Conflicted

My initial draft of the Three Willows trilogy happened in 2017. Like I've mentioned before, the books were originally a script, so all I was working with was the story itself and the dialogue, and I had years to let the plot solidify before I made the jump to turning the scripts into books.

Now, I'm attempting to plot out something entirely new and I'm feeling a bit at sea. It's been a while. I'm out of practice. I spent some time at Wayward today to do some character sketches, because it's hard to know what people will do if I don't understand who they are. It's helping a little.

A few weeks ago, I attended DFW Con, and even though it was all virtual, the classes were still illuminating. During a class that specifically talked about plot and story structure, the speaker kept bringing up the notion that "you don't want your book to feel episodic." That was the word he used. "Episodic." And for some reason, that really stood out to me, because isn't episodic the perfect way to describe a book? Characters are faced with a series of challenges, each mounting in scale until the season finale? Learning lessons, building relationships, and revealing backstory along the way? I would say that storytelling media apart from books (movies, TV, podcasts, D&D campaigns) use the episodic structure with a great deal of success. Maybe the word sticks out for me because I think about my book plot events as episodes. I know where to cut to the credits, how much time passes between chapters, what the camera is panning over when the next episode starts. I believe "acts" or "beats" is more typically used in book world, but I can't help it. I really like "episodes."

I think what the presenter meant was more along the lines of "repetitive." Which, yes, I agree, no one wants that. It can be hard to balance, though, I'm finding. You need the story to progress, but you can't have the characters win every single time. There has to be struggle. There has to be conflict.

But now I'm thinking... does there?

I came across this quote from Ursula K. Le Guin recently, and it's really struck a chord with me.

Modernist manuals of writing often conflate story with conflict. This reductionism reflects a culture that inflates aggression and competition while cultivating ignorance of other behavioral options. No narrative of any complexity can be built on or reduced to a single element. Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing.

I'm also coming off the tail of finishing Iron Widow, which was thrilling. All conflict, unapologetic, fierce, raw, painful, with incredibly high stakes. A book that makes you forget to breathe.

And now I’m thinking about the reverse. I'm scrubbing my brain for a story without conflict, and weirdly enough, I'm coming up with Kiki's Delivery Service. A young witch moves to a new town. That's the plot. Events happen, the story advances, but since it's a much more character driven than plot driven piece, the pace is slower. In fact, lots of Ghibli movies have big moments that give the audience the role of observer. Two young girls clean a house. A girl explores an antique shop. A woman is on a train thinking about her childhood. It's about them, not the action. How they change, develop, react, relate. I love that.

I'm not sure what I'll be able to take away from this musing into my writing. There's something really fun about the idea of writing a story where nothing happens. Where human existence is enough conflict. Love and routine and small emotions. Comfort media. Thunder has had several positive reviews now complimenting the characters and how emotionally real and relatable they are. Maybe all of this is coming from a place of worry about trying to do all that again in a brand new work. But that's the challenge, right? And when I figure it out, it will be time for the next episode. Roll credits.