"It is no accident that although Jesus came preaching a disturbing and redistributive gospel, we do not preach what Jesus preached. Instead, we preach Jesus."
Peter J. Gomes, minister of Harvard's Memorial Church and professor, criticizing the institutional church, from his new book The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
Lesson 2: conflict
- Aim your automatic writing at a destination
- Conflict can be:
- external
- internal
- brief
- disruption of harmony
- problem that needs to be overcome
- Cannot have a story without conflict
- hooks the reader
- creates questions in the mind of the reader
- how did we get here, what will happen next
- At any point, what should be the question in the reader's mind?
- A good story needs the reader on tenterhooks
- Don't ask too many questions
- Keep adding conflict to keep the reader engaged
- Character plus conflict plus setting equals plot
- Choose the right conflict for the type of character eg a cerebral approach would not need a "man defuses bomb" scenario
- Conflict leads to development of character
- Make conflict engaging
- unexpected reactions to common occurrences
- use emotional theft but be considerate and kind if friends involved (no matter how well you think you've disguised it)
- Consequences of conflict
- Scale: superficial or deep internal
- affecting more than a single person?
- length of time over which consequences might occur
- known and unknown
- a neighbour noisy once is a mild conflict, noisy continually builds to a serious conflict
- Serious consequences may involve more feelings than non-serious ones eg soul-searching, difficulty, uncertainty as to what is right
- Use complexity in conflict. Don't stick to just one dimension
- physical
- emotional
- familial
- societal
- financial
- Start with a boring situation, add a conflict, add another conflict, add a resolution
- Changed circumstances can affect the nature of conflict. An apparently serious conflict can become incidental if much more serious events overtake
- Write math nor aftermath!
- Start in one state and end in another state
- Cognitive dissonance / assonance
Back to writing course
