How to write conflict well

If we think back to the movies and novels we have seen, is it true that the climax of most romantic movies is when the hero and heroine have emotional conflicts? Is it true that the climax of most mystery novels is when the detective has evidence on the criminal and the two begin to confront each other? Since the emotional intensity, drama and stimulation of conflicted characters are often the highest, they can almost always arouse the readers' emotional resonance and attention to the greatest extent. Therefore, I regard it as the most important factor in engaging readers and establishing the theme of a novel. To better understand conflict, let's try to classify it.

If we look at it from the perspective of a character, his conflicts can be divided into three levels: inner conflict, personal conflict and external conflict. Inner conflict We have done a detailed explanation in the last class - how to write character psychology. Personal conflict occurs in the most intimate confrontational relationships in our life, such as father and son conflict, husband and wife conflict, teacher-student conflict, lover conflict and so on. External conflicts occur in all sources of confrontation beyond individuals, including conflicts between social institutions and individuals, such as conflicts between government and citizens, and conflicts between companies and customers. It also includes conflicts between individuals and other non-intimate relationships, such as police and criminals, bosses and employees, doctors and patients, and so on. There are also personal and environmental conflicts, such as the conflict between the victims and the earthquake, the conflict between the crew and the sea, and so on.

So a good story, how to set and arrange the protagonist encountered contradictions? At the beginning of the development of the contradiction, the protagonist often has an object of desire, such as making money, getting ahead, revenge, seizing power and so on. And when he needed to fulfill that desire, he took the first action. But external forces blocked his desire and made him suffer setbacks. For example, Michael, the hero of the classic American drama Prison Break, is an architect. His brother takes a killing task in order to pay off the loan shark, but he is framed and imprisoned without killing anyone. Michael tried many legal avenues but could not clear his brother. So he decided to deliberately arrested, came to his brother's prison, and through his prepared prison map and master of architecture to escape. But when he came to prison, he ran into all kinds of trouble. The first is how to protect yourself during a prison riot. After the riots, Michael needs to find reliable company, but in the process of finding some betrayals and traps, and how to manage the relationship with the prison boss, etc.

If we sort out the development of his contradictions, we will find a stable structure, which is a cyclic process of desire -- contradiction -- resolution: At the very beginning of the story, the protagonist Michael is framed in the process of fulfilling his desire -- saving his brother's life -- by the existing social institutions or other individuals, which leads to the failure of the action, and the first contradiction between desire and reality results. In order to break through this contradiction, the hero on adventure intentionally in prison, and successful, but then because of the change of situation, a prison riot creates new desire - to protect themselves, but to realize this desire, will produce a new contradiction - choose from other criminal gangs and prison after conflict, and as a deterrent to target - enemy prisoners to report to Michael. In order to break through the second contradiction, the hero decides to take a third action, and so on, until the climax of the story is reached, when the final contradiction is broken through, the hero will come to the end.

Having discussed the classic structure of story line contradiction, I would like to talk about some of the more common and classic types of character value contradiction. Most of the value contradictions can be divided into three types: interest contradictions, personality contradictions, and emotional contradictions and so on.

We can expand on these three major value contradictions and subdivide them into more categories.

More common conflicts of interest, such as the conflict between good and evil. It is often used in stories like police and bandits, judicial stories, and martial arts stories. Typical examples are Huang Zhicheng and Han Chen in Infernal Affairs, and Guo Jing and Ouyang Feng in Legend of the Coneagle Heroes, all of which are conflicts between good and evil. Another example is the conflict between truth and lies, which is often seen in machibana stories, such as Mei Changsu and Xia Jiang in Nirvana in Fire. Or the conflict between rich and poor. It is commonly seen in struggle stories, and the typical representatives are Julien and Martel in The Red and the Black.

Now let's talk about common personality contradictions. There is mainly a contradiction between wisdom and stupidity. They are commonly seen in comedy stories and detective stories, with Li Chenggong and Niu Geng in Lost on the Journey being typical representatives. Sherlock Holmes and Watson in Sherlock Holmes; Sheldon and Penny from The Big Bang Theory fall into this category. Or the conflict between bravery and cowardice, which is often seen in war stories and martial arts stories, exemplified by Jon Snow and Greyjoy in Game of Thrones, or Guo Jing and Yang Kang in the Condor Heroes.

And finally, common emotional conflicts. The main conflict is between love and hate. It is common in love stories and martial arts stories, such as Qiao Feng and Ah Zi in Tian Long Ba Bu. The conflict between chivalry and personal love is often seen in gangster stories and business stories. The typical representative is Hui Man-keung and Fung Jing-yao in Shanghai Beach.

In short, in the story, we need to set up targeted contradictions between various characters according to the genre and narrative goal of the novel. For example, if you want to make a joke, then you can insert some contradiction between wisdom and stupidity. If you want to build suspense, you can put in some contradictions between truth and lies. It should be noted that the contradictions of a novel are not composed of a single contradiction, it must have many different contradictions woven alternately into a complete story. Therefore, we need to set up primary and secondary contradictions for our novels.

The so-called principal contradiction is the central contradiction that runs through the whole novel. For example, for detective novels, the truth and mystery of a case are the biggest contradiction. The secondary contradictions are other contradictions that occur in the process of solving the primary contradiction, such as the bickering between Holmes and Watson in Sherlock Holmes, and the quarrel between the client and the suspect. Although these secondary contradictions are not the core of the story, they can enrich the structure and content of the story, and play an important role in promoting the development of the story in certain paragraphs.

What I want to do next is talk about how a compelling story arranges the conflicting rhythms and macro structures. These are two key points that many writers struggle with. Here we take Higashino Keigo's representative work "White Night" as an example to talk specifically.

First of all, the main conflict in the novel is the conflict between police Ryozo Sasagaki and criminals Ryoji Tokuhara and Yuho Nishimoto. The main character Ryoji and Yuho Nishimoto's biggest goal is not to be caught by the police. The novel consists of 13 chapters and 350,000 words. Obviously, for readers accustomed to fast-paced and strong plots, if there is only one contradiction in 350,000 words, it is easy for readers to feel long and monotonous. Therefore, Higashino Keigo subtly sets various secondary contradictions between chapters.

For example, in the first three chapters of the novel, Higashino Keigo through the description of Ryoji's father in the snow spike mother's broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-broker-brok. After the father was killed in bright bright, and described bright mother and shop assistant Matsuura yong's affair, thus creating bright and matsuura yong emotional contradictions - here is also hate the emotional contradictions, for bright bright in the future to kill Matsuura yong made the groundwork.

As the two grow up, the primary contradiction remains the same, but the secondary contradiction takes on new changes, resulting in new plot threads. For example, Higashino Keigo describes the contradiction of the snow spike and good friend River Riko, because she was rich shinozuka ichi fell in love at first sight, which makes the snow spike jealousy - new emotional contradiction. Snow ear in framed after the son of the river, and was shinozuka Issei keen to see through, and was targeted by him. And the snow spike in order to get the wealth of high Gongcheng, and cheat him pregnant to get married, but high Gongcheng actually is not so love snow spike - there is a conflict of interest. In a few short chapters, the love-hate entanglements between different characters are interwoven as secondary contradictions. Each secondary contradiction will deepen the emotional relationship between the characters and highlight the characters' own characteristics, such as snow Sui's loneliness, shrewdness, mask, calculation and so on.

At the same time, in Keigo Higashino's writing, the balance of power between chapters and chapters, between the principal contradiction and the secondary contradiction, always presents a wave of rising and falling motion. For example, the snow spike and Ryoji are safe in the homicide after the childhood, as a great success, Higashino Keigo immediately arranged for them to strengthen the opposition force, that is, Sasagaki Run three collected new evidence. The reason why Higashino Keigo did this is that when the emotional experience of success followed by success or failure followed by failure is repeated, the reader will lose the strong shock experience of the previous one for the same result. If the two sides keep winning, the reader will lose the tension and suspense, so it is important to maintain a balance between the contradictions. Only proper layout can always grab the reader and keep your story going.

In this lecture we are going to focus on the three levels of conflict, the classical structure of conflict development, the three types of common conflict, the primary and secondary contradictions in the rhythm of conflict. In short, conflict is the key to a story being a story, and if the conflict is already in your mind, then the story is already there.

Imagination question for this lesson: Pick a piece of literature you like, now turn it to the page of the finale, give it a conflict, and let the story continue...