Conflict and Resolution in the Romance Novel

by Linda Shertzer

Creating a good conflict in a romance is only one side of the writing dilemma. The other, equally important side is: how does one resolve that conflict?

The conflict must be one that, by the potential for action and emotional drama that it promises, will immediately draw the reader into the story. On the practical side, it must also be sustainable through approximately 90,000 words.

It must define the personal characteristics of the hero and heroine. He or she must be the kind of person who would become involved in such a conflict, and on a particular side of that conflict. Or, if they are thrust unwillingly into the conflict, it will define their personal growth through its resolution. The conflict defines the relationship between them as friends, as antagonists, and as lovers. It can also define their relationship to secondary characters.

Most important of all, the conflict must be one that is able to be resolved in a way that is both the logical outcome of all events, and is also satisfying to the characters involved as well as to the reader.

One often-heard suggestion on how to create sustainable conflict has been to place the hero and heroine on diametrically opposed sides of a major social or political event. These are situations that hold the potential for a great deal of emotional turmoil, as well as lots of action, which can enhance the escalating sexual tension necessary in a romance. At first glance, this sounds like a good idea.

However, your job as an author is not only to create the conflict and the tension, but also to resolve it. This is especially important in a romance novel, where your reader expects the hero and heroine to form a lasting, loving relationship. You, as the author, must never disappoint your reader!

If the goals of your hero and heroine are completely opposite, as you resolve the plot, one must win and one must lose. If the heroine wins, the hero turns into a wimp. No one wants a wimpy hero! If the hero wins, your story has turned into just another tale of how the masterful male overcomes the ditzy weakling, and outdated, female. What we are left with is basically a No-Win Situation with lots of room for resentment on both sides. The capacity to forgive and forget set aside, your "losing" character may seem less of a person if they are willing to relinquish a long-cherished, firmly-held dream to be totally subsumed in a relationship. The No-Win Situation may be the logical resolution of the conflict, but it may not be the emotionally satisfying conclusion your reader expects and deserves.

For me, the best plots make the hero's and the heroine's goals the same. Sounds silly. Sounds impossible! If they're both working toward the same goal, where's the striving? Where's the conflict?

In reality, there are two types of conflict: the apparent conflict and the underlying conflict. The apparent conflict is loud and showy, and starts your novel off with a bang. It seems irresolvable. It may eventually be resolvable, but the solution lies beyond the control of your hero and heroine, as in the outcome of a battle or natural disaster. As devastating as it may seem, it may be of relatively minor importance in the actual relationship between hero and heroine. The underlying conflict gradually makes itself shown through the unfolding story. This conflict is what is really important to the continuing relationship of your hero and heroine, and is resolvable. Not easily resolvable, I'll grant you, but there is a solution.

In setting out the apparent conflict of your novel, you must always keep in mind the underlying conflict. Just as the romantic relationship develops, the underlying conflict must be revealed bit by bit. In the apparent conflict lie the seeds for the resolution of the underlying conflict.

If he's a Yankee soldier and she's a rebel spy, their goals aren't the same, surely. There is little chance for their happiness beyond what the actual historic resolution and the passage of time will allow. But their basic goal is the same — a yearning for safety, justice, and peace. Their underlying goal must not be in conflict, but in concert. The best method to use to obtain their goal is what must be in strong conflict. As they go about achieving their underlying goals, they must eventually come to realize that these goals are actually the same goal approached from two diametrically opposed angles. Therein lies the opportunity for compromise, to see the other person's goal through their eyes and in so doing, to become one with that person. This, in turn, is the key to their romance.

In Home Fires, my first Americana historical from Berkley, my hero, Ben Cameron, wants to keep his orphaned niece Meggie with him on the farm. My heroine, Emily Shaw, wants to take her late brother's child to her home back East, where she'll enjoy all the benefits the family fortune and social class can provide. The methods of obtaining their goals are in direct conflict, with the potential resolution that these people will never see each other again.

But Ben and Emily's basic goal is the same. They both want to provide a good home for the child — which can be resolved in a way that nobody loses.

In a romance, the good guys (all of them) should always win.

Copyright © Linda Shertzer

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Linda Shertzer has written 20 historical romance novels under her own name, as well as under the pseudonym Linda Kreisel, including Regency Romances as Melinda Pryce. She has served as a judge in both local and national level romance writers contests. She is the past president of two local writers associations, and a founding member of a third organization. She has a Masters Degree in Historical Studies. She also teaches creative writing at the local community college.

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Essence Of Character - Seven Steps To Creating Characters That Write Themselves

by Corey Blake

Creating characters that are believable takes time and discipline. Creating dynamically real individuals and not imposing your own thoughts and impressions upon them is not easy to do, and is often the difference between a novel or screenplay that sits in a closet and one that finds its way around town and into the hands of audiences. Spending your time building your characters before they enter the world of your story makes the process of writing an easier and more enjoyable ride, and creates a finished product that agents, publishers, producers and readers can truly be excited by.

You must first agree to operate from the understanding that the three-dimensionality of your characters is not created magically. Talent equals discipline multiplied by time and you must practice (daily) the art of developing your characters. As a development executive with LA Film Lab Entertainment (a literary development and production company), I have developed a framework to assist you in creating rich and complex characters. The complexity that you desire comes through 1) labeling their desire essences, 2) labeling their fear essences, 3) getting specific about their past, 4) labeling their behavior, 5) raising their stakes, 6) not meddling in their lives, and 7) letting them play. Asking provoking questions in line with these steps, answering them thoroughly, and then repeating the process, provides constant individual growth in your characters that mirrors life. Now let's take each step in turn:

1. Label the Desire Essences of each of your main characters: The first key to deepening your work is finding the major motivators in the lives of your characters that drive their actions. We all have deep aspirations that drive our choices, our thoughts, our actions and reactions. These needs are what differentiate us from one another and we will refer to them as "Desire Essences." Some examples of DESIRE ESSENCES are: the desire to be intellectually brilliant; the desire to be socially famous; the desire to hide from the world; the desire to belong to a group; the desire to be loved; the desire to party; the desire to die.

2. Label the Fear Essences of each of your main characters: What is at the root of each of your characters' darker sides? For every desire they have they should also exhibit the antithetical fear of failing at that desire. These fears will battle their aspirations for control over their behavior. Labeling and understanding the darker sides of your characters is imperative to creating the dimensional and imperfect characters you are after. Some examples of FEAR ESSENCES are: the fear of being stupid; the fear of being ordinary; the fear of being socially exposed; the fear of being rejected by a group; the fear of being loathed; the fear of being boring; the fear of having to face life.

3. Get specific with your Backstory: Human behavior is made up of a string of moments and reactions to those moments. A character's current behavior is a battle between fear and desire and their immediate choices are made based on very specific (yet unconscious) experiences from their past - experiences that leave imprints much like DNA. Though your characters should be unconscious of these past experiences that are influencing them, you the writer must create these in your preparation of their backstory be fully aware of them. Here is an example of what won't benefit you vs. what will when getting specific with backstory:

Bad example of getting specific: Rachel is a pretty girl who thinks she is unattractive. She prefers to live in her books as opposed to being with friends or family. Her father has abused her sexually throughout her youth. She hates attention.

Better example of getting specific: On her graduation day, at a party her Mother is throwing for her, Rachel's sexually abusive father shows up drunk and congratulates her, hugging her too closely, grabbing her rear end with both hands, and calling her pretty in front of a room full of her friends and family. She runs away humiliated and hides in her room, escaping into one of her fantasy books. That night she moves out to stay with a friend and doesn't tell her friends where she is going. Two weeks later she finds out through another friend that her father died in a car accident. He had been drunk.

In the better example of getting specific, the reader can have a visceral reaction to the words. This is caused by the detail. The generality of the bad reaction is logical, but lifeless. In the better example it is easy to determine what the essences of our leading lady might be: desire to hide, maybe even desire to die, desire to live in her books, desire to be valued for her intellect instead of her body, fear of loneliness, fear of her appearance, fear of the opposite sex, fear of losing a loved one, fear of being abandoned.

4. Describe their Current Behavior: Take the essences and the specific examples you have now created and determine what kind of behavior your characters might exhibit as a result. Don't limit yourself with these, but rather excite yourself with the possibilities.

Simple examples from our leading lady - a woman who: hides her body; avoids friends from her past; mistrusts anyone who comments favorably on her appearance; desires to control her education and her intellect; avoids alcohol.

5. Raise the stakes: Emotions are extreme. Play in the realm of this extreme when dealing with the fears and ambitions of your characters. These essences are all encompassing; meaning that we spend our lifetimes with them. Don't cheat your characters by being afraid to raise the stakes as high as you can. Needing to find a precious stone to sell to an art dealer by midnight to raise the financing to save your character's mother's house before the bank takes it away from her tomorrow is exciting! Look back at your own life and think of how seriously you take your essences - when your essences are threatened will you fight to extremes to defend them, just as when they are fulfilled, do you enjoy some of your greatest moments in life? Play in the realm of the extreme. Raise the stakes. Your essences are life and death to you - let them be that way to your characters.

6. Don't meddle: Of course you might be saying to yourself, "How do I not meddle - I'm the writer!" But a truthful story is going to grow from your willingness to let your characters make their own decisions based on how you have defined them (which after these exercises will be in great depth). As their parent, you have to let your children go; this is the point at which your story truly begins. DO NOT MEDDLE IN THEIR LIVES. Continually remind yourself - it's not about you. You just serve the story. Let your characters make their own decisions. If you ever find yourself not knowing what decision they might make - question your homework and rework their essences, behaviors and stakes until their choice becomes obvious.

7. Let your characters play: Once you have developed several characters by labeling their essences, getting specific, defining their behavior, and raising the stakes, you are ready to begin to let them interact. It's like the first day at a new school; ripe with possibility. When properly developed, there is no way to predict how your characters will behave in any given situation, but they are so full of life and their own agendas that they are ready to interact with other characters who have been developed to the same level. If you have done the work to get to this place - this is where your characters will begin to write themselves.

Follow these steps to create the richer characters you want to be writing.

Find the Essences:

To find the essences of your characters, you have to look to their history and their genetics. Just like real people, your characters' current behavior is defined by their DNA combined with experiences you create in their past. We all have the basic fears and ambitions of survival, shelter, and food, so when working on these essences focus on the ones that really drive each character. Consider ethnicity, religious beliefs, and major life events. Address sex, drugs, music, parents, siblings, education, appearance and intelligence for sure.

Start by writing out twenty DESIRE ESSENCES that feel right for each main character. Then determine one polar opposite of each DESIRE to create your twenty FEAR ESSENCES. Go back and toss the ones that you now feel less attached to. Repeat and refine the process until you have at least ten of each for each character that really excite you.

Get specific about Backstory:

Get specific about how your character's essences have come to be. Create definitive moments in your characters' lives that detail when these fears and desires were initiated. Come up with five supporting examples of moments in their lives when each of these essences was tested and eventually vindicated in the name of the fear or in the name of the desire. Failure vindicates the fear and success vindicates the desire. Write at least one half page of text supporting each -Yes that will give you a total of twenty-five pages of essence work.

Do the work.10 Essences (a desire and a fear for each) x 5 samples for each = 50 descriptions (each a half page)

Label the Current Behavior:

Using their essences and their specific past, come up with ten sample behaviors for each character. Simple example: a character who has a desire to hide and a fear of being publicly humiliated, has a specific past incident of continually having their pants pulled down in public by a sibling. The current behavior - they might always wear a belt, or might always look behind themselves in a very specific attempt to never be humiliated again.

Raise the stakes:

After looking over your newly created examples, it should be easy to determine some issues that might be going on in their lives that would increase or decrease their stress. A decrease in stress generally excites people to take greater chances, while an increase in stress tends to shorten people's fuses.

List five possible increases or decreases in your characters stress level.

Don't meddle and let them play:

Now put two of your fully developed characters into the same room. Implement two or three increases in stress to one character and two or three decreases in stress to the other character and let them bounce off of one another. Go into this exercise with no preconceived notions of what might happen. If you have done your homework, they should affect one another.*

*If you need a jumpstart - add an element that one needs from the other and give the other a strong reason for not wanting to provide what that character needs. Could be tangible or emotional.

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Corey Blake is President of Writers of the Round Table Inc. (http://www.writersoftheroundtable.com/) a literary development and author management company. Corey consults and contributes writing to best-selling authors, leadership coaches and business executives. This article first appeared in Writer Mag.

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Character-Driven or Action-Driven?

by Martha Alderson, M.A.

Most writers have a preference for one style of writing over another. Some writers are more adept at developing complex, interesting, and quirky characters. Others excel at page-turning action. The lucky ones are writers who are good at creating both the Character Emotional Development plotline and the Dramatic Action plotline. Become aware of your strength and learn to address your weakness, and you, too, can become one of the lucky ones.

Broadly speaking, writers who prefer writing action-driven stories focus on logical thinking, rational analysis, and accuracy. Action-driven writers tend to rely more on the left side of their brain. These writers approach writing as a linear function and see the story in its parts. Action-driven writers like structure. They usually pre-plot or create an outline before writing. Action-driven writers have little trouble expressing themselves in words.

On the other hand, writers who write character-driven stories tend to focus on aesthetics and feelings, creativity and imagination. These writers access the right side of their brains and enjoy playing with the beauty of language. They are more intuitive, and like to work things out on the page. Character-driven writers are holistic and subjective. They can synthesize new information, but are somewhat (or more) disorganized and random. They see the story as the whole. Right brain writers may know what they mean, but often have trouble finding the right words.

The Test

Take the test to see whether you are stronger at developing Character Emotional Development plotlines or Dramatic Action plotlines.

Fill in the Character Emotional Development Plot Profile below for your protagonist (the character who is most changed by the dramatic action), any other major viewpoint characters and, if there is one, the character who represents the major antagonist for the protagonist.

1) Protagonist’s overall story goal:
2) What stands in his/her way of achieving this goal:
3) What does he/she stand to lose, if not successful:
4) Flaw or greatest fault:
5) Greatest strength:
6) Hates:
7) Loves:
8) Fear:
9) Secret:
10) Dream:

Results

1) Writers who filled out 1-3 with ease prefer writing Dramatic Action.
2) Writers who filled in 4- 10 with ease prefer Character Emotional Development.
3) Writers who filled in everything with ease find both the Dramatic Action and the Character Emotional Development plotlines come easy.

Analysis

Without a firm understanding of points 1-3, you have no front story. The Dramatic Action plotline is what gets the reader turning the pages. Without it there is no excitement on the page.

Without a firm understanding of points 4-10, you are more likely to line up the action pieces of your story, arrange them in a logical order and then draw conclusions. Yet, no matter how exciting the action, this presentation lacks the human element. Such an omission increases your chances of losing your audience’s interest; readers read 70% for character.

Plot Tips for Dramatic Action Plot Writers to Strengthen the Character Emotional Development Plotline

1) Try using your own flaw, fear, and/or Secret – we all have them.
2) What you filled out for #4-10 of the Character Emotional Development Profile is a mere skimming of the surface, like the first draft of any story. Even so, tack it up next to your computer. Over time, as you continue writing and come to know your characters better, the information will deepen. The longer you work, the deeper you will dig, the more significant your story will become.
3) Look for opportunities to incorporate more patterning, metaphors, and analogies into your writing.
4) Look for opportunities to role-play and use visual aides.
5) Stop writing periodically and move your body during your writing time.
6) Reread the information above that covers the less dominant side of your writing.
7) Writers with a strength in creating Dramatic Action usually think in sequence and are list makers. Since you have no trouble processing symbols, you actually enjoy making an advanced plan on a linear form such as a Plot Planner.
8) After plotting out the Dramatic Action, use a different color pen and plot out a Character Emotional Development plotline. To create logical conclusions, look for clues as to how the dramatic action causes changes in the character emotional development.

For Character Emotional Development Plot Writers to Strengthen the Dramatic Action Plotline

1) Use goals of your own and insert them into the context of the story – to finish, what? To organize, what? To accomplish, what?

2) Writers who write about Character Emotional Development have a more random writing style and rebel at anything as structured as a Scene Tracker or Plot Planner. Yet, because you like things concrete and benefit from seeing, feeling, or touching the real object, you keep coming back to the idea of developing a Plot Planner. You know intuitively that a plan will keep you on track and help you survive to the end of a completed project

3) Because the right side of the brain is color sensitive, use one color to plot out the Character Emotional Development scenes and use a different color to show the Dramatic Action, and yet another to show the Thematic Significance.

4) Schedule a walk during your writing time and set the timer. Imagine yourself plotting out your scenes in sequence. The act of seeing yourself plotting will help you actually do it.

5) Start with the Climax of your story, and work backwards. Using your intuition, pay attention to coherence and meaning. Link Dramatic Action to the changes in your characters emotional development.

6) Since you like to back up everything visually, hang a Plot Planner and/or Scene Tracker on a wall near your computer. These will help you remember the sequence of your story as you rewrite and rewrite until your story shows the meaning you want it to convey.

These are just some of the differences that exist between character-driven writers and action-driven writers, but you can see the pattern. Writers who lean more toward creating the Character Emotional Development plotline now know you can be flexible and adapt the Plot Planner to make such a structured approach work for you. Likewise, those of you who are predominantly left-brain know that it would be wise to use both sides of the brain and employ some right brain strategies.

We tend to process and use information from our dominant side. However, the writing process is enhanced when both sides of the brain participate in a balanced manner.

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Martha Alderson, M.A. is the author of BLOCKBUSTER PLOTS Pure & Simple. She is a teacher, a plot consultant, a speaker and an award-winning writer of historical fiction. She has taught plot and scene development and historical novel writing and she writes a plot column for The Bulletin, The Voice of the California Writers Club and has written for Writers Digest Magazine. Martha is available workshops and plot consultations at martha@blockbusterplots.com.

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