Can You Be Too Healthy in Real Life to Write Good Conflict in Story?

EPISODE DESCRIPTION – Do you ever wonder if you can improve your interpersonal communication so much that it would impact your writing? Would you still be able to write good conflict if you knew and practiced good communication skills and habits? This episode sees Zena unpack why this might be a concern and also addresses why this actually might make your writing of story conflict more interesting and fun.  

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Transcript

THE STORYTELLER’S MISSION WITH ZENA DELL LOWE
S3_E12: Can You Be Too Healthy in Real Life to Write Good Conflict in Story?
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT 

Published February 2, 2023

00:00
INTRO: Hello, and welcome to The Storyteller's Mission with Zena Dell Lowe, a podcast for artists and storytellers about changing the world for the better through story. 

00:11
So, before I get started with today's topic, I do want to warn you that Lulu seems to be in rare form today. She's really snoring loudly. So, I apologize in advance. I hope it's not too distracting. Having said that—there you go. See? Her timing is impeccable. 

00:29
TOPIC INTRODUCTION: One of the things that I want to talk about today is I want to respond to a few questions that have been raised, given a few of my recent podcasts. In particular, how those issues that I'm discussing in the podcast relate to story. Which is fantastic because it gets us into the realm of craft, which we're anxious to get into for the new year. 

00:54
So one of the questions that was raised to me by a friend of mine who listens to the podcast, they said, "You know, you're really trying to do this foundation where you're helping artists become healthier people." And he said, "And this might sound strange, but one of the things I worry about is that if I'm too healthy as a person, I won't be able to write well, in my story, because story is about conflict between people or what have you. And if I learn to be too communicative, or too healthy and direct and open and honest, is that going to negatively impact my actual story, because I won't be able to then write conflict in story." And I thought it was an interesting question. And I can see how perhaps there would be that concern. But I want to alleviate that concern for several reasons. But before I alleviate those concerns, I want to help unpack why that could be a legitimate concern, because of the nature of story itself, what happens in story that would maybe even make that an issue. 

02:03
PRESENTATION: And so what I want to talk about is characters. Of course, we're talking about characters here. And one of the issues about story, one of the primary issues always has to be—and we keep coming back to this—is that your characters have to have objectives. Not just your main character. Although that should be very, very clear in your head so that your character has a clear objective that they are pursuing over the course of the story, which is how the plot even unfolds, because they're pursuing something relentlessly. 

02:37
But it can't just be your main character that has an objective. Every single person that they come into contact with has to have their own life has to have something they're pursuing, an agenda. And so in that situation, and that sense, every single encounter between characters in a story becomes, what I like to call, a negotiation. Which I get from the book by Jeffrey Sweet, The Dramatist Toolkit. And what this means is that it's basically a power struggle. It's basically people going about trying to get their things, whatever it is that they want. They are in a dance. They're negotiating. They're—it's a give and take. It's an exchange, or whatever the case may be. But they both have to have an objective that they're pursuing. 

03:26
And the truth of the matter is, and this is where the issue really comes in, is that when it comes to our characters, and actually, when it comes to most people in real life, we very rarely are direct in what we want. Most people are indirect. If you've ever seen two people that like each other, but they haven't actually overtly directly declared their feelings, then you get to see them behave in these indirect ways because they're trying to test the waters, because neither one of them wants to get hurt. Or if one of the people has expressed it, and the other person hasn't. I mean, we see this dilemma all the time, right? Where maybe one person has said, I love you, those crazy words. And the other person hasn't been able to say it. And now the whole relationship is on shaky ground. Because one person well, Where are we at? What does that mean? They didn't say it back. Do they not love me? Where do we go from here? And that is a real turning point in the relationship. In real life we very rarely just come out and say what we want. We don't go to our dad and say, "Dad, I want you to love me more." We go about it in indirect ways. 

04:44
And so I think this is what was behind my friend's question. Because what I'm telling people to do in real life is become direct, clear, articulate communicators of what they want, what they need. What is healthy, right? To set better boundaries, to be clear about them, to be direct—open, honest and direct. That is the goal in real life. But if we do that in real life—and I have argued that what we do in real life is going to overflow into our stories. Which is why we have to have a clear understanding of certain worldview concepts and philosophies and psychology and that sort of thing. Because if we're wrong about our assumptions, we're going to inadvertently argue for the wrong things in our stories. So there very much is an overflow into our stories from the personal well that we're living in. So if we're being healthy in our own lives, and we're learning to communicate open, honestly and directly, then have we debilitated ourselves as storytellers because now the indirect method might not be as available to us.

05:59
So, it's an interesting concept and a very interesting question. And what I would like to say is that, first of all, you always have to approach a story from the point of view of your characters. And you are not your character. Now, every character is you to a certain degree, or at least springs from your mind and your imagination. And most people would argue that in a lot of ways, the main character is them to some degree. And yet, they are not you. You have to be able to separate your own personal experiences, your own personal beliefs, and that sort of thing from the character themselves, so that the character can take on a life of their own. And if your character would not be an open, honest and a direct communicator, but they would go about it in sort of an indirect way, then you have to be able to reflect that in your story. So that's first and foremost, you need to approach your story from the true perspective of the character, not you separating the two. 

07:06
Furthermore, a lot of times we're writing stories that aren't necessarily modern, see, this idea of open honest and direct communication is actually kind of a modern sensibility. Now, yes, yes. I think that we've been wanting that for a long time. A lot of people probably have been arguing that. It goes back in psychology very, very, very far. And certainly in human relationships overall. You can find quotes from way, way back hundreds and hundreds of years ago, where people are arguing for openness and honesty and directness and those types of things. And so that also tells you that human behavior veers from that often enough that we have to keep telling ourselves this. Like, just be honest. We have to keep reminding ourselves to do this, because oftentimes, we will fall into the default, which is to do something, a little subversively, or at least indirectly. But my point, really, in saying this is that these concepts that we're talking about, are more prevalent in today's society than they've ever been before—the "self-love craze". This is a modern conception. 

08:16
My mom was a psychology teacher. My mom knew psychology. And I believe that my mom pursued psychology because of her own unresolved trauma, from her childhood and from early marriage to my dad, and from other terrible things that she experienced in her life. I think my mom knew that there was something wrong with her, some unresolved trauma. I think she did struggle with some PTSD, but they didn't have the language for it, then see, there were limits to what she could even explore. So she did the best she could to try to fix herself. She knew there was something wrong. She was very, very bright. And she read about it as much as possible. And based on the knowledge that they're talking about in the current spheres of psychology and science, she did the best she could do to address the issues that she knew she struggled with. But I don't think she was ever able to fully accomplish it. Because we just didn't know that much then. 

09:26
In fact, when I was originally diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, which was in high school, it was after my stepfather had died of cancer. And I was a freshman and it was in English of all things. I'm in the Honors English class, and I'm getting a D. That's crazy, right? I mean, that's my thing. I love writing. I loved writing always. And yet, here I am getting a D. And so they thought that I had depression. Because of Ralph's death, which is a good assumption. However, when they sent me to the counselor to get counseled for the depression, it was the counselor who came out and said, "You know, I think this kid has something called ADD." Back then, ADD, nobody knew about it. It was brand new. And of course all these years later, I'm still on meds. It's very popular now, everybody knows what ADD is. Back then it was brand new. So we didn't have the same language to be able to deal with things. We didn't have the same language to be able to understand certain aspects of our own psychology and experiences. 

10:34
And so with my mother, she, I believe had some PTSD. But we didn't have that language to talk about, think about the evolution of just trauma. The evolution of understanding trauma has magnified exponentially just in the last 10 years. Things that we couldn't talk about because we didn't have the language or know how, or knowledge to even address, is now commonplace. In fact, people are using these sorts of concepts way too much now. They are glomming on to things like the word "toxic". They are accusing people of being toxic, simply for reasons that aren't true toxicity. It's overused. It's over fashionable. The discussion of trauma falls in the same category. Everybody is talking about trauma. Everybody's talking about it. Now, on the one hand, that's a good thing, because I think there's a lot of unresolved trauma. And I think there are a lot of current relationship struggles and dynamics that are directly related to unresolved childhood trauma. So it's good that we're talking about it. But what happens is, we start to take that for granted, that everybody knows about that, or that everybody is familiar with those things, when really, these are modern concepts. 

11:53
And so what does this have to do with story? Well, for one, not all of us are writing modern stories, right? Not all of us are writing modern stories. So you have to be able to separate your modern times your modern knowledge, your modern stuff, from what was actually true for the characters at the time and place you were writing. Even if it is a contemporary story, it doesn't mean that they are full of the same knowledge that you have, because of what you've acquired in your life. So you always have to take into perspective your characters' particular experience, strength and perspective. 

12:32
But there's also something else at play here that I think can be a useful tool in this regard. And that is that even if you do have a character who is modern and contemporary and familiar with the lingo that everybody is using—this self-love, language—all of these things, and this character operates in that. That doesn't mean that everybody else in their world is going to respond accordingly. And in fact, what I think often happens is that even when people are using all the right language, they're still doing this dance. They're still doing the negotiation. It's just that they're using different language to do that negotiation. 

13:17
Now, they're actually using the language that's supposed to be helping them talk openly, honestly and directly, but they're almost using it as a weapon, so that they're still in the dance. And so now, there's still all this subtext that can come out. Or even if they aren't both using that language, then one of them is and the other one is just missing the boat completely. And so it puts the person that is trying to be healthy, at a great disadvantage. 

13:47
I mentioned in a recent podcast about my girlfriend whose husband has had multiple affairs and doesn't want to divorce and keeps blaming her for setting boundaries and saying that because she's setting these boundaries about what she will and will not allow that she's the one who's causing the destruction of the marriage. It's her fault. And so here's my friend who is trying to practice healthy, communicative strategies. The stuff that psychologists tell us to do to communicate openly, honestly, directly. To say the truth, to tell the truth, to speak it clearly, to identify it, lay it out on the table, all those things. 

14:29
But when you're engaged with somebody who isn't willing to do that, you're at a disadvantage. It means that all of that direct communication ultimately doesn't help in a way and they keep drawing you back into that game. And that's why she kept getting sucked into the game because her attempts to be open, honest and direct, weren't working. Because he wouldn't allow them to work because he is operating in a different world. One in which he is operating in denial. And he's suppressing and he's blaming, and he's feels like he's the victim. And he really believes it, by the way. He really believes it. And so he's operating in that, and what is she supposed to do? And so then she resorts to trying to get through to him. And, you know, these elaborate efforts that she might go through to try to break through to him. But so she gets into crazy mode, because she's just trying so hard to get him to see the truth. And he won't, and then she feels like, "Oh, my gosh. I'm the crazy one! It really is true. I'm crazy." 

15:36
So the point is, that even if we are getting healthy in real life—and we should be. We should be getting better at these things because we want to have good quality relationships. We want to have intimacy and all the things that God wants for us to get out of interpersonal relationships. Because He gave that to us. And community is where we're supposed to live. So even as we get healthy on our own, I don't think we should worry about that impairing our ability to write for our characters. Because the truth is, even as we get healthy on our own, we are still in these crazy situations with other people who aren't pursuing the same health. Or even when two people are articulating the right words, the right language, there are still different perspectives at play. 

16:35
And that comes back to, again, this art of negotiation. That's where both characters have a different perspective. Which is why we have to avoid writing our characters in a way where other characters become furniture pieces, props for the main character to bounce their ideas off of without any sort of challenge or any sort of obstruction. Even when people are both committed to healthy tactics, healthy communication styles, all those things, there is still so much fear and defensiveness, and self protectiveness, and hurt. All those things that are going on, that even when people are committed to healthy tactics, it still makes it difficult to navigate it. And that's my point. 

17:31
CONCLUSION: So I don't think that people have to worry that if they get healthy in real life, it makes all that conflict go away. It doesn't. Because anytime there is interpersonal communication, and anytime there's interpersonal relationships, it always puts pressure on us. It always challenges our ability to follow through on the healthy tactics. How many of us want to resort to the old ways of communicating when the other person isn't responsive to our healthy attempts? It's the challenge that's interesting. It's the negotiation. Even the negotiation with ourselves—to force ourselves to keep communicating well, and not to resort to name calling, not to resort to accusing and blame shifting and that sort of thing. Because we know better than to do that, then we're wrestling with ourselves. And even that is a negotiation. It's fun because the conflict is already there. It's built into the human system. It very much plays into story and the conflict with our own personal stories of recovery and how we get healthy, and how sometimes, you know, art affects real life and vice versa. 

18:47
And I will end by saying, I don't think that just because our characters typically, and we in real life typically, try to behave in indirect ways or try to communicate in indirect ways that we should necessarily fabricate that. We can have our characters try to behave and try to communicate in very direct ways. The key is that we're actually telling the truth about our characters and about the situation and about the other characters that they're engaged with. Because in reality, this actually reflects how we truly behave in real life. We are constantly negotiating over things. We are constantly evaluating our own power status in a relationship. We are constantly negotiating. We are constantly trying to figure out where we stand. We can't help it. We can never turn that off in real life. And what our job is as a writer is to bring that reality into the writing to be able to put into our novel or onto our stage play or into our screenplay. When we are trying to dramatize these real aspects of human relationship and development, and how we do these things, that's what makes it fascinating. No matter how healthy our characters are, or we are, we are still engaged in that lifelong, very human aspect, the very human nature of trying to gauge our place in this world, and to figure out how we can navigate the various social scenes that we stumble into. 

20:36
One of the things I told my recent playwriting class is that when they approach a scene, always be thinking about the negotiation. Always be thinking, what is the power struggle that they're wrestling over? And I would encourage you to maybe let this discussion today inspire you to write a scene. Pick two of your characters from your current work in progress. And write a scene based on this. Just let it kind of see what happens. What is the conflict situation that could occur that would allow people to negotiate? And to have that power struggle? Where do they stand with each other? And how do they behave? And you'll find that it's kind of fun to do that, too, because we can't help it. It's just part of our human nature. 

21:18
Anyway, this is a random one that is based on everything we've been talking about so far. So I hope it's been entertaining for you. It was an interesting question for me to process and to see what I actually thought about that. So I'm sharing it with you here. 

21:33
CALL TO ACTION: If you did enjoy this podcast, then please would you rate and review the show, we would absolutely love that. And you can do that on Apple podcasts or the podcast app of your choice if it has a rating system, and of course, YouTube where you can now watch the show. Also, please subscribe. If you haven't subscribed, subscribe, especially on YouTube. It's great if we can get more subscribers on YouTube. Anyway, I hope this has been a fun discussion. 

22:02
OUTRO: And I want to thank you for joining me on The Storyteller's Mission with Zena Dell Lowe. May you go forth inspired to change the world for the better through story.