Whatever I do write reflects, sometimes gratuitously, how I feel” - Joan Didon
I am not conflict avoidant. I have ruined dinner parties with my opinions-that-cannot-but-be-expressed (whoops).
Still it pains me to make my fictional characters fight, because, well, I want the best for them. I don’t want to see them get hurt.
Yet arguing is essential to every voice-having, space-taking, three-dimensional Self. Your characters must fight (with others and with themselves) in order to Be. Just as a toddler’s obsession with saying “no”is a crucial phase of childhood development, your characters must wrestle with values and behaviors they oppose, in order to understand which ones they support.
If your characters don’t fight, they won’t grow.
Lately, I have been working on a scene in my novel where two characters get into a verbal argument. In the previous scene, they encountered great danger and they faced that danger together, putting up a united front. But in the aftermath, as their adrenaline subsides and the exhaustion sets in, my characters turn on each other.
I knew that this was an important scene for both characters’ growth, but I struggled to write it. In my first draft, the argument came on too suddenly. It felt abrupt and inorganic. In my second draft, I made the argument too emotionally overwrought. In my third draft, I over-corrected and the argument became a passing spat, barely an argument at all. Finally, once I got the emotional tenor just right, the writing sounded clunky. I had to go back and rewrite the whole thing, focusing my attention on authenticity and flow.
I’m not sure I’ve mastered this scene, but in the end, struggling with it made me a better writer (see the connection?).
4 Ideas For Making Characters Fight: Part I [with writing exercises]:
Austin Kleon “Everything Has Been Saved From A Wreck”
1) Say Less.
Fights should be sharp, snappy and crisp. Arguments of any kind usually mean dialogue, and dialogue sinks under the weight of too much description. Don’t narrativize the most propulsive part of your argument. Let the dialogue flow unencumbered. Prioritize pacing over clarity, and trust that your reader will understand more than what is written on the page.
Exercise: Write two versions of a fight.
In the first, Spell it Out: Make each character say out loud what they are thinking and feeling in as complex and overt a way as possible. How deep is this person’s emotional rut? Where does it come from? Does the pain even originate with this fight or with this particular adversary? Or is the feeling resurfacing from an old wound? Let the characters be self-aware and expressive. Lay it all out on the page.
In the second, Curate Silence: Go back and erase half of the dialogue you have just written. Allow large, strategic silences that create their own contours inside the fight. Build big, invisible, unremarked-upon speed bumps that shake the argument-vehicle as it speeds over them, perhaps causing damage that won’t become clear until later. OR let the silences represent restraint. Show your characters holding back, caring for each others’ feelings despite the tense circumstances, weighing future negative consequences against present cathartic relief. Silences can demonstrate growth and consideration, or they can demonstrate repression and reversion. They can even be a little of both. On your second pass, craft empty space. Load up your argument with the unsaid things that inflect real human conflict.
Here’s a Circle Exercise that I did in Microsoft Powerpoint for one of my characters
2) Start Small, Then Fight In Layers.
A fight about dirty dishes is not just a fight about dirty dishes. It starts that way - “You leave them in the sink all night and then the food gets crusted on!” - but then it quickly becomes something else.
I leave them in the sink because I’m exhausted after a full day of work. You don’t have a demanding job so you don’t understand.
You leave the dishes in the sink because you believe that your earning power gives you the right to be inconsiderate.
You don’t have sympathy for me, you only think about your own inconvenience in any situation.
You don’t respect me. You don’t respect what I do for this relationship.
Maybe if you worked as hard as I do we wouldn’t have to worry about money and we could pay someone to do our household chores. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this crushing guilt and responsibility to hold up all of our finances.
You wish I was smaller and less vocal like your last partner; they just tolerated everything and never spoke up.
I miss how we used to be as a couple.
We can’t go back to how we used to be. I’m changing and you’re not keeping up.
See? Of course, not all of that will be said out loud. But you can write it down and then let some of it become vague, hinted at, or skirted around.
Exercise:
Draw a series of concentric circles. These are the layers of your fight, the many overlapping reasons why your characters are fighting (you might want to draw a set of circles for each character).
Label the outermost circle with the fight’s most superficial reason: my partner leaves dirty dishes in the sink.
Then as the circles draw in, go deeper. Fill in the circles from each character’s perspective. Use their voice to explain their reasoning. Answer some of the following questions using your character’s point of view:
What is this fight about on a material, physical level?
What is it about emotionally?
What is it about psychologically?
What is it about ideologically, on the level of world-view or value-systems?
What is it about spiritually, on the level of what your character most needs or desires for their own fulfillment?
How is this fight connected to your character’s fears and insecurities?
You can even write motivations of which the character themselves is not aware (i.e. When you don’t do the dishes, you remind me of the disrespect that ended my parent’s marriage).
Then you can decide how many of these layers to put on the page, and what you should hint at but never say.
Remember: Say Less.
Now if only I could take my own advice…
Write well,
Shelby