Conflict: What's Your Problem?

 Life causes a great deal of conflict. Some are life and death situations and others are only important to ourselves. Conflict leads to growth or experience and no novel is complete without it. So, what is conflict? Debra Dixon states, “Conflict is the why not.”

Know Thy Conflict

Conflict is the reason why your character can’t have what they want. In your novel, you, the author, must know and define what your character’s conflict is.  By knowing the character’s conflict you know what is at stake for your character. Your character must face the obstacle preventing him from attaining his goal.

Bump In The Night, Day, and Everywhere in Between

Your character’s GMC must bump, bang, and crash into each other. As these three letters are explored in your work, your character must be tested and with each test, your character will grow, develop and reach the goal most desired. These conflicting forces of your character’s GMC will make the character see if they truly wish for what they desire. This makes the character look deep within themselves and that’s internal conflict.

All in the Inside

Internal conflict is what stops our characters from learning their life lesson. Your character may have one goal he admits to the others such as Lord Bridgerton announcing that he will marry. But his internal conflict—the belief that he will die young like his father—stops him from pursuing the woman he loves. 

Internal conflict is the emotional turmoil that causes us and our characters' problems. It also stops the character from learning the life lesson. And for a satisfying end, the character must learn their life lesson.

War Games

Now you have to put it all into practice. In Goal, Motivation and Conflict, Dixon writes, “lay a foundation for conflict, create believable goals, motivate the characters, and nurture the conflict to the inevitable crisis or climax.” 

Motivation. Why? Why? Why?

Many reasons exist in life for why we do what we do. In novels, our characters need one too. That’s where the M in GMC comes in. In her book, GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict, Debra Dixon writes, “Motivation is what drives  your character to obtain or achieve his goal.” 

Debra Dixon sets out a formula that authors can use when concocting the GMC. The character wants a goal because he is motivated. 

In last month’s post on Goal, I used the basic example of having to go to the store to get milk. Let’s suppose that our character has to get milk because her child needs it so he can have a bowl of cereal because that is the only meal she can afford to feed him. So to put the example into the formula: The mother wants to get to the store to buy milk because that is her child’s only meal. 

That motivation pulls at your heartstrings, which is another tool motivation plays in writing. Motivation helps the reader empathize with our characters as they strive to reach their goal.

Strong motivation can be used to create any tale. That isn’t the only task that strong motivation can accomplish. Strong motivation creates the emotion of the story and our characters. In our above example, we feel for the mother who has to get to the store to get that milk. She wants to feed her child his only meal of the day. We can empathize with the mother who wants to feed her child. The mother who is most likely struggling to provide for her child, a mother who most likely feels like she is a failure. 

As a reader, we are rooting for her. We feel her heartache. That makes a good story. Even if this example doesn’t make for a novel-length story. 

Motivation is the substance that glues the story’s character’s goals and conflict. Next month, the focus will settle on the C of our GMC—Conflict.  

Dreams Are Just Goals With Deadlines

In the development of characters, GMC plays an important part in their creation. GMC stands for Goal, Motivation, Conflict. Every character, plot, and a story needs and requires GMC. This post will focus on the first letter—Goal.

In Goal, Motivation and Conflict by Debra Dixon, she writes, “A goal is a desired result, a purpose or an objective. A goal is the prize or reward your character wants to obtain or achieve.” We all can relate to those statements. We have goals in life, some grand and others are small. Whether it’s to get this month’s rent or get to the store to buy milk. We all have a desired result, purpose, or objective. In our stories, the Goal must be something we are desperate to have. Also, a goal must be acted upon. Our characters must pursue their goal through action. Without action, a goal can never be accomplished. 

Let’s say our objective is to buy milk. We will act by getting dressed, traveling to the store, and buying the milk. Once we walk out of the store with the milk, our goal has been achieved. This example isn’t a goal worthy of a novel but a simplified example of a goal.

 I highly recommend that if Debra Dixon’s book, Goal, Motivation and Conflict isn’t on your bookshelf then get your copy now. 

Next month, I’ll talk about the M—Motivation.