Writing Tip Of The Week
UPDATES:
So far this year my own New Year’s Resolutions are going well. Weight is being lost, money is being saved and novels are being written. This year I want to get a car and I should have enough saved to buy a brand new Suzuki Alto on the 20th of April.
I plan on fully finishing/editing two novels this year: Lifesphere: Case file 2 and The Hungry People. I still have a few thousand words of the first draft of Lifesphere: Case file 2 to go-I’m hoping editing will be reasonably quick. I’ll be doing three rounds of editing before it goes to my agent because the first draft is such a mess. The Hungry People is edited up to chapter 9. I have to do the remaining 11(?) and then polish. Depending on when I have to have Lifesphere: Case file 3 ready, I could be done with those by July.
Still no news from the publishers-though realistically this is the very earliest I could have expected to hear from them. Last night I had a nightmare about it. It involved small presses, tiny advances and brutal reviews... yeah. Writer nightmares. Grin.
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK:
- What is Conflict?
Writers will often read or hear advice like: ‘Write conflict into every page’ or ‘every chapter needs to be centred on a conflict’. Lately, I’ve come across a few people who misunderstand ‘conflict’ to mean ‘confrontation’ and end up trying to write an argument into every scene.
I find this faintly baffling. We’ve all seen TV, read books and watched movies. We know not every scene has an argument in it, so why would you think that was what was meant? And if you did think it was what was mean, why on earth would you take such advice seriously?
Conflict, according to my dictionary is:
1. A battle or struggle.
2. The opposition of two forces or things.
3. To be or come into opposition.
The first point is probably the most obvious one, and where the argument idea stems from. However the second one is probably more relevant to writers. A conflict could be a group of scientists trying to escape an island filled with rampaging dinosaurs (Jurassic park) or two lovers being kept apart by a jealous husband on a big boat (Titanic). If your character is caught in a blizzard, he and the blizzards are in opposition, him wanting to survive and the blizzard being, well, cold.
Now you have some idea what a conflict is, let me say: Yes, I believe every scene needs a central conflict. It doesn’t have to be a dinosaur or a blizzard, but without a conflict, not much is happening.
Keep an eye out for a longer version of this writing tip on my tutorials page in my upcoming tutorial on conflict and stakes.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
- What area of your writing do you feel needs the most work? (Conflict/Characterisation/Dialogue/Description/Etc?)
Tell me in the comments.
For more writing tips, please check my tutorial’s page.