First Impressions
On conflict & on being conflicted
Good morning, friends.
In last week’s newsletter, I wrote a bit about dialogue, using Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as an example of using dialogue (and summarizing dialogue) well. I’m still very much working through some dialogue-heavy sections of my own writing, and something I’ve been thinking about a lot is conflict, specifically interpersonal, in fiction. Conflict, big-C, gets a lot of discussion in craft talks: everything from Freytag’s Pyramid to Save the Cat counts Conflict as a necessary ingredient to good fiction, though the form it takes can vary. At the moment, I’m concerned with small-c conflict in conversation: setting up two (or more) characters who need to have an unpleasant (or uncomfortable or mean), antagonistic dialogue.
Like Austen1, I’m dealing in my project with a cast of characters who mainly don’t like each other very much, but are (typically) adhering to social expectations of politeness. In my case, an adult daughter who has a strained relationship with her mother, a student with an abusive authority figure, a woman who is trying to uncover a crime, and at the center of it all two people who don’t like anyone very much, including each other and, to some degree, themselves. It’s been challenging to try and create dialogue that on a functional level captures the individual characters’ voices while doing what I need it to do from a plot and character perspective.
In Austen’s case, social tension or disagreement fuels most (perhaps all?) of the big-C Conflict and plot of several of her novels, Darcy and Elizabeth’s initial, disfavorable “first impressions” being extremely the point. Plus, it’s just a lot of fun. Take, for example, one of my favorite scenes in Pride and Prejudice, when Darcy and Elizabeth dance together at the Netherfield Ball. Since they met, Darcy has only grown more interested in Elizabeth. At the same time, Elizabeth’s opinion of Mr. Darcy (thanks mainly to Mr. Wickham) is almost as low as it will get:
He made no answer; and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often walk to Meryton. She answered in the affirmative; and, unable to resist the temptation, added, “When you met us there the other day, we had just been forming a new acquaintance.”
The effect was immediate. A deeper shade of hauteur overspread his features, but he said not a word; and Elizabeth, though blaming herself for her own weakness, could not go on. At length Darcy spoke, and in a constrained manner said,—
“Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may insure his making friends; whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain.”
“He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship,” replied Elizabeth, with emphasis, “and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life.”
Darcy made no answer, and seemed desirous of changing the subject2.
We understand that this is an uncomfortable conversation because the narrator pretty plainly lets us know— “A deeper shade of hauteur overspread his features”, and “seemed desirous of changing the subject”— but also because we know the characters and the mores of the society they’re in well enough to know that they’re outside the norms of polite chit-chat about a mutual acquaintance. Darcy gets in a backhanded compliment about Mr. Wickham’s “happy manners,” while Elizabeth with double meaning remarks on the “loss” of Darcy’s friendship3. What I really appreciate is the naturalistic way Austen plays with tension (Elizabeth’s double meaning, Darcy’s discomfort) without laying everything out in the open or wasting time/being coy with the reader for dramatics’ sake. It would have been uncharacteristic for Elizabeth to more aggressively confront Darcy about Wickham in public, as it would have been for Darcy to volunteer information (again, especially in public) without an extremely good cause.
I am not a person who “thrives on conflict.” I am the opposite of a person who thrives on conflict, a consummate people-pleaser who will make every possible contortion and excuse to avoid the thing entirely.
In a (relatively) more modern example, Mavis Gallant’s short story “Florida” is about a French-Canadian mother, Marie, who visits her son and her son’s new wife, Mimi, down in Florida:
'People don't get married to have three bedrooms,' said Mimi, still holding Berthe's picture. 'They get married for love and company.'
'I am company,' said Marie. 'I love my sister, and my sister loves me.'
'Do you think I married Raymond for space?' said Mimi.
Raymond said something in English. Marie did not know what it meant, but it sounded disgusting. 'Raymond,' she said. 'Apologise to your wife.'
'Don't talk to him,' said Mimi. 'You're only working him up.'
'Don't you dare knock your chair over,' said his mother. 'Raymond, If you go out that door, I won't be here when you get back.'
The two women sat quietly after the door slammed. Then Mimi picked up the fallen chair. 'That's the real Raymond,' she said. 'That's Raymond, in public and private. I don't blame any man's mother for the way the man turns out.'4
“Florida” is a delight and so bittersweetly funny (worth reading the whole thing, it isn’t long & its online) and Gallant walks balances the dialogue perfectly: resentment and shifting alliances and generational differences and cultural differences, all neatly compressed into trim, efficient dialogue. The aggression or conflict is a lot closer to the surface than in Austen (for a few reasons, including style and social norms of the time) but the effect is just as clean (and still understated, compared to out-and-out yelling). We have an almost too-vivid picture of Marie as a (perhaps sometimes justified!) judgmental mother and mother-in-law who doesn’t seem to like her son or his wife very much; of Mimi, as someone who is defensive but more pragmatic; and of Raymond, who overall kind of sucks. Taken as a whole, we get a story that is by turns funny and pitiful, in Gallant’s perceptive and entertaining style.
In regards to my own writing, here is my problem: I am not a person who “thrives on conflict.” I am the opposite of a person who thrives on conflict, a consummate people-pleaser who will make every possible contortion and excuse to avoid conflict5. Even reading certain types too-aggressive conflict puts me into fight-or-flight mode (Emma Cline’s The Guest, which is good but very stressful, comes to mind). But as it turns out, in addition to not being a super healthy way to live your life, this fear makes creating and writing and lingering in conflict in fiction extremely challenging. It feels very silly, looking at it written out: I am afraid of conflict I have made up inside my own head between imaginary people.
In this revision of my novel draft, I need to do a fair amount of drafting (in addition to editing/rewriting), to cover holes and flesh out light or incomplete sections. Not by coincidence, a lot of those places that need covering/expanding largely consist of, yes, interpersonal conflict/dialogue, aka the stuff I’ve been putting off because I’m afraid of it. Mix that in with some baggage about how women, including female characters, are supposed to be likeable, and you have a real recipe for writers’ block (or, best case, really mediocre dialogue). At this point, my main strategy is to 1) continue reading and identifying examples of conflict in literature that I like (see, self, this is effective and good and not scary); and 2) push through and continue writing it anyway, even if it means I need to cut a lot of extraneous stuff later. Option 3), throw this project in the garbage and start an all-new, experimental, extremely interior novel with no dialogue in it at all is off the table for now, but never say never.
Wish me luck! And if I’m not the only one out there with this problem, I’d love to hear about it.
With love,
C
A few things I’m reading, watching, & otherwise consuming lately:
The article “Time Stands Still in San Diego’s Frozen Zoo,” by Natalie Middleton, for Orion, on cloning zoo animals.
The Zone of Interest, dir. Jonathan Glazer, which actually is as good as you heard.
Dr. Seema Jilani’s account of her time working in hospitals in Gaza, for The New Yorker.
Jamelle Bouie (NYT Opinion6) on how Dobbs has/will affect more than abortion.
Hot Springs Drive, by Lindsay Hunter. TONS of conflict in this one & very good!! I picked it up because I thought her conversation with Aaron Burch on The Lives of Writers podcast was really interesting.
“‘Lives of the Wives’ Books Won’t Save Us,” by Erin Somers, in Bustle. Interesting to think about. (My first thought was actually not a book but of Maestro, and all of its syrupy “it’s really about Felicia!” marketing. I also just finished reading A.S. Byatt’s Possession for the first time, which is very much concerned with this idea7.)
I very much liked this newsletter from Katherine May on starting a new book:
I love browsing all the fashion week collections but I especially love that the Alaia RTW Fall 24 collection was made entirely of merino wool! We <3 natural fibers!
I got an imperfect box of blueberries in my last grocery order (not horrible, just not fresh (I know it is January)) and made these muffins, which have been cheery on cold mornings AND freeze/thaw super well.
“Sleepless at Silver Lake,” by Carolyn Kuebler, in Joyland. Perfectly infuriating. (I hate camping, or this kind, at least.)
We’re basically the same person.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice, p. 117
The double entendre is that losing his literal friendship would be no loss to anyone, but the “favors” of it (the material gains Mr. Wickham feels cheated out of) would be.
Gallant, Mavis. “Florida.” Varieties of Exile, p. 218
Gotta find a therapist one of these days.
Only worthwhile/human NYT Opinion columnist?? Prove me wrong.
A very good novel but I admit I skipped over 99% of the epic poetry. Sorry!!