# What do READERS think?



## The Backward OX (Mar 4, 2011)

For some years I’ve been hearing from wannabe *writers* that a good story MUST include tension or, as some describe it, conflict. 

These wannabes say this ingredient’s essential, if the reader is to keep turning the pages.

Here’s one *reader’s* take on this:

I mostly experience a sense of frustration with situations where characters find themselves in confrontations. I find myself saying stuff like, "How could he/she/they be so stupid as to allow this to occur?" 

Put another way, it seems to me that many of those situations are wholly artificial or unrealistic, that is, it’s obvious they’ve been created by the author specifically to build in tension where none need exist. 

It’s a different matter if the story is about someone who came out of the womb aggressive, or who grows up fighting inner demons, however to me as a reader, to put conflict on the page simply for conflict’s sake is ridiculous. 

_This reader prefers a story that has its characters getting on with doing the job in the simplest way possible._ Perhaps that’s no more than a reflection of how I am in real life, as it's in my nature to find the easiest way to do anything and, additionally, as I avoid conflict like the plague; whatever, I believe a great many READERS would agree with me.

So, if your writing style includes the avoidance of conflict, I say go for it. You’ll find an agent, and a publisher, and a whole raft of readers, who are of the same opinion.


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## ppsage (Mar 4, 2011)

This is actually a very good question Ox and I'm tempted to write about it which if I do however, I won't post as I'm chary of you simply baiting me here. If you're serious I doubt you'll get very far if you continue to conflate tension and conflict, the latter being a term of literary analytical jargon at some remove from it's literal definition, which is most odd you don't already know, and wherein lies the ambush probably. Good hunting, pp.

[video=youtube;eKgPY1adc0A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A[/video]


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## The Backward OX (Mar 4, 2011)

pp

Tension

Encarta Dictionary: English (U.K.)

5. Sense of conflict

LITERATURE: the way that opposing characters clash or interact in an interesting (their word, not mine) way with each other in a literary work.


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## The Backward OX (Mar 4, 2011)

pp

It’s also fairly obvious, from a reading of my post in toto, that I use the terms, along with the word confrontation, interchangeably.


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## ppsage (Mar 4, 2011)

Slipped the hook.


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## Foxee (Mar 4, 2011)

I don't agree with that definition, though, not unless nature can be considered a 'character'. I was taught that there is external conflict and internal conflict.
*
External conflict:*
Man against man
Man against nature

*Internal conflict:*
Man against himself



> _This reader prefers a story that has its characters getting on with doing the job in the simplest way possible._


*With no conflict there is no 'job' for the character to get on with. *

It doesn't have to be an epic struggle or a fierce internal battle. Even humor usually centers around some kind of problem, glitch, difficulty, need...in other words _conflict_.


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## Edward G (Mar 5, 2011)

There has to be a conflict or there's no story. Plain and simple.

But as I've said a million times before, this is the age of self-publishing. You can publish a story where no one does anything, just two guys on a porch drinking beer:

"Yep," Bill said.
"Yep," John replied.
A moment passed.
"Yep," Bill reiterated.
"Yep," John responded in kind.

Get my point? Everything hangs on the story's central conflict and its ultimate resolution.


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## The Backward OX (Mar 5, 2011)

Edward G said:


> There has to be a conflict or there's no story. Plain and simple.


In your opinion, that is.


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## Sam (Mar 5, 2011)

Have you ever watched a soap, drama, or movie that hasn't had conflict in it, OX? If everything was all roses in the garden, everyone lived happily ever after, and nothing bad ever happened to anyone, no one would watch it -- or read it. What would be the point? Everyday life isn't entertaining -- for the most part. That's why reality-TV shows like _Big Brother _are mind-numbingly boring. The only thing which makes them bearable is the conflict between the people in the house. 

A novel without conflict is like a romance novel without romance. It just doesn't work.


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## Edward G (Mar 5, 2011)

The Backward OX said:


> In your opinion, that is.



Well, yes, my opinion, but it's one shared by the literary community throughout history. But like I said, it's the era of self-publishing. You can write whatever you want and slap it up on Kindle.


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## garza (Mar 5, 2011)

xO - Conflict, and its ultimate resolution, makes the story. That's one point on which successful novelists and journalists can agree. 

Why is everyone reading about Libya? Conflict. When everything was peaceful in Libya no one was interested. Today there's a full scale revolution. We all want to read the latest bulletins. Will the protests lead to the downfall of the government? What will happen if it does? What will happen if it does not?


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## The Backward OX (Mar 5, 2011)

Libya? Has Mussolini been toppled, then?


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## spider8 (Mar 5, 2011)

It _is_ possible not to have conflict. I distinctly remember long passages of _Life of Pi_ by Yann Martel having none. But it was fascinating and absorbing so I read on. For instance Pi's full first name was Piscine, pronounced 'Pissin' and he was worried about his new bi-lingual fellow students taking the mickey, so he called himself Pi. Is this conflict? Tension perhaps. And it had  pages and pages of zoomorphology - no tension even, but fascinating. 

But 99% of the time, no news is good news so I need a bit of tension. Even just a teeny amount.


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## TheFuhrer02 (Mar 5, 2011)

spider8 said:


> But 99% of the time, no news is good news so I need a bit of tension. Even just a teeny amount.


 
I couldn't agree more. This is perhaps the best way to put it.


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## JosephB (Mar 5, 2011)

Foxee has it right. But I think people with any talent for writing instinctively include conflict in their stories. Readers respond to it and require some level of it even if they don't know what "conflict" is in terms of writing. This one has always seemed like a no-brainer to me.


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## Ditch (Mar 5, 2011)

As has been said, conflict doesn't need to be of epic proportions, at first any way. To me, I wouldn't find a book interesting if there was no tension. The characters don't need to be superhuman. Conflict can come about through temptation or involvement of _*everyday people*_. It intrigues the reader into thinking what they would do under similar circumstances as we all can relate to a common person more than a fabricated ex Navy Seal or special forces type. Maybe this is why cop books are so popular. Detectives are every day people but are thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

My last novel centered around an everyday couple, a nurse and a paramedic vacationing in Mexico, driving along the coast and diving remote spots. They discover a shipwreck loaded with gold, hundreds of coins and priceless artifacts. The temptation lures them into a whole new life. They must find a way to sell these items and smuggle some of them back to the States where they can get a lot of money for them. One coin from the Atocha can sell for $12,500.00 in good condition. Check out the link here..Welcome to the Atocha.com Store!

What would you do in such a circumstance? Having to move the treasure leads them into contact with some very unsavory characters and sticky situations. I don't think I've ever read a book where there was not a conflict of some type, or would be intrigued enough to read one unless it was an autobiography of someone that I respected, but there would be conflict in their life or I would have no reason to respect them enough to read about them.


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## Foxee (Mar 5, 2011)

Well, Ox, I'm certainly willing to see what you can do with a story that includes not a hint of conflict. Let me know when you've posted it. 


Edit: I told my husband about this thread and he said, "Sure you can write a story with no conflict, it's called a commercial." Though the best commercials (if there is such a thing) include conflict, too.


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## garza (Mar 5, 2011)

xO - You've not been keeping up. There was a bit of a dust-up some years ago creating conflict in his life and for years now Mussolini has been running a pizza joint on New York's lower east side.


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## JosephB (Mar 5, 2011)

Foxee said:


> I told my husband about this thread and he said, "Sure you can write a story with no conflict, it's called a commercial."  Though the best commercials (if there is such a thing) include conflict, too.


 
Gadget infomercials have the best conflict. It starts with, "How many times has this happened to you?" And then it shows someone in utter despair, face twisted in an expression of anguish, trying unsuccessfully to slice a tomato. That's man vs. vegetable.


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## ppsage (Mar 5, 2011)

Tension being, on the other hand, a relatively modern literary device, consisting of the constant repetition of the models and calibers of firearms, vehicles and lingerie, to induce an ambient sense of foreboding, unrelated to character transformation.


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## Ditch (Mar 5, 2011)

Tension being, on the other hand, a relatively modern literary device

All of the great works of literature have included a degree of tension or conflict, going back to Shakespeare and before that. It's nothing new. Lingerie is merely window dressing for one of the most beautiful of creations and pales in the light of actual nudity. Caesar was killed by knives, not firearms. Chariots chased the Jews across the desert long before we had cars. Tension or conflict lies at the very root of every interesting work of writing. I personally wouldn't want to read a book where everything is just fine. There must be a struggle, just as there is in life itself. Now, if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth as many Hollywood kids are, there may never be a bigger amount of tension than a dollop of bird poop on your Ferrari, in your case a crushing embarrassment. Still it wouldn't make for interesting reading.  

The most interesting lives are led by those who have tasted battle and their own blood in their mouth. Those who have faced life and death consequences and dared to rise to the challenge. Or, as Theodore Roosevelt so eloquently said...

*“The credit belongs to the man  who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by sweat and blood;  who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again because  there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great  enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends himself in a worthy cause; who  at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at  worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his  place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never  tasted victory or defeat.”*


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 5, 2011)

If Pi worrying about his name is tension then any human activity becomes tension, but some books have a lot more than others, the 22, Scotland Street series by Alexander McCall Smith has hardly any tension, people worrying about everyday things, yes, but does that count as tension? Not if you are comparing it to something that's written for tension as a thriller is.


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## Foxee (Mar 5, 2011)

garza said:


> xO - You've not been keeping up. There was a bit of a dust-up some years ago creating conflict in his life and for years now Mussolini has been running a pizza joint on *New York's lower east side*.


Enough conflict there for anybody.


JosephB said:


> Gadget infomercials have the best conflict. It starts with, "How many times has this happened to you?" And then it shows someone in utter despair, face twisted in an expression of anguish, trying unsuccessfully to slice a tomato. That's man vs. vegetable.


 LOL! Be kind to me, Joe, I have a cough...can't breathe...


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## ppsage (Mar 5, 2011)

Ditch said:


> tension *or* conflict,


 
???????? Sheesh, hoist by my own petard. Well and truly hooked. pp


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## Ditch (Mar 5, 2011)

A current work under way. I see a lot of things as a paramedic, things that make you think, like this...

Ben looked at the passenger. She was maybe twelve years old and she was crying loudly while shaking her mother telling her to wake up. Her left leg was badly pinned under the crushed dashboard. She was using her right leg trying to push against the dash and free it. The firefighters were using the jaws of life to pry the door open. Ben moved quickly to the back window.

    He pulled out his spring loaded center punch and pressed it into the glass. The point retracted, then popped out breaking the glass into hundreds of round, honeycomb cells as it was designed to do. He punched his fist through it, then slapped the broken glass out onto the trunk, then climbed in.

    The door was now open. The firefighters had switched tools and now were using the cutters. Shaped like a big parrot’s beak, the cutters were easily shearing their way through the metal support that held up the roof on the right side of the windshield. Ben leaned over the front seat and looked at her, “I’m going to get you out of here.” he told her. She looked up at him with terrified eyes. At that moment, there was a muffled “whump” sound. Fire began to burn below the dash.

    Ben was in the back seat but she was in the front. Her flesh was unprotected and the flames were already beginning to blister and peel the skin back. Her screams increased in volume, she was burning alive. He tugged with all of his strength on her left leg, it didn’t budge. He had no choice, she was going to burn alive while he listened. He screamed to the firefighter holding the jaws, “Give me the cutters!”

    He thumbed the trigger opening the jaws as wide as they would go. He then placed them just above her trapped knee. She looked at them, then at him as the horror registered on her face, “No!” she screamed. Ben gritted his teeth and pushed the trigger.


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## The Backward OX (Mar 5, 2011)

Ditch said:


> A current work under way. I see a lot of things as a paramedic, things that make you think, like this...
> 
> Ben looked at the passenger. She was maybe twelve years old and she was crying loudly while shaking her mother telling her to wake up. Her left leg was badly pinned under the crushed dashboard. She was using her right leg trying to push against the dash and free it. The firefighters were using the jaws of life to pry the door open. Ben moved quickly to the back window.
> 
> ...


 
The thing is, stuff like that makes me want to throw up and so I never read stuff like that. In fact, I'm here to tell you that reading that extract has quite upset me. It may take some time to rid myself of the image. I do not read to get upset. I read for enjoyment. There is nothing enjoyable in stuff like that.


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## Ditch (Mar 5, 2011)

Sorry Ox but that is my life. What would you do in my place? Run and let her burn? When you take on a job like this you have to make some hard decisions sometime. You have to pass one by that is still breathing but is dying so that others might live. Granted, it might not be your type of reading, but some of us are actually faced with such things at times, it's our job.

A fellow paramedic made a call on a heart attack. If you inject enough epinephrine the heart will just keep beating long after the brain is dead. Using escalating doses of epi this man's heart was still beating long after his brain was dead. By the time they got him to the hospital he had been down over twenty minutes. The doctor asked how long he had been down. When he got the answer, he looked around the room at our faces. We were all medically trained and knew that even if he lived that he would be a vegetable, a burden on his family for years.

He made a decision, he charged the paddles to 360 joules and said, "Clear." He shocked him and killed him. I loved him and hated him at the same time. He had just killed this man when he had sworn to save lives. He saved those who were left behind. This is not in the book and technically he was wrong for doing it. But if i were in that man's place, I would hope that I had a doctor with such balls.

Life, and the end of it isn't pretty, but none of us are getting out of here alive. We will all face death, some of us were just chosen to witness it and to try to preserve it. It can be unpleasant or upsetting, but we all die. I just chose a profeesion that makes me there when it happens and I write about it.


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## ppsage (Mar 5, 2011)

The Backward OX said:


> The thing is, stuff like that makes me want to throw up and so I never read stuff like that. In fact, I'm here to tell you that reading that extract has quite upset me. It may take some time to rid myself of the image. I do not read to get upset. I read for enjoyment. There is nothing enjoyable in stuff like that.



Because it's all tension and zero conflict. You knew this character would inevitably perform _heroically_ and it would be bloody. The only thing a reader can do is close their eyes to the developmently useless carnage. I sort of think of this (the inability to distinguish conflict and tension) as a translation into literature of a broadcast or journalistic mentality.


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## Ditch (Mar 5, 2011)

ppsage said:


> Because it's all tension and zero conflict. You knew this character would inevitably perform _heroically_ and it would be bloody. The only thing a reader can do is close their eyes to the developmently useless carnage. I sort of think of this (the inability to distinguish conflict and tension) as a translation into literature of a broadcast or journalistic mentality.



A bad wreck may be the only time that a commonly ordinary person experiences an extraordinary circumstance. They refer to it for the rest of their life as "My wreck" like it is a part of recorded history. It is to some of us. To actually be in the car after a person has had a wreck, is trapped and will die if we don't get them out is a very traumatic and memorable experiience for us. We never forget it. Every moment, every word, every ragged breath is firmly engraved in our memory. It is dramatic, it matters and we never forget it. We take it with us.


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## starseed (Mar 5, 2011)

Geez Ox, you are adorably sensitive.  You must be extremely limited when it comes to both writing and cinema if that passage upset you...

Yes, I think a story requires tension. I wouldn't want to read one without any. I think you are an exception to the rule and most people want tension and conflict.


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## garza (Mar 5, 2011)

ppsage - You are saying that a journalist does not know the difference. A good journalist, and I hope I am one, does know the difference. Conflict and its termination, tension and its resolution, are entwined so closely on the battlefield, however, that in the shorthand techniques of field reporting they can appear as one. 

Hemingway was a journalist, and in his stories about battles and bullfighters he displayed clearly both the conflict and the tension. But those stories were written at leisure. I doubt that all his dispatches from the field, the straightforward reporting of what happened moment to moment, made the same fine distinction. 

Re-read my poem 'Remembrance Day 2010', written sitting peacefully at my computer years and miles from any battle, and I believe you'll see how a journalist can separate the two threads.

Edit - oops - accidental double post covering the same subject, but with some slight change in viewpoint.


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## The Backward OX (Mar 5, 2011)

starseed said:


> Geez Ox, you are adorably sensitive.


 
Can I quote you in my signature line? Ol' pp's looking a bit whiskery.


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## Leyline (Mar 5, 2011)

Conflict only has to be apparent to the reader/audience. The simple device of two characters thinking different things are true (and the inherent possibilities that heralds) is a form of dramatic conflict. The two characters do not even have to interact or know of each others existence in order to conflict. 

Another example: Two people are eating popcorn from a bowl. It's obvious both are hungry. As the contents of the bowl disappear, the behavior of the two munchers becomes tenser and more anxious. Conflict from the extremely slight to the utterly deadly could be wrung from this.

And, of course, almost all comedy is conflict.


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## starseed (Mar 5, 2011)

The Backward OX said:


> Can I quote you in my signature line? Ol' pp's looking a bit whiskery.


 
Haha sure, that's funny because I had a quote of yours on mine when I used to frequent this forum a year or two ago.


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## garza (Mar 5, 2011)

ppsage - Define what you mean by a broadcast or journalistic mentality. Do you mean that when we do our jobs correctly, we write without trying to add conflict and tension to an already dramatic situation? Hemingway was a journalist. His field reports were straightforward accounts of events. His later, literary, recreations of events brought out not just the conflict but also the tension and created stories more entertaining, and more insightful, than the bare recital of events. 

My poem 'Remembrance Day 2010' was built around one bit of conflict that happened many years ago. I have my field notes from that day. I don't throw anything away and have file drawers filled with little shirt-pocket notebooks. In three pages of one of those little notebooks is a bare-bones description of a fire-fight, among whose casualties was another reporter. I believe I succeeded, though I may not've, in showing the tension inherent in such a situation and in showing its release.

Edit - This is a reiteration of the thoughts in my last post. I didn't mean to post the same ideas twice - I thought the first post didn't make it onto the boards. Taken together, however, they perhaps explain my meaning better than either one singly.


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## ppsage (Mar 5, 2011)

garza said:


> ppsage - You are saying that a journalist does not know the difference.


 
Sheeesh, never said anything of the kind or even implied it. I expect several journalists do and would therefore use apples to make pie, when pies are wanted, and fire extinguishers to put out fires, when there's conflagration. Literary conflict occurs when the protagonist is presented a problem, the confronting of which transforms him. Literary tension occurs when the protagonist is in danger. A well trained superhero may confront danger without transformation. He may go into a dangerous situation knowing what to do and believing "that's the way the real world is," and come out still believing that and no literary conflict in sight. Classic noire fiction; protagonist finding corpse and wonders what's justice. Modern thriller; protagonist finds corpse and sets out for rightous vengence. Fiction which borrows a tool legitimately journalistic and simply reports the latter situation, as the example back there in this thread did, doesn't acheive the characterization which makes an _imaginary_ event interesting.


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## garza (Mar 5, 2011)

ppsage - Sorry I misread you. When I saw the sentence, '_I sort of think of this (the inability to distinguish conflict and tension) as a translation into literature of a broadcast or journalistic mentality_' it translated in my mind as saying that journalists and broadcasters have a certain mentality so that they have an '_inability to distinguish conflict and tension'._

What, exactly, do you mean by a 'broadcast or journalistic mentality'?


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## The Backward OX (Mar 5, 2011)

That's how I read it too.


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## ppsage (Mar 5, 2011)

garza said:


> ppsage - What, exactly, do you mean by a 'broadcast or journalistic mentality'?


 
I should have written more precisely; I should have written a broadcast or *a* journalistic mentality. Or the broadcast and journalistic mentalit*ies*. Conflation not restricted to the bovine. Mia culpa. Albeit, from oversight. By journalistic I mean reportage, which isn't all of journalism certainly, but perhaps its characteristic? Regarding broadcast, I was mostly thinking of the video mediums, with their impertinent sensuality. Their hotness, in the 60's linguistic terms. Completely different, but as imports to fiction, I'm maintaining, on this odd tangent we pursue, that both have the effect of exchanging conflict (in the literary sense) for tension (also literary.) By literary I mean, _as defined in my previous post_; which I'm purporting to be, approximently, their accustomed usage regarding the analysis of fiction. And to the conflation of them, which at this point seems to me a conflagration beyond extinguishing, even by journalists, I attribute the aprehensions of the o. p.


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## The Backward OX (Mar 5, 2011)

Leave me out of this. I've become just an interested bystander.


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## garza (Mar 6, 2011)

ppsage - My simple journalist's brain can't wrap itself around such ethereal thoughts. You are far beyond me. I'll join xO over here on the sideline and watch, though obviously I'll not be capable of comprehending all I see.


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## ppsage (Mar 6, 2011)

Thank god I finally got off the sig!


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## The Backward OX (Mar 6, 2011)

“…now see here, mr goblin…” said the original poster, “…the purpose of the post was to point out that it seems to be *writers* who keep saying conflict is needed…”, and he was simply curious as to what *readers* might have to say about such a proposal.


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## Leyline (Mar 6, 2011)

Yeah, because writers, it's well known, never read much. Separate breeds. It's also well known that a large percentage of the people reading _Writing_ Forums at any given time are readers who have no desire whatsoever to write.


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 6, 2011)

"It's also well known that a large percentage of the people reading Writing Forums at any given time are readers who have no desire *or ability*whatsoever to write."

slight edit Leyline.


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## The Backward OX (Mar 6, 2011)

"...baaaaa..."


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## JosephB (Mar 6, 2011)

The Backward OX said:


> “…now see here, mr goblin…” said the original poster, “…the purpose of the post was to point out that it seems to be *writers* who keep saying conflict is needed…”, and he was simply curious as to what *readers* might have to say about such a proposal.



If you were to ask a reader if conflict is needed -- someone who isn’t a “wannabe” -- you might have to explain what conflict is, in terms of writing. That would require that you actually understand what it means.  But the thing is, if you understand what it means, then you don’t have to ask.


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## Leyline (Mar 6, 2011)

JosephB said:


> If you were to ask a reader if conflict is needed -- someone who isn’t a “wannabe” -- you might have to explain what conflict is, in terms of writing. That would require that you actually understand what it means.  But the thing is, if you understand what it means, then you don’t have to ask.


 
Eh. You just got to take an Ox thread as a possible chance to inform lurkers or, maybe, to get an interesting side discussion going. Ox then becomes much like a Zen koan, merely a catalyst or focus for the true knowledge and insight, which comes from within.


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## JosephB (Mar 6, 2011)

Leyline said:


> Eh. You just got to take an Ox thread as a possible chance to inform lurkers or, maybe, to get an interesting side discussion going. Ox then becomes much like a Zen koan, merely a catalyst or focus for the true knowledge and insight, which comes from within.



Heh. You're right. Like the old adage, there's no such thing as a dumb question -- although though some folks seem determined to prove that it isn't true.


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## garza (Mar 6, 2011)

In Belize we have a saying, 'fish get caught by the mouth'. Did you just hook yourself?


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## The Backward OX (Mar 7, 2011)

"…and while it’s not really on-topic…" said OX, "…I do think the wardrobe mistress could have made a better effort…" thus drawing the attention of the hoi-polloi to the art work "…for, as you can see, the harlequin and the puppet master are wearing the same type of shoes…"


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## SilverMoon (Mar 7, 2011)

My opinion? Just read my Signature.


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## mockingbird (Mar 9, 2011)

You must have a protagonist and an antagonist - or so I thought - and plenty of conflict between them.


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