Writing Conflict: A Framework

[poppyseedheart]

As I work on the neverending final chapter of what's mine is yours, more and more often I come back to the idea that I am generating for myself a uniying framework around conceptualizing, complicating, and portraying moments of confict between characters. My entrypoint to fandom was primarily via hurt/comfort. I was a young teen and accidentally stumbled onto ff.net, and the soapy drama of someone being or feeling deeply hurt and subsequently experiencing the exact kind of care they need appealed to me greatly.

I have posited before that the core draw of hurt/comfort is the promise of perfect safety. In a lot of h/c fic, there is almost an element of mind reading. What do you need? How can I give it to you even if you're ashamed to ask for it? And can the fact that you've been broken down "enough" by either physical or emotional pain allow me to give it to you when you might otherwise turn it away?

In this way, h/c can be a surprisingly conflictless genre. What conflict exists often exists in service of total apology by the end of the story. The older I've gotten the more critical I've become of stories where someone, either intentionally or unintentionally, utilizes their own pain as an excuse for any and all bad behavior: "I hurt more than you, so I'm owed remorse because [my trauma response is outside of my control / I'm not emotionally stable enough to reckon with the ways I can cause harm myself / you didn't intuit my needs quickly enough so you deserved to take everything I dished out / etc]." This isn't really conflict. It's sanitizing and somewhat dehumanizing. Accountability takes a backseat to comfort. The victim gets to be perfect, and then the story gets to end.

I say all of this as someone who is still a huge h/c fan and loves the genre and what it can offer around vulnerability and getting to the root of something. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to really complete the cycle of healing something. That's all true! Also sometimes my blorbo needs to get sick and have someone give them soup, and to believe they've done nothing wrong now or ever amen.

But this fannish upbringing did not help me write conflict. 

My understanding of all of this has changed slowly over time. This current WIP has pushed me harder than any other story in terms of conflict without easy answers. I put some guys in an impossible situation and tried to honor their individual perspectives. No one is really all the way right or all the way wrong, or even most of the way in either direction. Someone gets hurt more, yes, but does that make them a victim? I think a younger version of me would have structured this much more as a hurt/comfort fic, but adult me ended up having a different take.

I worried before posting chapter one (and the subsequent chapters too) that the comment section would turn into a courtroom: who is the poor baby and who is the predator? I've been really delighted actually to see so many different takes, many of which go all in on acknowledging that everyone here is hurting. That is literally the point. It's all about pain. It's all about what we do to each other. All I've done is make it literal.

When I think about writing conflict I am thinking about the ways I have hurt the people I love, and the ways they have hurt me. I am thinking about the people in this world who hate me, and what might be driving that hate, and the fact that I'll never be able to change it, and the fact that I don't have to. I am thinking about getting it wrong when you're young and don't know any better, and then looking back and holding that messy young self with all the compassion you can muster.

I am thinking about:

• core immutable personality traits and their healed and unhealed forms
• saying the thing you didn't mean and trying a dozen different ways to take it back
• microexpressions and posture
• how a story changes with every telling
• fighting as a release of tension
• the thin line between courage and impulsiveness
• and hurting someone just because you're angry and you want to

My framework for writing conflict ultimately centers the unsettled. What isn't being said and needs to be? What need isn't getting met? What unhappiness will eventually transform into resentment?

The challenge for me as a writer is to leave it unsettled. Stop fiddling, stop making it better so quickly, stop making your characters say exactly what they mean and especially stop letting them hear what the other person is saying without their own filters and biases in the way. Let them fight, be angry, verbally spar, retreat and cry. Let them hate one another. I don't necessarily struggle when it comes to bringing things back around. I'm fundamentally an optimist, and I'm pretty bad at holding grudges — my characters will come with me into that space if I let them, and what the story so often needs is for me to hold off as long as I can before letting them clear the air.

I may come back to this topic at some point, either to talk about revising conflict or to discuss specific craft strategies to evoke some of those difficult emotions without letting them overwhelm the story or veer into soap opera land, but for now I think this is where I'll leave it! I hope you are all doing well and that if you're writing you let them fight a little. <3

Comments

[arundels]

this is so interesting, thank you for sharing! as a lover of conflict in fiction and especially in fanfic, I have many thoughts on conflict and it's really fascinating to see someone else's take on and approach to it.

your explanation of hurt/comfort also really helped me understand something about why I don't like h/c despite being what most would classify as an "angst" over "fluff" reader (which goes to show how those categories aren't really that helpful). as you say, it's a very conflict-less genre - in some ways it's the same as fluff, but in a different colour scheme. everyone is good to each other, taking care of each other, being held and being loved. which is not a bad thing, but as someone who craves the conflict, it has never managed to capture me.

in part I think this is because the tension of h/c comes from external circumstances, rather than internal. and my favourite type of conflict, and the kind I find the most compelling, is conflict that comes from something deeply fundamental to the characters. situations that force characters to confront the fact that there is something fundamental within them that is at odds with each other - because through that kind of conflict you either fall apart, or you get a very deep, genuine, "you have changed me" type growth. and that latter thing is what I find so compelling and indeed so romantic!! to have your world view shifted by someone, even if just in one small way. SO GOOD.

but that type of conflict is hard to build because it can't just come from the outside, it needs to be born from deep characterisation, PLUS you need to create the circumstances to force the characters to have to confront those differences between them. it's the eternal struggle for me when writing, finding that perfect conflict. but it's so satisfying to get it right

this was so rambly... in short thank you for your thoughts and I've loved reading them!

[poppyseedheart]

i love the introduction of internal conflict into the conversation because that is so real! & in some ways the impact of external conflict on a story has a lot to do with the ensuing internal conflict... so maybe another hallmark of hurt/comfort is a relative simplicity to both, where the external conflict is typically highly one-sided and the internal conflict often looks the same between stories (do i let this person see me in my imperfection?? if there even is a choice in the story). the straightforwardness of "something was done to me and it wasn't my fault" by nature will reduce the level of internal conflict.

much to think about!! thank you for sharing your thoughts <3