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.

Writer's Tip More on Characterization.

When writing a fiction piece, there are many ways to show characterization and bring the people in the stories to life.

Conflict is one of the ways characters are shown. A character can be in conflict with his environment, with himself or with another character. The character's actions and reactions to a conflict situation will reveal his true nature.

Action is another way to reveal a character's nature, how does he walk, what are his mental and emotional reactions to a situation calling for action? Knowing these things before describing the character in motion can add to the picture of who he or she is.

There are a number of types of tags that will characterize a story person. These include physical tags, such as the blond hunk or the skinny geek, appearance tags. Does the character wear what for them has become a uniform. He'd never seen her in a dress. Didn't he have anything to wear other than those ragged cutoffs. Mannerism tags. Does the character have a definite mannerism, such as running his hands through her hair or her twisting a strand of hair around her finger when she's nervous. Facial expression tags, Arching the eyebrow, a permanent scowl.

These are a few ways to show characters to the reader. Next week, I'll add more.