How to add conflict in a short personal essay/memoir

I know exactly what you mean, and rather interestingly, I just finished reading a memoir, The Wishing Years, by Coralie Cederna Johnson, that handles this challenge nicely. The book is about her life through her school years, and it consists of a long list of chapters with individual stories in each. Sometimes it takes a cluster of chapters to get all the way through an event, like the funeral of a cousin who died in WW II. Each chapter is a complete story unto itself, with a beginning, middle, and end, and each has an element of conflict. I especially noticed this. (The book also makes splendid use of dialog, and I'm eager to read her recently released follow-up, A Tree Grows in Trout Creek.)

The difference between an essay, a story, and documentation is that essays are about your thoughts and interpretations of events and ideas. The thoughts will be more interesting if conflict is involved. If conflict weren't involved, you probably wouldn't be moved to write the essay ... Stories are about action -- what happened -- and again, conflict is probably what moves you to write the story. Documentation is a data dump. The data will be more interesting if it's incorporated into a story.

You can have a complete story, with conflict, in a single paragraph. I wrote such a "story" the other day. I'd include it if I could find it.

To sum things up: Life is a series of conflicts, major and minor. "What shall I have for breakfast today?" can work as a conflict element if it's handled right. So, incorporate some smaller conflicts as you go, and see if that suffices.

Hope this helps, if not with this specific essay, then later with other pieces.

Hmm. I agree with the above, that you probably wouldn't want to write about it if there weren't conflict involved. The basic types of conflicts are a person v another person, a person v society, a person v nature (human nature or the 'nature of life' or the literal weather), and a person v self.

It's really easy to get bogged down in believing that person v person is the only type of conflict, but if you are compelled to write about it chances are one of the above types of conflicts exist. Any of those elements can be foregrounded without too much backstory if you just use really compressed language-- a small handful of the right words might be able to suggest all the backstory you need.

If this doesn't help, or you need more, give us some more specifics. There are some crack folks on here who could help you figure this one out.

Aha! I found that short paragraph parked in a blog post:


The conflict in this case was me against my own vanity -- not wanting to appear stupid. Vanity won out in this case. Unlike the movies, in life, the good gal does not always win!

This single-paragraph story will never win an award, but it does illustrate that conflict can be packed into the tightest corner.

Conflict caused by character flaws and edginess

I just did a book review of a book about a guy going through surgery. (Perry Foster, "Hands upon my heart"). One of the reasons the book was so compelling was because he was so darn edgy. His own fears created the dramatic tension. It made me realize that while the obstacles in action stories come from the outside, a lot of the obstacles in life are surrounded by edgy frustration.

I've become pretty good about ignoring these inner conflicts in real life. I have to or they would get in my way. But in a story, it might be appropriate to drag the reader along the conflicted process, amping up fears or frustration.

Think of gritty action movies. When the camera pulls in close to the hero in a dangerous situation, often eyes are wide and there is sweat popping up on his or her forehead. If you're inside that character, the sweat is coming from some edgy emotion that could add conflict to a life story.

Jerry

Hey grrl,

I have two thoughts here. One is that you can take us inside Mom's (your) head with internal dialog (set off with italics), but that gets tedious. The other is Jerry's suggestion of showing the sweat, or the tremors of anxiety as you pick up a cup of coffee and slosh it in your lap, or ... yes, showing makes for better reading than telling.

May I suggest getting a couple of Sue Grafton novels under your scalp? Although I haven't read the whole alphabet up to wherever she is now, I've read at least half, and I feel as if I've known Kinsey Milhone forever. I know how she things, feels and reacts. Whatever Sue is doing works. Study her. She's not the only good example, she's just my favorite.

Cheers!

help finding thread?

"Prompt/writing exercise threads of Show don't tell"

Does anyone know where this thread is? I missed this one and it looks like a goodie. Thanks.

pollykahl said:

"Prompt/writing exercise threads of Show don't tell"

Does anyone know where this thread is? I missed this one and it looks like a goodie. Thanks.

Click to expand...

In the blog entry I wrote today, I include a discussion of show-don't-tell, as well as some thoughts about conflict within a memoir.

Here's the permalink, in case you don't get to it right away: Show don't tell and other writing lessons.

Jerry

Polly,

I went hunting for that thread. I never found it, but I did find some goofy, fun prompts. I can tell you hang out in that section a lot.

m

I found the thread riter, it was pretty old. I haven't done any of the prompts on this site due to time constraints, but they look like fun.