• Member Since 17th Feb, 2014
  • offline last seen February 11th

MagnetBolt


More Blog Posts25

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Oct
5th
2018

How to Write More Good - Conflict · 5:30am Oct 5th, 2018

Almost everything you write where there’s a conflict between two characters can be thought of as a combination of a fight and a dialogue, and those two things are really different ways of describing the same thing. When two characters cross swords, it’s just a way of talking out their differences with action, and when two characters get into a screaming match or a debate, that’s no different from a boxing match.

And there are good and bad ways to write that.

Now this is just basically my own personal theory, and it’s something I constantly tinker with, but if you’re having problems with a fight scene (I often do) I’ve got some advice on how to structure things.

Step 1: Set the Stakes

The first and most important thing is to set the stakes for the conflict. What’s at risk? More importantly, why is the protagonist fighting? Sometimes they’re just fighting because they’re stubborn and dumb and that’s okay. If there’s literally a fight, they might just be fighting for their life (though that’s boring). If it’s an argument, maybe they just don’t want to be wrong.

Don’t go past this step until the reader has an understanding of why the action in the following scene happens. The reader doesn’t need to have all the facts, but they should know as much as the main character in the scene does.

Lucky is trying to keep a Windigo away from her friend. The Windigo will freeze him solid if it gets close, and only the burning branch she pulled from the fire is working as a weapon.

Rara is listening to somepony perform a cover of one of her old songs, and she’s forcing herself to listen to it out of politeness and wants to hate it.

Doctor Sparkle needs to get grant money out of Celestia so she can buy the cadavers she needs for research purposes.

Applejack has to stop a walking tank the Pony First Front dug out of an old battlefield before it can level half the city and kill innocent ponies.

Step 2: Immediate Difficulty

If characters could just get what they want without trouble, you’re not really writing a scene that needs this structure. For example, getting a glass of water isn’t something that people generally struggle with. But if they’re paralyzed from the neck down, it becomes a struggle between them and the world.

At this step you need to show the reader how the character doesn’t immediately get what they want and that there’s a real challenge to overcome. Don’t move on until you’ve established the struggle itself.

Lucky’s branch isn’t going to burn all night, and the windigo isn’t giving up. She can’t escape because of the storm, and all she’s done is buy some time. She needs a permanent solution before the branch is extinguished.

Rara isn’t actually confined in the club. She could leave at any time. And she wants to do just that, but the performer transfixes her. She’s got surprising skill, and even though Rara wants to hate the song, she has to admire the artistry.

Doctor Sparkle has to defend her grant request, and Celestia is strongly against the use of pony cadavers for her experiments, which are borderline illegal. Celestia immediately starts with a denial.

Applejack can’t go to the police or military because a massive blackout is making it almost impossible to communicate with anypony. She’s on her own with no weapons except her own two hooves.

Step 3: The Twist

A fight without a twist is a strawman fighting a knight on horseback. It doesn’t end well for the scarecrow and you know it from the first line. This twist can go either way, but it should reverse the balance of power. Whoever was in control in the last step should find themselves on the wrong foot now.

A good Twist should leave the reader in suspense and make them question which way the dialogue is actually going to go. This is a good time to remind them of the stakes of the fight and to put something in the scene that has a lasting effect on the characters.

Lucky’s branch goes out. She can’t fend the windigo off with it anymore, and before she can do anything, the windigo freezes one of her hooves in place, too far away from her friend to defend him.

Rara feels something in the song, emotion that she hasn’t had in years. She realizes that not only is this no longer her song, but that the performer might well be better than she is, and she starts doubting her own skill.

Doctor Sparkle gets support from the dean of the school, whom she had arranged to serve as a supportive voice in this grant application thanks to her other, shadowy, connections. The dean reminds Celestia that there’s a war going on and that they can’t afford to set this research back just because they’re squeamish, especially since there are plenty of corpses to go around.

Applejack can’t face the tank head-on. She lures it into a construction zone and manages to collapse a building on top of it by making it crash into them.

Step Four: The Climax

The reader isn’t sure who’s going to win, so the next step is to tell them. This can mean a second reversal of fortunes, or maybe the Twist sticks and things keep going that way. The important thing is that this is where you set in stone the final, telling blow. The final argument.

Don’t be tempted to go around in circles, doing one twist after another. You can do it a little, but like any other running joke it’ll get old.  Similarly, characters talking and retreading the same ground several times just gets tiring and makes it drag.

Finish the fight. The reader should know that things are done. That doesn’t mean someone has to be lying on the ground in a puddle of their own blood, but that’s definitely one way to do it. Remember the hero can lose, and it’s often more exciting if they do!

Lucky’s special talent is inexplicable luck, both good and bad. She tries firing a spell bolt at the windigo, but it goes wild and hits the wall, causing a cave-in. The windigo can escape, but she and her friend aren’t so lucky. They fall into a crevasse, and the spirit doesn’t follow.

Rara lost the battle to hate the song, and more than that she wants to meet the pony who played it. The audience doesn’t even know it’s a cover. She even lost a battle of fame.

Doctor Sparkle’s grant application is approved, with the proviso that she is disallowed from doing tests with cadavers, thanks to the Dean.

Applejack thought she finished the tank but it starts getting free, reactivating and breaking through the concrete. She gets on top of it and starts kicking the hatch in a race to get it open before the tank can free itself. She manages to break the lock and ruin her cybernetic spine in the process, falling into the tank and smashing the controls with the last of her strength.

Step Five: Come to Terms

After you know the winner, you need to deal with the stakes. You set the stakes, so stick to it and follow up the promise you made about what would happen. At this stage you show the effect this whole mess will have going forward.

If there’s nothing to resolve, if nothing changes in the story as a result of what just happened, then nothing that happened matters and you should reconsider having it happen at all. This resolution should drive events, because someone did something and got what they wanted, and someone lost and has to deal with what they lost.

Lucky and her friend fall into a hot spring under the ice, reviving him and helping cure his hypothermia. Her hoof is still sore from being frozen and she can’t walk on it very well, but at least the windigo is gone. They start looking for a way out of the glacier cave.

Rara goes back to her cabin. After hearing her own music played with more skill and passion than she’s felt in years, she isn’t sure she can get back on stage tomorrow.

Doctor Sparkle buys new equipment and is setting it up in the lab. She finds out the Dean, who she had under her thumb, has retired very suddenly. She won this time, narrowly, but Celestia is stacking the deck to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Applejack wakes up in the hospital. She managed to keep ponies safe, and she survived. That’s about all she can ask for.

This method isn’t the only one you could use, but I’ve found it to be a useful general structure for both fairly long and short setpieces. Try it yourself, and remember that like all writing tools, it’s a suggestion, not a rule. Do what works for your story.

Comments ( 2 )
PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

I'm really impressed by those story snippets you came up with for examples. :D I would read any of those!

An additional thing to consider is the personality type and problem solving method of the character, which is one place where being a pantser instead of a plotter comes in handy. Quite a few times I've written a rough plot/outline of a scene, and when I sit down and actually write it from the character's POV, I wind up in a completely different spot because the character 'takes over' and resolves the situation the way he or she would do it.

Example: S1E2 - Six ponies are traveling through the Everfree forest and see an obstruction (like a manticore) in the path. Each of them will attempt to continue their journey by solving the problem in their own way. Applejack might try to find away around, Rainbow Dash will attack it, Twilight will look for a spell, and Fluttershy will go up to it and befriend it. Each of them are faced with the same actual obstruction, but each of them will see it in a different way, and will go about solving the conflict in a way that matches their personalities. For example, if Flutters were to viciously attack or if Rainbow wants to make friends, the reader will 'Huh?' You *can* use these 'at first glance this looks odd' reactions, *if* the characters have an item of knowledge the reader does not, say for example Fluttershy is using animal dominance to establish they are not prey, or if Rainbow has a previous relationship with the manticore because it likes to watch her practice. ("I can't talk to him, but I call him Audience, because he likes to watch me strut my stuff.")

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