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まろ's writing classroom: Lesson 4 [Preparation homework] Creating conflict (supplementary)
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The author of this article まろ is the author of the light novel “Southern Cross”. He hopes to use his own experience to help more friends write good stories. Thank you for authorizing the “Content Hacker” website to reprint it. Thank you hereby. It is recommended that you read the previous article [Lesson 4: Creating Conflict (Part 2) - Assistance with Academic Theory] (click to read) before reading this article.
In the process of pursuing desires and beliefs, the characters conflict with their surroundings, which is actually the core of the play.
Recently, netizens have been asking me about “how to write good novels”. Therefore, I organized my experience in writing light novels into 34 themes, divided into three stages: [Preparation Assignment], [Plot Process] and [Writing Management].
Whether you want to write a novel, a biography, or a business history, these articles can help. No matter what your writing level is, I will guide you through the two stages of [preparation] and [plot flow] to complete a piece of work, so start right away!
The most important thing in the early stage of writing a play is to observe how others create dilemmas through character interactions in the play.
Thanks for your hard work! You have learned all the way here, give yourself a round of applause first! If the work you plan to create is not a fantasy world view, then you have already passed the most difficult part of the [preparation work] stage. If you are not sure whether there are any missing courses, please check from “まろ’s writing classroom tag”.
We have learned a lot of theories and tools in the previous courses, but be sure not to memorize them all. For example, Jin Yong’s novel “The Legend of Heaven and Sword of the Dragon” writes like this:
Zhang Wuji walked slowly in a circle in the hall, pondered for a long time, then slowly walked around half a circle again, raised his head, with a happy face, and shouted: “I have completely forgotten this, completely forgotten.” Zhang Sanfeng said: “It’s not bad, it’s not bad! You forget so quickly, please ask the Eight-Armed Divine Sword to teach you!”
Theory allows you to observe the emotions of life and other works more sensitively, and tools can give you a basic framework for creation so that you will not miss important links. However, without the creator’s own sensibility, it is just a work with an empty body but no soul. To paraphrase the saying in martial arts novels: sword moves are easy, sword intentions are rare. So after talking about theory and tools, I want to share two ideas with you:
- The first step to create a unique conflict is not to accept everything that others and other works convey to you.
Take the adventure stories of the brave as an example. In many classic works, the brave comes from the brave family, sometimes the son of the previous protagonist. This setting seems to make sense at first glance, just like the concept of inheritance from father to son. But I want to ask you to think about a question:
Suppose many of your relatives and friends died in the battle against the Demon King, would you want to be cannon fodder?
If you always insist that the characters unfold the story because of their family fate, it would be too much to ignore their personal will. Of course, there is no need to completely deny this setting, but I would think that the characters should have their own personal will as much as possible. If formulated it would be this:
Personal will ＞ Family will ＞ National will
If your character wants to step out to save a family, a country, or even all mankind, be sure to give him a good reason from the heart, such as revenge for his beloved uncle, rather than an obligation as a member of the family. Of course, forced obligations can also create conflicts, but this happens more often in family ethics dramas, while adventure stories rarely use this element (laughs). Let’s look at two examples, both from the Old Testament:
In [The Book of Jonah], Jonah, who is regarded as a heroic prophet (God’s spokesman on earth), is called by God one day to go to the Assyrian city of Nineveh and persuade the people there to repent and change. However, our hero ran away.
He took a boat to escape, but it caused a big storm. The people in the boat cast lots and found that it was Jonah’s fault, so the people in the boat threw Jonah into the sea, where he was swallowed by a big fish for three days and three nights. After that, the big fish vomited Jonah on dry land. God asked Jonah again to go to Nineveh, and this time Jonah went. The main point I want to make is the turning point in the first half of the story. If you are interested in the full story, please check out the second half.
In [The Book of Job], Job, a flawless good man (to be precise, a “righteous man”), originally lived a good life every day. Perhaps because he particularly glorified God in his life, when Satan challenged God, “If you don’t bless your people, they will abandon you,” Job became the guinea pig in the struggle between the two parties.
Job suddenly lost his property (horses, cattle, sheep, etc.), children, and got a strange disease. His whole body was covered with worms (probably a parasitic disease). His wife wanted him to renounce his faith, and his friends insisted that he had done something heinous. After several heated arguments between him and his friends (and random passers-by), God showed up and gave Job justice.
Both stories are very interesting and have a profound impact on Western values. Please think about the protagonist Frodo of “The Lord of the Rings”. He is not a brave man in the traditional sense. It is because he can resist the temptation of the Lord of the Rings that he carries the Lord of the Rings.
On the other hand, although the brave men who traveled with them did have the belief to save Middle-earth, their personal desires were amplified by the Lord of the Rings and became obvious. I think “The Lord of the Rings” became a classic because of its contrasting and unconventional setting and its description of the character’s will.
- Conflict has many aspects and levels, which you need to explore in your life.
Conflict in both drama and life is a gradual process. Just like if you hate someone, you usually don’t hate it as soon as you see it. It’s when he steps on your small mines all the way to the big mines that makes you come to the conclusion “I hate this person.”
The same is true for plays. At the beginning of a conflict, it may just be bickering, sarcasm, and teasing, and then it will evolve into a conflict where only one person can survive. Moreover, everything and everyone you want to have value for humanity can be a source of conflict. Let me take my favorite movie as an example:
The background of the movie “The Enemy Is Now” is the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II. The conflict at the beginning of the story is about the national dignity of Germany and Russia. By the middle of the story, the German army invited the principal, Major Ivan, from the sniper school to fight against Vasily because too many officers were sniped by the protagonist Vasily.
At this point, the story adds layers of class conflict. Because Major Aiwen’s dress and behavior are all aristocratic, and Vasily has been a hunter who grew up in the countryside. As the story progresses, the conflict between the two gradually shifts from a battle of nationalities to a battle of morale.
The movie “Batman Begins” focuses on the personal conflict of the protagonist Bruce. In my personal opinion, Bruce became Batman in the first place because his parents were shot by muggers, not to save Gotham City. Therefore, he only became Batman because he didn’t want others to suffer the same pain.
And when he decided to split himself into playboy Bruce and justice messenger Batman, his childhood sweetheart Rachel, the prosecutor of Gotham City, witnessed him playing with a woman in the hotel pool. Bruce was shocked and said, “I’m not what you see.” Rachel only replied to him, “Your actions determine who you are.” Therefore, another conflict arises.
The conflict in the musical “Phantom of the Opera” comes from a personal level: the heroine Christine who wants to turn a sparrow into a phoenix, the mysterious man Phantom who treats Christine as a student and lover, and Raul who comes out to fight for love midway. This somewhat cruel story highlights the values of the heroine Christine: even though the Phantom is kind to her and talented, he cannot appear in front of everyone. To put it more bluntly, maybe it can only be a platonic love. But Raul can give Christine a relationship that is more acceptable to ordinary people.
Therefore, the scale of the conflict can be as large as the survival of mankind, hatred between the country and the family, or it can be as small as personal love. Well, in The Phantom of the Opera, maybe it also includes the survival of the opera house (laughs).
Settings that escape common sense can also become a source of conflict, such as “Ugly Girlfriend”. Although the heroine Momoe cannot be said to be ugly, she really cannot be called a beauty as generally recognized (but she is still cute…). However, Baihui became an idol by chance, which put her boyfriend and her boyfriend who had always disliked her into deep conflicts.
I must warn, this level of conflict is difficult. Because a certain advantage of the character must be magnified in an extremely distorted way to outweigh the generally perceived shortcomings, so that such a premise and conflict can be established. If you have such a high-contrast prototype of a setting, please don’t give it up. It may become a very classic work.
At the end of this course, I would like to make a short summary based on all the previous courses.
What you are studying so far is the most core part of the play, and may also be the part that relies most on your personal sensibility. It’s hard work and requires you to keep trying. As you create again and again, the aspects and depths you can control at one time become wider and wider. There is no shortcut to this, nor can it be replaced by beautiful words and phrases. Because the play expounds a kind of value, and its impact is very far-reaching. You may not remember the content of the idol drama you watched last year, but you should remember the dialogue and plot points of a certain work that touched your heart many years ago, so I was able to rack my brains to recall and write these course contents.
It’s not difficult to share with others the things in your life that touch you. But weaving a touching story from scratch is very difficult. Because those elements that touch people’s hearts must be completed by you, the creator in the story. For this reason, although the drama is very similar to reality, you must first plan the outcome before you can construct it, especially if you love foreshadowing.
You may wonder why I didn’t wait until the end of Lesson 5 [Elements and World View] before giving the general introduction. Because I believe that the play tells human stories, and the nature of various conflicts is actually applicable to all worldviews. The world is like a lens that can distort and magnify certain conflicts.
If you want to convey the theme of friendship, I think the essence of it is the same whether it is the caveman era, the Middle Ages, the modern era or the future cosmic century. The only difference is that when a friend betrays you, the weapon is a stone, a sword, a gun, or a giant robot.
Please be sure to understand this essence and don’t be fooled by superficial character settings and world views.
Therefore, you will also see that when I interview the character, I do not ask about the character’s occupation, parents’ family background, etc. first, as taught in some playbooks. For me, the reason for the character’s actions is the key. As for occupation and parents’ family background, they are just derivatives to explain the actions.
Perhaps you feel that the quality of drama works you see today is low, and a certain master even described it as “all rubbish”. However, these works can still be published in mainstream media, and some seem to have good profits, so why bother to learn drama? To be fair, the value of a work is not just in the plot, but I think that as a dramatist, you have the responsibility and obligation to make the plot reach its peak. Maybe you feel as alone as I do right now, but no one knows what impact your work will have on human culture at some point in the future, and I mean that (seriously).
Or maybe these courses have disillusioned you with the romance of playwriting. Or maybe like me, after watching most movies, I already know how the foreshadowing will explode and how the ending will turn out. I call this phenomenon an occupational disease, and there are indeed friends who gave up their dream of writing plays because they were worried about this occupational disease.
But I must say that with this professional ability, you can see more details in the play. And when a certain playwright exceeds your imagination, the pleasure is not something that ordinary readers and audiences can experience. In [“National Killing Day: Lawlessness”](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AE%9A%E6%AE%BA%E6%88%AE%E6% 97%A5%EF%BC%9A%E7%84%A1%E6%B3%95%E7%84%A1%E5%A4%A9), [“Miss Sherlock”](https://zh.wikipedia.o rg/wiki/%E7%A5%9E%E6%8E%A2%E5%A4%8F%E6%B4%9B%E5%85%8B%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90) and [“Startup Source Code”](htt ps://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%95%9F%E5%8B%95%E5%8E%9F%E5%A7%8B%E7%A2%BC), there is a part that amazes me.
Furthermore, now a large number of audio-visual audiences have moved to the Internet, which can also be used as a kind of circumstantial evidence. If you just want to copy the same characters and plot structures in large quantities, the day when your playwriting career is over may not be too far away.
Horse-drawn carriages were not replaced by trains and cars in one day, but are you still riding a horse today?
Regarding conflict, I recommend two more comics: Yu Aida’s [“Gun Gun Girl”](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A5%9E%E6%A7%8D%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B 3), [“Enmity with the Gods”] by Shou Yue Shigui (https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%92%8C%E7%A5%9E%E6%98%8E%E7%BB%93%E6%80%A8). The former is a work that perfectly combines the hatred between country and family, personal grievances and one’s own guilt; the latter is based on a very absurd premise, which I can’t write directly here (laughs). Even the author said, “This was a sudden whim of the editor when he was drunk. When he woke up, he realized how unreasonable it was.” But thanks to Mr. Mori Yue and his editors for bringing us such a subversive work.
In the process of writing your play, you will need [learning ability]. You can refer to Bangbangtang Creative Marketing’s briefing [[Learning ability-how to learn efficiently and horizontal transplantation ability]] (https://www.facebook.com/pg/BestPopMKT/photos/?tab=album&album_id=749946238462945). The results of learning show a compound interest curve, that is to say, it is harder at the beginning, but it will get faster and deeper. I hope you can keep learning with me.
Below are all the links for Lessons 1 to 4. Please read them again and again until they are clear. If you feel there is something missing, please report it to me and I will explain and supplement it as appropriate:
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Lesson 3: Character Setting (Part 1) - Individual Characters
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Lesson 3: Character Setting (Part 2) - Character Interaction
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Lesson 4: Creating Conflict (Part 2) - Character Psychological Analysis
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Lesson 4: Creating Conflict (Part 2) - Aided by Academic Theory
If you are interested, here is further reading for this class:
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Pan Science “Lover’s bonus points and deductions, please abide by Bayes’ theorem”
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“Life is Calculation” by Sho Masako Kai: Reading Through Financial Statements through Comics
*Kohlberg’s “Levels of Moral Judgment”
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Old Testament [[Book of Jonah]](https://zh.wikipedia .org/wiki/%E7%B4%84%E6%8B%BF%E6%9B%B8) and [Book of Job]
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Bangbangtang Creative Marketing[Learning Power- How to learn efficiently and achieve horizontal transplantation]
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Mr.6: Stop teaching children more views of justice, we need to teach them “no views”
If you have any thoughts and suggestions about this article, please feel free to write to maro.huang@hukaka.com and I will reply to you personally. We will see you next time in [Lesson 5: Elements and World View (Part 1) - Fantasy World View] (click to read)!
Further reading
- まろ’s Writing Classroom: Lesson 5 [Preparation Assignment] Elements and World View (Part 1)
- まろ’s Writing Classroom: Lesson 4 [Preparation Homework] Creating Conflict (Part 2)
- Misaki’s Writing Classroom: Lesson 4 [Preparation Homework] Creating Conflict (Part 2)
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