Yesterday I met an author on Broad street while he was selling his books. We had a good hour long discussion on Urban Fiction, Latin America, and writing. He explained a classic story writing formula, MGO=C. M is for the Main Character, G is the character's goal, and C is the character's opposition. When this comes together within a narrative C (Conflict) is created. Out of all the creative writing courses I've taken, and all the writing advice books I've read, I've never come across a formula so simple yet so relevant and accurate. This is what my stories are missing, it is conflict.
In the last fiction writing course I've taken, my teacher told me that my story was good and well written yet there was no real conflict. My story is of a fourteen year old black girl living on a
cotton share cropping plantation in Georgia during the year of 1895. My protagonist goal is to become a teacher. Yes, my protagonist has opposition but my creative writing teacher felt that her opposition wasn't very complicated and not really opposition at all. See, my protagonist's own teacher is black, so that seems to dilute race as a real opposition to her obtaining her goal.
I told the author I met yesterday about the plot of my story and he agreed with my teacher. He said that a character's opposition must not only be bigger than the character, but it must be monstrous. He used the story of David and Goliath as an example. He said the story would not be at all interesting if Goliath was the protagonist and his opposition was David. He's right!
So now I must look at the story and try to find or create a monstrous opposition. My poor protagonist. I love her a little too much to give her a hard time but I'm afraid the story won't be worth anything without beating her up a little.
