­pected action that was entirely believable and got the writer excited once again about this person.)

3.  What was always in your mother's refrigerator? (A memoirist suddenly remembered her moth­er's quart bottles of diet Pepsi, which brought the realization that she hadn't yet written about junk food and constriction, an essential theme in understanding her family.)

4.  How does lightning play out in your life? (In re­sponse to a skilled writer's struggle with finding theme in his nonfiction book. He went from writing sequential and slightly repetitive scenes to interspersing musings on the nature of light­ning, personally and topically, which helped his book rise from the ashes.)

Any feedback in class needs to be monitored by an in­structor, who has the welfare of the students in mind. If there are writing classes in your area, try them out. Online classes are easy to find and good forums for learning feedback skills.

Assessing Your Feedback Needs

A writer in my classes was convinced that he didn't need feedback.  He worked hard on his novel and sent it off to a list of agents.  It was agony to watch him get the rejection letters--not one even read more than a couple of pages.

I suggested he spend some time getting feedback--finding out why.  Because the submission process had flattened him, Noah was more willing to try peer review now.  He found a writers' group in his Detroit neighbor­hood, one he's been with now for two years. He learned to ask good questions and he learned that careful and constructive feedback made his writing improve steadily.  He sees the group members for coffee and chapter exchange one Sat­urday morning each month, and each writer has grown tre­mendously from the feedback.

At first, Noah said, the group was large and not very committed. Over time, the original ten members shrank to five steady writers who showed up at each meeting. Those who didn't submit work eventually dropped away. Noah's writing was gently critiqued, chapter by chapter, until he col­lected good feedback on his entire book. He now knew more clearly why agents never got past chapter 1-and he's hard at work on a more informed revision.

To assess your feedback needs, spend some time with your writer's notebook or journal today. As you think about where you are in your manuscript revision, make some hon­est notes about your concerns and eagerness for feedback. Then, when you feel you're ready, take one small step toward reaching out.

Go on line, visit community bulletin boards in your lo­cal bookstores, or make a call to the English department of a nearby university or college. Research some possibilities for a manuscript exchange with a writers' group, writing coaches, or writing partner.

Discover how constructive feedback can help you take your manuscript to the finish line-and the publication that awaits there.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

1.  Spend a few minutes today writing about how you feel about your book, right now.  Are you excited, overwhelmed, discouraged, skeptical?  Describe the feelings as specifically as possible:  "They feel like . . . " or "I feel like. . . "

2.  Now switch to assessing what might help you most at this place.  Begin writing again, finishing the sentence:  "I think I most need . . . "  Repeat this prompt 5 times, answering it differently every time.

3.  From this exercise, make a list of three things you need most to move forward right now.  They can be specific issues with your book or overall needs you have for support.