CONFLICT WRITING: WHEN DOES IT HIT HOME

Conflict writing happens in every story, every movie, every book.

Without conflict, there is no tension, and no reason to turn the page.

Weak writing is a list, an inventory of boxes to check, instead of personal involvement.

What’s the difference?

James Bond movies all start the same: James is in a tight spot and escapes in daring fashion. And we can’t wait to see what he does next.

Mission Impossible? How does Tom Cruise do those stunts? What else will he do? We sit on the edge of our seats to find out.

After a few releases of famous film franchises with a reliable star, all we need is the date and we show up.

Conflict Writing Without Action Heros

Arnold didn’t have a part in the movie Ordinary People.

The driving action of the story was the emotional wreckage in a family after one of their two kids died. It was the kid mom liked best, and the other kid knew her feelings and blamed himself.

Morbid and dark and full of emotional violence, but no helicopters, guns, or car crashes. Just a bunch of complex feelings grinding away in every character.

Another movie released in 1980 had the emotions, but they were expressed by violent characters in socially approved mayhem. Raging Bull was about a fighter’s life in and out of the ring.

Conflict writing for Robert DeNiro’s character didn’t include wearing a fat suit to approximate Jake LaMotta’s weight loss and weight gain. Instead, Bobby D spent three months in Italy, according to legend, eating five times a day to gain the required weight to look like a sloppy, over the hill, tomato can.

All he did was get his movie ranked as the top film of the 1980’s.

LA Times:

Renewed interest in the film was sparked in part by the selection of “Raging Bull” as the best film of the 1980s, as voted by American Film and Premiere magazines and the film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, among others.

Cancer Conflict Writer

Readers who take time to cruise boomerpdx know my story; if not, here’s a reminder.

There I was in my fat man’s paradise wishing I could eat Italian in Italy five times a day and feel good about it. Absent that, I was doing just fine loading up here in Tigard, tying my shoes on the side because my big gut made it too hard to execute the breathless top knot.

I didn’t think I was too fat because I could still do things, which is probably what every guy said just before a heart attack. But, no heart attack here. No diabetes either, and both are family tree favorites.

I wrote a ton of blog posts, wrote op-eds, self-published two books on Amazon, ghosted a few things, and stayed on the productive side. Took classes, wrote a few screenplays, got immersed in story theory and timing.

And got cancer, which I first saw as a writing retreat on chemo, loads of chemo, paired with radiation. Coming down the home stretch, I thought of cancer in terms of wrestling season and cutting weight and I was winning.

The bigger picture I noticed from all the run-around was the different moods from place to place. One stop was nervous and jumpy, another place relaxed and calm, and another carried a sense of doom.

Between the three, I started the story of my time in the hot box. But instead of another ‘cancer kicked my ass and treatment made it worse’ story, I found inspiration from this conversation:

Them: I’ve never seen anyone suffer as much as you’re suffering.

Me: Sure you have. Your mother in law lived with you until she died. That couldn’t have been a party.

Them: Okay, then I’ve never seen anyone suffer as much as you and live through it.

Me: That’s my plan. Suffer now and live like a champion the rest of my life, like Muhammad Ali.

The Book of Champions

My story starts with a phone call I answered in the bathroom and runs between events that followed and a back story for context. The doctor asked if I was sitting down.

If it had been a different cancer, my book wouldn’t be written. But it was sexually transmitted HPV 16 cancer, so that opens an important door for conflict writing.

Neck cancer from smoking and drinking to excess comes with grief and regret. One guy in the grind said, “I’m taking it more seriously this time. I even quit smoking.”

In a nice surprise, I attended a writers’ meeting where the speaker shifted gears from a work talk to a health talk. It was dire as hell, and we’d both gone through the same deal.

Afterwards I asked him if he had regrets when he learned he had sexually transmitted cancer.

Me: Do you blame anyone?

Him: Blame? No. Do you?

Me: No one. I call it a badge of courage.

Him: It has a nice Stephen Crane sound.

Me: So no regrets?

Him: Only a fool would look back in regret.

This conversation didn’t make the book, but it reflects the celebration of life I wrote and reviewed to make sure I’d emerge in one piece. And I did.

(About the top image and the part about reading the whole book in college? This is a Princeton summer reading list.)