What elements make for a great story?
Some say, “You’ve got to have interesting characters. If no one cares about the people in the story, no one is going to read it.”
Characters matter, no doubt. Some of the best characters in all of English literature come from the works of Charles Dickens. Who could forget Ebenezer Scrooge or Mrs. Havisham?
Others say, “Good characters or not, the story has to have a certain atmosphere. A good story immerses you in the world the storyteller is creating.”
The story world matters. Readers were sad to close the final book in the Harry Potter series because they would miss escaping into the vivid world imagined by J. K. Rowling. Similarly, some folks watch Downton Abbey, not because they care about the characters, but because of the show’s ability to give you the atmosphere of England in the 1920’s.
A good story needs good characters and good atmosphere, but there’s something else just as important as those two elements. In fact, without this one element, you don’t have a story at all.
Conflict.
Something has to happen. Without conflict or, more specifically, conflict that is moving toward resolution, you don’t have a story at all.
When I began work on Clear Winter Nights, one of the first editorial suggestions I received was to move a conflict-ridden part of the story to the forefront. “But I’m creating atmosphere!” I thought. “Aren’t my characters interesting?” I wondered. “They’ll be more interesting if there’s conflict,” came the editor’s reply. So, chapters got switched around so tension and conflict could build toward resolution.
Conflict is necessary for a good story. But many Christians assume faithfully following Jesus means their lives will be conflict-free. We expect the church to be a place where everyone gets along peacefully, where nothing is ever troubled, and where no relationships ever get out of sync. Then we’re surprised when conflict hits.
The truth is, if you’re going to be around people, you’re going to deal with conflict. And as believers, we must resist “bailing out” every time conflicts arise.
If we think the best way to resolve conflict is either to avoid it in the first place or run away as soon as things get difficult, we’ll sacrifice forward movement for superficial peace. This is what happens when we look for a perfect church, and when conflict hits, we hop to another congregation. Or when we face conflict in marriage and consider divorce. Or when we experience conflict in our job, and choose to quit (or worse, stay and do damage to everyone around us). Or when we deal with conflict in the family, and clam up, go to separate rooms, and stare at different screens.
What happens when we deal with conflict in these ways?
Our lives become a series of unfinished stories. “Bailing out” before arriving at resolution keeps us from ever writing the end of these stories well.
A good story not only has conflict, but also has resolution. So you might as well get used to the idea of having conflict in your life! If your life is a story that God is writing, you can expect to face conflict throughout the plot line of your life.
The question is: how will you handle the conflict? Will you be a great character in this story? What will be the script you adopt? How will the story end?
“If possible, on your part, live at peace with everyone,” Paul says (Romans 12:18). How are you doing with that? How hard is it? How far-fetched does it seem? Living out that verse sounds like a good story to me.
