Tag: conflict
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Of Crises, Experience and Goals…
Surviving a crisis bestows special knowledge garnered and held by few. It also grants admittance into various orders of wisdom yielded by experience. Every novel or story a writer crafts tells the life of a certain crisis, and chronicles a central character’s survival of that crisis. The process of writing that novel flows out of…
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Of Dilemmas, Alice in Wonderland, and Shifts in Consciousness…
There comes a time in every story or novel when the main character stands in the midst of her or his dilemma like Alice does in Wonderland. The protagonist ponders, How do present circumstances differ from my immediate past? This place, like that of Alice in her wondrous, and yet frightening Wonderland sits between the…
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Of Cause and Effect, Twin Universes, and Sacrifice…
The protagonist’s decision to act constitutes a cornerstone moment in the life a novel. It signifies the shift from the beginning or set-up of the novel to the middle characterized as a process of action and reaction, better known as cause-and-effect. Still others term this area of the novel, and quite aptly, causality-and-build. Cause-and-effect emphasizes…
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The Journey and Its Calling…
Each story or novel presents the main character with not only an upset in daily activities, but also a quest. That quest presents itself not unlike a summons to court. The protagonist, in arriving at court, must plead her or his case. And yet the judge, the bailiff, the jurors, even the attorneys for both…
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Conflict and Desire
Conflict arises from a character seeking to achieve a goal and encountering an obstacle along the way. Another way of looking at this is CHARACTER + GOAL = CONFLICT. It is most helpful, when writing a story, if you can define the character’s goal in physical terms. But what if your protagonist desires love?
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Character, Goals and Obstacles
A writer has three questions she or he must answer before or when beginning a story. Who is my protagonist? What does she or he want? And what is getting in her or his way? Each of these aspects delivers an important component of story. Together they create a force that propels plot. A story…
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An Idea for a Story…
I have the idea for a story. It may turn into a novel. For now it opens with, “…The great god Maui, it is said, created the island Maui, by tricking his brothers into thinking he had caught a huge fish. He told them to paddle faster so that he could pull the fish to…