Conflict Structures Narrative
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved”. Helen Keller (1880 - 1968). Stories of all kinds from the beginning of time reflect our own lives in even the most abstract of ways simply due to the fact they originate from the human mind ultimately. That human history is often measured in terms of conflict highlights the importance we place on such events and conflict as a central notion in human existence and evolution. For me evolution is the key principle for the use of conflict and represents nature’s trial and error technique with regard to moving forward. Stories in themselves attempt to subvert this tradition being in most part documents of thinking or experience created in some part of the writer’s mind as a tool to negate error and prevent similar trial as those told.
Jane Austen’s book ‘Emma’ is a virtuoso demonstration of this trial and error style of human growth. With too much time on her hands she sets about trying to arrange other people’s relationships and ultimately learns that true love matches are not chosen but are destined and that such decisions are even beyond the hands of high society. What is interesting is how Jane Austen came to the arrival of deciding her story would be about this. Given she is one of the first established novel writers in human history brings even more shine to her genius considering how the novel form is still the preferred method of the great and the good in writing today.
How her narrative or effectively the ‘novel’ compares in terms of narrative structure with something completely different such as a play like William Shakespeare’s ‘The Winter’s Tale’ sheds interesting light with regard basic story composition. ‘The Winter’s Tale’ like ‘Emma’ is, at root, another masterful demonstration of the trial and error method of human life. The King of Sicily becomes convinced of illicit romantic temptation on his wives behalf and is taught over sixteen years (although time in pre-novel writing is more likely to represent the strength of suffering or similar rather than in a literal sense) the error of his misconception. The above classics demonstrate a phenomenon shared by almost all fiction since the beginning of it’s recording - that of all stories consisting of a few common structural elements found universally amongst all.
Author Joseph Campbell details this idea in his book ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces’ (Mythos Books) which has been subsequently distilled into a further book known as ‘The Writer’s Journey’ (Michael Wiese Productions) by Christopher Vogler. In Vogler’s book he describes how every story has certain archetypal characters such as the hero, villain, trickster, mentor, shadow and so on. He also details the idea of the hero’s journey - the call to adventure, refusing the call, finding a mentor, encountering threshold guardians, crossing the threshold, facing the worst evil, winning the elixir etc. Vogler has been working in Hollywood as a story advisor for the last twenty years and helps ‘fix’ scripts for Hollywood in order to make them ‘work’. George Lucas based the screenplay to Star Wars on the original work in Joseph Campbell’s book and many writers now use both these texts as standard tools. The influence and importance of these ideas cannot be over emphasized.
With the importance of these ideas comes also a desire to understand where they come from or what makes them true. Many readers of these books agree that not only are they useful in terms of story-telling but also as a way of reflecting on our own lives and it is this which answers the aforementioned question at its root. When all is said and done it is the relevance to our own lives that seems to make a good story great. A book may be written with exquisite prose but without the simple underlying feature of relevance to ordinary life it is made a fool of. The incredible success of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Darren Brown with its simplistic and clumsy prose yet page-turning, relevant narrative puts pay to any counter-argument. What is interesting is that many people, perhaps turned off by the vagaries and time needed to read great fiction, are turning to books such as ‘The Writer’s Journey’ for guidance in life rather than as a guide to writing and personally experiencing seminal results.
What makes books such as ‘Emma’ and ‘The Winter’s Tale’ stand out from ‘The Da Vinci Code’ in addition to their prose is the use of fundamental mythic plots. What are these mythic plots though and where do they originate? When looking for a common thread in narrative amongst the higher echelons of literature beyond the basic ‘hero’s journey’ idea it seems clear that above all else love always seems to be central. ‘Emma’ is essentially a book about the heroine’s emotional puberty and her misconception and then understanding of love. ‘The Winter’s Tale’ sets itself the task of illuminating the pitfalls beset anyone who does not trust the love of another. If we can understand where the idea of love originated we might also know the reason for its centrality amongst narrative. The Bible is the first known written collection of stories around this theme and therefore highly important when looking for a source or pool from which these plots may originate. Howard Marks, author of ‘Mr Nice’ (Vintage) has remarked that Jesus was “the first person to realise the importance of love” which is an interesting assertion but ultimately un-provable with the exception of him being first in print. That stories have followed a set series of rules from before the rise of Christianity sets sights further back into ancient writings and ultimately makes it impossible to pin down any one person or community given our current knowledge as the originator of these structures. With the exception of alien interference or some still uncovered piece of knowledge we are lead to consider love is a central part of our make-up and recognition of it marked a great leap forward in not only the evolution of narrative but also human life.
So, it seems, that not only does conflict certainly structure narrative but also love in equal measure. Conflict today seems as central to our lives as at anytime in the past yet is this the only way in which to progress? With books such as ‘The Writer’s Tale’ now available codifying how structure should be implemented for writers is it time for a new style of structure within narrative to emerge?
The fact that narrative reflects our own life’s journey so implicitly suggests the idea of us all being on ‘paths’ ourselves. It seems then that every writer’s job is to help us understand these paths and show us how it teaches humanity love, passion and courage. What is lacking nowadays is a fresh source of fundamental plots. Every book is rehashing some old idea in an effort to ultimately prolong our race yet although we now understand this we only have to take a look around us to see that in many cases we are going backwards. Conflict has for too long structured our narrative and has usurped its partner love in many instances. As people begin to understand this a change or re-balancing of mythical plot structure is sure to take place. While conflict is sure to be with us as long as we refuse to take heed of our ancestors, hopefully we will lose some of our reliance on it as a source of progress.
Jane Austen’s book ‘Emma’ is a virtuoso demonstration of this trial and error style of human growth. With too much time on her hands she sets about trying to arrange other people’s relationships and ultimately learns that true love matches are not chosen but are destined and that such decisions are even beyond the hands of high society. What is interesting is how Jane Austen came to the arrival of deciding her story would be about this. Given she is one of the first established novel writers in human history brings even more shine to her genius considering how the novel form is still the preferred method of the great and the good in writing today.
How her narrative or effectively the ‘novel’ compares in terms of narrative structure with something completely different such as a play like William Shakespeare’s ‘The Winter’s Tale’ sheds interesting light with regard basic story composition. ‘The Winter’s Tale’ like ‘Emma’ is, at root, another masterful demonstration of the trial and error method of human life. The King of Sicily becomes convinced of illicit romantic temptation on his wives behalf and is taught over sixteen years (although time in pre-novel writing is more likely to represent the strength of suffering or similar rather than in a literal sense) the error of his misconception. The above classics demonstrate a phenomenon shared by almost all fiction since the beginning of it’s recording - that of all stories consisting of a few common structural elements found universally amongst all.
Author Joseph Campbell details this idea in his book ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces’ (Mythos Books) which has been subsequently distilled into a further book known as ‘The Writer’s Journey’ (Michael Wiese Productions) by Christopher Vogler. In Vogler’s book he describes how every story has certain archetypal characters such as the hero, villain, trickster, mentor, shadow and so on. He also details the idea of the hero’s journey - the call to adventure, refusing the call, finding a mentor, encountering threshold guardians, crossing the threshold, facing the worst evil, winning the elixir etc. Vogler has been working in Hollywood as a story advisor for the last twenty years and helps ‘fix’ scripts for Hollywood in order to make them ‘work’. George Lucas based the screenplay to Star Wars on the original work in Joseph Campbell’s book and many writers now use both these texts as standard tools. The influence and importance of these ideas cannot be over emphasized.
With the importance of these ideas comes also a desire to understand where they come from or what makes them true. Many readers of these books agree that not only are they useful in terms of story-telling but also as a way of reflecting on our own lives and it is this which answers the aforementioned question at its root. When all is said and done it is the relevance to our own lives that seems to make a good story great. A book may be written with exquisite prose but without the simple underlying feature of relevance to ordinary life it is made a fool of. The incredible success of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Darren Brown with its simplistic and clumsy prose yet page-turning, relevant narrative puts pay to any counter-argument. What is interesting is that many people, perhaps turned off by the vagaries and time needed to read great fiction, are turning to books such as ‘The Writer’s Journey’ for guidance in life rather than as a guide to writing and personally experiencing seminal results.
What makes books such as ‘Emma’ and ‘The Winter’s Tale’ stand out from ‘The Da Vinci Code’ in addition to their prose is the use of fundamental mythic plots. What are these mythic plots though and where do they originate? When looking for a common thread in narrative amongst the higher echelons of literature beyond the basic ‘hero’s journey’ idea it seems clear that above all else love always seems to be central. ‘Emma’ is essentially a book about the heroine’s emotional puberty and her misconception and then understanding of love. ‘The Winter’s Tale’ sets itself the task of illuminating the pitfalls beset anyone who does not trust the love of another. If we can understand where the idea of love originated we might also know the reason for its centrality amongst narrative. The Bible is the first known written collection of stories around this theme and therefore highly important when looking for a source or pool from which these plots may originate. Howard Marks, author of ‘Mr Nice’ (Vintage) has remarked that Jesus was “the first person to realise the importance of love” which is an interesting assertion but ultimately un-provable with the exception of him being first in print. That stories have followed a set series of rules from before the rise of Christianity sets sights further back into ancient writings and ultimately makes it impossible to pin down any one person or community given our current knowledge as the originator of these structures. With the exception of alien interference or some still uncovered piece of knowledge we are lead to consider love is a central part of our make-up and recognition of it marked a great leap forward in not only the evolution of narrative but also human life.
So, it seems, that not only does conflict certainly structure narrative but also love in equal measure. Conflict today seems as central to our lives as at anytime in the past yet is this the only way in which to progress? With books such as ‘The Writer’s Tale’ now available codifying how structure should be implemented for writers is it time for a new style of structure within narrative to emerge?
The fact that narrative reflects our own life’s journey so implicitly suggests the idea of us all being on ‘paths’ ourselves. It seems then that every writer’s job is to help us understand these paths and show us how it teaches humanity love, passion and courage. What is lacking nowadays is a fresh source of fundamental plots. Every book is rehashing some old idea in an effort to ultimately prolong our race yet although we now understand this we only have to take a look around us to see that in many cases we are going backwards. Conflict has for too long structured our narrative and has usurped its partner love in many instances. As people begin to understand this a change or re-balancing of mythical plot structure is sure to take place. While conflict is sure to be with us as long as we refuse to take heed of our ancestors, hopefully we will lose some of our reliance on it as a source of progress.
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