Tuesday's Inspiration - A little conflict - Arthur Koestler #MFRWauthor

When I came across this quote by Mr. Koestler, I needed to think a bit about the meaning."In the hierarchy of bisociative processes that constitute art, the most powerful effects are derived from the intersections of conflicting fields."

There are some big words here so I spent a little time figuring what they meant before I turned to read the rest of the essay. Sometimes the conflict of opposites are between two individuals. Other times this conflict is internal. Society can provide the opposites between a character and the world he inhabits.

Conflict is what drives the plot of a story and if there is no point of conflict - no opposing forces the story becomes nothing more than a sketch.

After reading this quote and the essay by Mr. Koestler, I started to look at my characters to discover what their conflicts might be. Are they internal with the character drawn in two directions. How do they react and how to they come to grips with the forces driving them in two directions.

Is the conflict external? How does this drive the story and how does this play with the characters' natures.

I came to this conclusion. Without conflict there is no story.