Andrew Jack Writing

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Bam Crash Pow

Posted on | October 16, 2009 | 2 Comments

Does your story need violence to make it interesting?

Maybe.

I wish the answer was no, I’ve experienced enough real violence to tell you for sure that it isn’t fun in the least*, but when it comes to stories one of the things readers really respond to is violence.

It doesn’t need to be physical violence though, crippling harm can be dished out verbally by a character who knows how to manipulate someone’s emotions, or ruin their reputations. An emotionally violent character can quickly and easily make their victims wish they’d been punched.

With all that said, the term violence doesn’t really cover what your story needs, perhaps a better question would be “does my story need conflict to be interesting?”

If that’s the question then the answer is definitely yes.

I used to make a distinction between literary and genre fiction, loathing the introspective go nowhere aspect of a lot of literary stories. To be fair this isn’t fair to a lot of literary writers, who have written some really fantastic books, however the books that very nearly put me off literary writing forever were the ones without conflict.

I definitely prefer my fiction with a splash of physical violence, but I’ll read anything that has an intriguing conflict in it. A good example of this type of conflict = interest equation is in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books. The protagonist, professional wizard Harry Dresden** is constantly in the middle of multiple conflicts. Not only is he beset on all sides by any number of ghost, goblins, demons and vampires, Harry is also drawn into conflict within his own organisation (The White council of Wizards), and while occasionally violence is threatened, the conflict there is mostly political.

You’d think that’s be enough, but Jim Butcher writes in even more woe for Harry. Dresden is constantly experiencing conflicted feelings for his sometime partner Officer Karin Murphy**. On top of that he’s also dealing with the side effects of being raised by the Dresden File’s equivalent of Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, emotional attachments to various supernaturally maligned women and a half brother who’s also a life draining succubus.

Dang that’s a lot of conflict, and that’s just one character.

However with all of this multi-level conflict, I have never even once been bored reading one of Jim Butcher’s books. I always want to know what happens next and I’m always hanging out for the next one to be released. Part of that is down to the excellent writing, but a serious part of my interest in the books is down to the total lack of navel gazing.

Bottom Line: You don’t necessarily need violence, you definitely don’t have to have graphic violence, but you must have conflict in your story. No conflict means, for me at least, no sale.

* Violence in the context of sports is fun. I do MMA and it’s a blast. I’m talking about honest to goodness no prior agreement to be gentlemen fight for your life violence.

** To be fair, from Butcher’s description Karin Murphy is smoking hot, and a total badass to boot. I’d be conflicted too.

Category: advice, Pimping, Required Reading

Comments

2 Responses to “Bam Crash Pow”

  1. SarahNo Gravatar
    October 17th, 2009 @ 9:07 pm

    Andy, have you read Catch 22? i read it maybe a smidge over 15 years ago, so i know my recollection of it is poor, but it’s a deeply frustrating book to begin with because nothing at all seems to be happening. when you come to terms with that it gets easier to read, but it remains hard to wonder what’s going to happen next. the conflict is revealed slowly in that frog-in-a-kettle kind of way – you almost don’t realise that something IS actually happening – and then suddenly you’re at the end of the story and find yourself agreeing that it is, in fact, a famously classic novel for a reason….

  2. AndrewNo Gravatar
    October 18th, 2009 @ 12:21 am

    No I haven’t, although Catch 22 is currently sitting in my pile of shame (books I should have read but I haven’t yet)

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