"Latin America is the insane asylum of Europe. Maybe, originally, it was thought that Latin America would be Europe's hospital, or Europe's grain bin. But now it's the insane asylum. A savage, impoverished, violent insane asylum, where, despite its chaos and corruption, if you open your eyes wide you can see the shadow of the Louvre."
Roberto Bolano, writer
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
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