Published in 1965, Dwight V. Swain’s “Techniques of the Selling Writer,” some feel, is a bit outdated. Written before the ubiquitous word processor, Google, and AI gives the book some age; however, after reading the book once and studying through it a second time, I think the book has good information. It is still in print, which speaks about the book’s endurance. The book has information for a freshman writer, like myself, or a senior writer. I’ll be studying through the book again and presenting some of my observations.
Dwight Swain (1915-1992) began his writing career in the 1930s. From publishing short stories, his writing evolved to include mysteries, westerns, and action-adventure stories. He was also a screenwriter.
Swain taught in the Professional Writing Program at the University of Oklahoma, where he oversaw the development of student writers. Students in the program submitted writing assignments. From these submissions, Swain drew many illustrations used to support his points in his nonfiction books about writing, such as Techniques of the Selling Writer, the focus of this discussion.
Chapter 4
Conflict and How to Build It
In this chapter, Swain turns the reader’s attention to what he considers the core of writing, especially fiction writing: building scenes. In fact, he says, “A story is a chain of scenes and sequels.” So he asks; how do you build a story? He says it is with scenes and sequels, which he calls the basic units. In order to master that skill he says a writer needs five things:
1. How to plan a scene.
2. How to plan a sequel.
3. How to write a scene.
4. How to write a sequel.
5. How to mesh the two together.
He defines a scene as a unit of conflict lived through by a character and reader. This would mean that a scene takes place in time, in real time. A scene has a setting, a location, and also involves action, something happens.
A sequel, on the other hand, is a unit of transition that links two scenes.
The scene in skeleton
First, a scene is a time-unified effort, it takes place in real time; it has a goal. Therefore, first, they provide interest, and second, they move the story forward.
Swain says that scenes provide interest pitting the focal character against opposition. He illustrates this point by posing a prize fight—taking place in real time, in a location, and involves action.
It moves the story forward by changing the situation. A boxer may be knocked unconscious, for example. The change does not have to be as dramatic as a knockout. It can change the situation by starting a new relationship, bringing in a new person, or revealing new information.
The thing that unifies a scene it time. The event takes place in real time and at real location. The structure, Swain says, is simple: it involves goal, conflict, and disaster.
There must be a goal in a scene. The goal of the boxer, for example, would be to knock out his opponent or score enough punches to win by decision. The goal could be to win the sweetheart’s affection, uncover new information, or satisfy a “want,” in other words, the lead character must want something—possession of something, relief from something, or revenge for something. Swain says that a goal must be concrete and immediate for the focal character to take some sort of action toward achieving it. The goal should be clear enough to describe, otherwise it may not be a goal
Scenes also involve conflict, Swain says, and conflict is another word for opposition. The clearer the conflict, the more it appeals to the reader because conflict enables the reader to vent repressed feelings of aggression and hostility without damage to themselves or others. If the conflict is resolved, the scene ends, and the reader closes the book.
This, Swain says, is where disaster enters, for it offers a logical yet unanticipated development that throws the focal character for a loss. This disaster will upset the reader as well as the focal character. It will set the focal character or the story off in a different direction. Disaster usually comes in the form of new information.
(1) What if the focal character doesn’t have a goal when the scene starts? Swain asks.
Goals are of two kinds: goals of achievement and goals of resistance. Goals of achievement could be gaining new information, passing a grueling test, or finishing a project. The achievement of scene’s goal doesn’t have to end the story, it can be like a rung in a ladder, putting the focal character further toward the denouement. A goal of resistance could be the appearance of opposition from another figure, the lack in the focal character, or information just beyond the fingertip.
(2) Someone may protest that they want to write about life, not artificial, contrived conflicts.
Well, Swain says, anyone who doesn’t want to write about conflict doesn’t want to write about life, he is damning himself to ineptitude in handling real life, for from birth to death, life is a matter of conflict. Not all conflict is a matter of life or death, but it is conflict nonetheless: finding a job, choosing a spouse, having children, paying a mortgage, getting an education, or planning for retirement—these all involve conflict, even if it just against placing the shoe in the next step in life’s ladder.
(3) But, someone may ask, must every scene always end in disaster?
A scene, Swain argues, must raise an intriguing question for the future—a question designed to keep your reader reading. The best method for doing that is with disaster. Disaster, however, can be potential not actual. It could be new information, a new character that leads the unwitting focal character in a wrong direction. Or it could be information that spells disaster in the near future.
(4) Examples are not principles.
If someone reads Swains scene examples and protests that they are rude and crude, he argues that one should not mistake examples for principles or demonstration with device. The principle of building scenes grows from the creativity of the individual writer. A scene may not involve fighting or love’s conquests; however, the principle works for scenes involving the quest for information or achievement.
(5) Scene format is not rigid, mechanical.
Swain argues that a writer who masters the art of scene development, he can vary it in terms of his own tastes and judgments. As a tool, though, the scene is designed to make the most of conflict. Scenes, therefore, organize conflict elements, telescope them, and intensify them. Without such a tool, Swain says, a writer’s best material may come forth diffused and devoid of impact.
* * *
If understanding scenes is important, the art often breaks down when:
1. Orientation is muddled
The reader needs to know where he stands, and this can be achieved by having a focal character to serve as a compass. So even if the focal character is not on stage in a given scene, the scene needs to have a focal character. The writer should pick a character and hold him in the spotlight so that the reader can see what motivates and stimulates him and how he reacts. Therefore, the reader can use him as a yardstick with which to measure and evaluate what happens.
2. The focal character’s goal is weak and/ or diffused.
The focal character’s goal is not sufficiently specific, concrete, and explicit. There are several methods for addressing that condition.
First, keep the goal a short range proposition. Since the scene takes place in real time, the goal should be something which can be accomplished within that time—a meeting, a sweetheart date, a trip to the zoo, a day, or a month. It should be something accomplishable in the relatively limited, time-unified, place-unified, and face-to-face encounter.
Second, a writer should discipline himself to concentrate or reduce the goal to a single, Swain says, photographable act. The goal is the target toward which a focal character strives to unify a particular scene. Therefore, the goal should be dominant, center of attention, the target. There may be other targets or goals, but there needs to be a major focal target.
3. The central character himself is weak.
The focal character should be strong enough to achieve the goal in spite of whatever opposition comes his way. This could be from a personal flaw, timidity toward the goal, shirking in the face of another character. The focal character should have the persona fortitude to continue pressing toward the goal
4. The scene lacks urgency.
There are several sources of urgency, but they usually all come down to time, which is usually measured in clock time. The scene takes place in real time. It could be the time before the bank closes, or the office opens, or the sweetheart leaves, or another character has to rush away. If goal can be postponed, the urgency vanishes.
5. The opposition is diffuse, weak, or insignificant.
To illustrate this, Swain compares a swarm of small, pesky mosquitoes to a Bengal tiger. The tiger is a unified, obvious menace while people swat away pesky mosquitoes. However, he says, more people come down with malaria tan are eaten by tigers—though the tiger gets all the attention. So with a focal character’s goal, it should be unified, obvious, and identifiable. There may be other pesky goals, but there should be one major focal goal. That, he says, is there a villain come in handy. A villain can focus opposition, trouble, or conflict.
6. The opposition is weak.
Swain argues that the strength of the villain is the strength of the story. Sometimes writers, he says, lack confidence in their focal character so they make the try to make the villain weak. Therefore, the scene is weak. The villain is not necessarily a human. It could be an approaching hurricane, a fire burning in his direction, the date for the mortgage payment, etc. However, it should be strong enough to test the mettle of the focal character.
7. The scene is fragmentary or trivial.
The author says that another name for this condition is “lack of adequate external development.” Whether the focal character can scrape up enough change to buy a drink is not nearly demanding as whether he will have enough money to pay next semester’s tuition. The goal and the opposition must be sufficient to warrant continuing to read the story. In other contexts, this is called a matter of proportion.
8. The scene is monotonous.
The problem is whether the focal character answers the problem or goes over and over again. Do the figures argue about whether to have ketchup or mustard on their hot dog over and over again. Some problems, some goals, are worthy of reconsideration, but how often. How often with the suitor argue with his sweetheart over her attraction to another dude. Alright already once or maybe twice is enough. By the third time, the reader is folding the book or perhaps tossing it in the recycle bin. So what can Mr. Writer do about monotony?
First, he can throw in more external development, some unanticipated twist. His sweetheart, for example, had just received and inheritance that will make it possible for her to go to Harvard and study medicine. Or the landlord wants to evict him had all other tenants so he can sell the property to a developer. Or a new figure with quite different views about how to repair the machine appears.
Second, it’s possible to give the characters themselves more diversity. In answer to sweetheart’s decision to go to Harvard, the focal character can reveal that his family owns a plane and he can fly to Cambridge every weekend to court her. When it comes to repairing a piece of life-saving machinery, the focal character can reveal that he has a mechanical engineering degree. Something unexpected.
9. The disaster isn’t disastrous enough.
The way to address this situation is to give the focal character more trouble, making his decision hinge on the scene’s outcome. The sweetheart is not only going to Harvard, but focal character’s rival is also going to Harvard. His father refuses him to use the company plane for such frivolous behavior as courting. The landlord is not only evicting tenant, but focal character does not have enough money for a security deposit on another apartment. Or the information he receives also carries with it a danger to himself.
10. The disaster isn’t indigenous to the scene
Swain says that a disaster should be unanticipated yet logical; it should grow out of the substance of the scene. And “Act of God” may be useful occasionally, but use repeatedly becomes annoying and loses the reader. Therefore, as a general rule, it’s a good practice to maintain some sort of relationship between the focal character, the scene, the storyline, and the disaster.
Sequel
Swain concludes this discussion by arguing that once one masters the scene art and manipulating the goal-conflict pattern, he can lay out a scene on a post card and still have plenty of room left over to outline the sequel, which is the next connecting skill in this art of fiction writing.
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