Thread "Conflict! - a discussion on conflict in fiction" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 6:07AM, Jul. 17, 2015

HA! IS? Mexican cartels behead thousands. IS just do one or two for the cameras every now and then.

bravo1102 wrote:
But please don't condemn everyone else from exploring those avenues of drama and conflict with such sweeping statements. Some like to throw a misunderstanding at a characrter…

Please don't misunderstand my use of comically extreme hyperbole, I wouldn't want it to be a source of conflict. ;)

I love the writing of PG Wodehouse. Most of the jokes are based on "humorous" misunderstandings… Wodehouse handles them like a masterful chess player though, strategically setting one missunderstanding off against another in a careful balancing act of conflicting influences that all work together to ramp up the preasure on the main character and squeeze the humour bubble to bursting point as the story builds to a climax.

That is when they're used well.
But for dramatic purposes… it's just tiresome. Even in classic novels it's anoying.

Posted at 8:07AM, Jul. 17, 2015

I just cannot get behind selling drugs. Reestablishing the Caliphate is a cause I can believe in. ;)
I have to admit to a bit of hyperbole too. :D I kind of like Thomas
Hardy too and I have come to appreciate the subtle social satire behind Jane Austen almost as if she is laughing at the silliness of the misunderstanding despite herself and asking the reader to politely hide a smile behind our handkerchief.

Posted at 7:08PM, Aug. 2, 2015

LOVE the Wodehouse reference. Too true.
Of course, a lot of conflict can come with only one character, or without character conflicting with one another, ie, survival/man vs. nature stories (yes, you can argue nature is the character man is inconflict with, but let's not be tedious).
Personally, I usually just try to think of what my characters want and then decide how to deprive them of it.

I love the writing of PG Wodehouse. Most of the jokes are based on "humorous" misunderstandings… Wodehouse handles them like a masterful chess player though, strategically setting one missunderstanding off against another in a careful balancing act of conflicting influences that all work together to ramp up the preasure on the main character and squeeze the humour bubble to bursting point as the story builds to a climax.

Posted at 2:08AM, Aug. 3, 2015

ozoneocean wrote:
usedbooks wrote:
I don't much care for the entirety of "misunderstanding" in fiction.

I cannot stand the "misunderstanding" trope, I just find that SO fucking irritating. I HATE it. Writers who use it need a thorough course of blunt force rauma to the genitals prescribed to them by THIS Dr Oz.

I hate people who make melodramas out of misunderstandings in the real world too. When someone tries to explain to you that it's a misunderstanding you're upset over, STFU, extract your head from your anal orrifice and listen to them… or suffocate and die in there, either one is good.

If I had character A making a drama out of a misunderstanding and confronting character B over it, I would then have character B call them an idiot and never speak to character A ever again and then character A would be written out of the story permenantly:
Fully unresolved conflict. That's the only way to handle that sort of stupidity.

Hah, funny and a very melodramatic response to melodrama. I guess it depends on what you want from fiction. I find melodrama annoying but realistic, it's very much down to the character of the circumstances the character is in, so if it fits, it goes in the story.