Tension and conflict are indispensable to great stories. Whether through good old-fashioned action or unbearable inner turmoil, our characters need a solid sense of stakes in our writing. This can be notoriously difficult to do in fiction, especially as we draw from our own lives and the world around us for inspiration. In our daily lives, we may, rightly, avoid conflict, but in our fiction, we need to embrace it, and even actively search for it. We’ll look at how to successfully build and follow through tension and conflict in our writing. What are some of the ways we can welcome (more) tension into our stories? How do we build meaningful, rather than superficial, conflict in our writing? How do tension and conflict contribute to successful characterisation?
In this masterclass, we’ll look at how these crucial craft elements function in the best writing and plumb our own pages for insight and lessons. Participants should come with their work-in-progress and expect in-class discussion, handouts, exercises, and analysis.