The Necessary Elements
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Conflict, emotion, action and dialogue: the necessary elements of a narrative scene
Before starting a story, you may want to consider the following four elements and ways to include them without distracting from communicating your idea(s).
Conflict: We humans thrive on conflict of all types, whether it is a rich tapestry in a good novel or well written movie or people yelling at each other on Jerry Springer. There are five types of plot conflict, each offering an element of risk to at least the protagonist.
Emotion: Conflict creates tension, which amplifies the emotional impact to the reader. Even better is when the characters have an honest emotional response to the conflict and action. It could be as simple as being late for something or as complex a threat to the planet, but anger, worry, jealousy, raw emotions the reader can identify with, helps bring them into the story.
Action: Events should happen in these stories. Static conversations over lattes and biscotti will struggle to create tension no matter how much conflict you present. Action might include something as engaging as a fire fight or someone slamming a door, their keys or the remote in response to bad news. Characters tend to act out in response to conflict and emotion and those actions should come out in the story.
*The exception is when a character does not respond to outward stimuli due to personal or societal expectation. But we should be careful not to leave a scene or dialogue empty of action as an error of not including any.
Dialogue: New information should be presented to the characters and thus to the reader. Readers should touch, taste, see and smell the world around them. Dialogue goes further and provides a powerful mechanism to avoid simple explanation on the writer's part allowing the people to discuss the issues and events around them. When time becomes critical, tempers flare and communications either streamline or falter, depending upon the fortitude of each character. Dynamic dialogue can provide engaging communication between the characters of the story and, through them, to the reader.
Let's look at some examples on the next page.