August Writing Challenges: Day 20 - Moral Dilemmas

August. The summer is nearly over. Kids are going back to school. You now have some time on your hands.  Okay, you still have a list of chores a mile long, but let's put writing at the top of the priority list, okay?

I am going to challenge you with a writing prompt every day this month. Are you up for it? I hope so.

The writing challenges will be about a variety of topics and hopefully cause you to dig into your writing toolbox to complete with emotional skill.

Watch out, I just might throw in a fun one, well, just for fun!

For the twentith challenge we're going to dig into moral dilemmas.

It's not enough for your characters to have simple opinions. Each of us also has deeper philosophical ideals and values. Our values come from our families, religions, and cultures. They shape our morals and the decisions we make.

People are complex. What we believe is right or wrong changes when we find ourselves in real situations. Consider an honorable character who believes that one's highest loyalty is to his or her family. Then, that character learns his/her brother is a serial killer. Does he/she turn him in? Testify against him? Stories get interesting when characters' morals are put to the test.

We all know the knight in shining armor should risk his life to save the damsel in distress. If he doesn't, then he loses his status as hero and becomes a coward. What if the knight is forced to make a more difficult decision? What if his true love and his beloved sister are both in distress but he only has time to save one of them?

Here is your challenge:
For this exercise, you will put a character's morals to the test. Below, you'll find a short list of moral dilemmas. Write a scene in which a character faces one of these moral dilemmas and has to make an agonizing decision.

• In the novel Sophie's Choice, a young Jewish mother and her two children are taken to a concentration camp. Upon arrival, she is forced to choose one child to live and one to die. If she doesn't choose, they both die. Write a scene in which your character must choose between the lives of two loved ones.
• A single woman is close friends with the couple next door and has secret romantic feelings for the husband. She discovers that his wife is having an affair. Normally, this woman minds her own business but now she sees an opportunity to get closer to the man she wants.
• Some countries have strict laws regarding drug possession. A family has traveled to one such country for vacation. Upon arrive (or departure), one of the teenager's bags is sniffed out by a dog. The bag is opened, the drugs are identified, and the guard asks who bag it is. Both parents are considering claiming ownership. Everyone in the family knows the sentence would be death.
• Your character gets to travel through time and face this classic moral dilemma: The character find himself or herself holding a loaded gun, alone in a room, with a two-year-old baby Hitler.
• A plane crashes into the sea. Most of the passengers escape with inflatable lifeboats but they do not board them correctly. Your character ends up on a lifeboat that holds eight people but there are twelve people on it, and it's sinking. Your character can either throw four people overboard and eight will survive or they will all die expect your character, who will get rescued after the others drown.

Remember, during the scene, the character should agonize over the decision and reveal his or her reasons for the choice that he or she makes.

TIPS: Search online for "lists of moral dilemmas" to get more scenarios.

If you don't want to write a scene, you can come up with more moral dilemmas of your own.

The moral dilemmas force you to put your characters in situations that are deeply distressing, thus creating conflict and tension.

Good Luck!

Writing Tips - Conflict Makes Your Story

Which would you rather read: a novel with a story about a man and woman who meet, fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after or a story about a man who meets a woman, falls in love, only to lose her to a gang of terrorists demanding a large ransom or they will kill her?

A good story needs conflict. A conflict is the characters struggling to overcome a problem. There is two kinds of conflict: internal and external. External conflict can be a struggle of character against character, or a character against circumstances or events. Internal conflict can be a character's struggle with himself in some way. Just remember, a story without any struggle is no story at all. 

Conflict creates an immediacy or urgency in your story. Action pulls readers into your story. 

What do you need to do to create conflict?

Straightforward Narrative

This creates a visual image of the character in the reader's imagination. When you put your character to the test, forcing him to make a decision and act, only then does this breathe life into your character. 

James Frey writes, "A character's response to obstacles, barriers, and conflict individualize him, proves his characterization, and makes him real and distinct in the reader's mind."

With no conflict, your characters become flat, dull, and lifeless. Two characters just talking to each other is not dialogue. It doesn't show a conflict or struggle between the characters. 

It's important to keep the reader interested. A story must involve struggle. How a character reacts to struggle shows the reader who the character is. Readers identify with the character. So, it's character which keeps the reader interested. 

Insistence vs. Resistance

Conflict between characters always takes the form of insistence versus resistance. Conflict occurs when characters have different goals and insist on reaching them. 

Equal Sides of Conflict
In order to have good, believable conflict, the sides must be evenly matched. No one wants to see Batman beat up on a helpless homeless person. And, would the Hulk look even more menacing if he punched a Prius rather than a huge semi truck? No, and that's why you should make sure that your heroes in your story have equally matched competition to keep them on their toes.

In How to Write a Play (1983), Raymond Hull explains opposition in terms of a formula:

"M + G + O = C. Main Character + His Goal + Opposition = Conflict"

According to James Frey, "Good opposition requires that the antagonist counter each of the protagonist's attempts to solve his problems with as much force and cunning as the protagonist exhibits."

When creating conflict in your story, your opposition doesn't necessarily have to be a villain. The antagonist can be a hero as well. In order to have good opposition, you must make sure your characters are well-motivated, rounded, non-stereotyped characters.

In creating your opposition, ensure they have points of view that are logical and reasonable. The reader can understand and even sympathize with these characters. As Raymond Hull put it, "The strength of the conflict is not just a product of the protagonist's strength" but is a product of the "strength of the opposition."

Keeping Your Characters in the Furnace
Think of it this way: the furnace holds the characters together as things heat up. It's a bond that keeps them in conflict with one another.

The conflict must be strong enough to motivate the character to continue rather than run away. When you create your characters, think of them as bonded together. Strong enough to continue their fight to resolve their problems to the final resolution.

Without the furnace to contain your characters, there can be no conflict. Without conflict, there is no drama. In short, there is no story.

Necessary Inner Conflict
Your character needs to suffer inner conflict like those of real people. Guilt, fears, misgivings, doubts, second thoughts, and such are all examples of inner conflict. Using inner conflicts makes your character more interesting and memorable to the reader. The reader can empathize with your character; creating a connection with your character.

As James Frey puts it, "Inner conflict confirms that the characters are involved, that something is at risk for them."

In order to have inner conflict, the opposing forces don't need to be great or out of this world. They only need to be great in your character's mind.

Impaling Your Character on the Horns of a Dilemma
When you do this, you've put your character in a position where they must have or must do something - for a very powerful reason - yet they can't have or can't do something for equally powerful reasons. These powerful forces pull your character into two different directions.

Dramatic Patterns of Conflict
Struggle in a conflict is action. Action has various dramatic patterns within the story. For instance, conflict which fails to rise is called "static" while conflict that rises too quickly is called "jumping." Another term is "slowly rising conflict" which is what you, the storyteller wants.

So, how do you figure out if your conflict is one other other?

Static Conflict
Any kind of dramatic conflict that is unchanging. With static conflict, your characters stop developing.

Jumping Conflict
Conflict leaps from one level of intensity to another without adequate motivation or transitional stages. Characters are tender one moment and raging with anger the next.

Slowly Rising Conflict
Conflicts rise slowly. Conflict proves character. Using this method, you show more character's development by how they react to different stages of conflict. You can put your character through various emotional stages.



I've given you a lot of information about creating conflict and what it means in your story. Writing a great story requires you, the writer, to keep the reader reading. To do so, that means using slowly rising conflict.

How do you do this?

Plan your novel with slowly rising conflict in the forefront of your mind. Your characters must meet ever increasing obstacles; their problems multiplying; pressures growing.

Remember, when your conflict rises, your character shows development. The character changes.

The best way to make sure you have rising conflict is to look at your character's emotional level. Look at the beginning of the scene and the end of the scene. Your character's development should be visible. A change should occur in their emotional level from hateful to loving, or spiteful to compassionate. However, make sure this change is done a little at a time. This ensure the conflict is rising slowly.

You can take what you've learned here and apply it to your writing.

Happy Writing!

Image credit: iqoncept / 123RF Stock Photo

Resources: Wring to Sell by Scott Meredith, The Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing, How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey