Define Conflict as Incompatible Intention

Writing that equates conflict with argument tends to produce people who accuse one another, and when the characters are polite, tender, or afraid, the scene goes slack. The opposite error applies conflict from outside, with characters made to disagree about nothing in particular because the outline calls for tension.

In the second act of The Cherry Orchard, in Julius West’s translation, Lopakhin asks for an answer. The estate will be auctioned unless the orchard is leased for summer villas, and he has said so every day. “Just one word, yes or no?” Lubov Andreyevna looks in her purse and finds little money left; she drops it, and gold coins scatter across the floor. She complains about the restaurant where they lunched. Her brother Gaev drifts back to the billiard game he is playing in his head. Finally Lubov says, “Villas and villa residents—it’s so vulgar, excuse me,” and no one raises a voice until Lopakhin calls Gaev an old woman and starts to leave. Lubov begs him not to go.

Nobody shouts, and it is a fight. Lopakhin wants a decision from people he cares for. Lubov wants not to be asked, and also not to lose the man who is asking. Gaev wants to be elsewhere. None of them can simply leave or give in, because of the auction date, a debt, and an affection none of them can afford to risk, and that constraint is the third part of the definition. A want that meets no resistance is a plan and gives the reader nothing to predict, while one want blocking another seems to set the reader forecasting what each will do and what it will cost. Without the constraint either person can leave, and the reader tends to sense that they could.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” makes the most serious objection. She argues that the story shaped like a spear, built around conflict and a hero, is the Hero’s story rather than the only kind, and that the natural shape of the novel might instead be that of a sack or bag. She allows that conflict may be one relationship among the elements of a novel, but says “the reduction of narrative to conflict is absurd.” The maxim governs scenes meant to turn something and makes a narrower claim than a theory of what fiction is for. A lyric essay, a quiet novel of accumulation, or a book of patient reporting can run on curiosity and tenderness.

Practice. Work for thirty minutes on a scene that argues but does not move. For each person in it, including anyone who only appears to listen, write one sentence of the form “X wants Y to ___,” completing it with something Y could do now, not a feeling or a trait. Mark every pair of wants that can both be satisfied, and if any pair can, change one want or add a constraint: a deadline, a witness, a relationship neither can risk. Then rewrite the scene using only what each person would do to get what they want, and forbid anyone to state the want aloud. In nonfiction the same test works on an interview. What did the reporter want from the subject, what did the subject want from the reporter, and where did those wants fail to fit?