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Exercise #548: Craft
Posted 12/6/13
Time for the next step in our journey, where we talk about the five Cs that can help you self-check your story for marketability. Every story - to be a complete tale - needs the five Cs.
The third C is Conflict.
Without conflict there really is no story. Imagine a typical day at home. Is there anything in it worth talking about? While some things in your daily life might be of interest to someone who doesn’t live there, generally “normal” is “boring.” Does anyone want a blow-by-blow of how I heated my leftovers for lunch? No! They want to know how I handled it when the microwave blew up and I needed to eat on time or die as my blood sugar levels slipped away.
Conflict is the juice of your story fruit.
For this exercise, use your character from Exercise #539 and your setting (Climate) from Exercise #543. Add in some conflict. Show us a scene where your character’s conflict is apparent to us. Do not resolve it!
A note: Your tale is no doubt disjointed and has many spots you’d like to fix. No worries; you’ll have a chance to do that in the next C exercise.
Critiquers, along with the usual technical critique, you might answer these questions:
* Was the conflict interesting enough to keep you reading? Why or why not?
* Was this piece helpful to you as a writer? Why or why not?
Word limit: 1200
Please use the subject line
SUB: Exercise #548/yourname
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