Weekly Prompt: Character vs Environment
How does the world, the walls, and the wind, batter your hero?
Welcome to the third weekly challenge for August, where the theme is Rings of Conflict.
As we said in the Monthly Theme announcement, this month focuses on the interactions between the many forms of conflict. Each week we’ll look at a Ring of Conflict as they interact and affect your stories.
There’s a quote I’ve heard on writing podcasts — more than once. And every time it’s doled out like it clearly explains just how to go about writing a story.
But for me, at least, it made sense on the surface, but when I got down to writing, I still didn’t get it.
“In the first act, get your hero up a tree; in the second act, throw stones at him, and in the third act, get him down safely.”
George Abbott, the veteran director-playwright
The problem was, I never knew where to get the stones from and how to make them seem relevant or sensible within my story. So many of the problems or obstacles I’d used in past novels felt contrived. Placed there simply to guide puppets through a play.
