Them's Fightin' Words

On Monday MAN, OH MAN: Writing M/M Fiction for Kinks and Ca$h goes live at Fictionwise And while the book is not being published through Loose Id, I did interview Loose Id authors, editors and the amazing Treva Hart extensively, so I thought it might be all right to share a snippet.

When I was researching this book, one of the complaints I repeatedly heard from readers and reviewers had to do with the lack of believable and meaningful conflict in M/M fiction. So today I thought I'd give you all something to fight about.




Okay, you’ve got your characters. It’s time to think about how you’re going to tell their story. Story = Plot.

When we start talking about conflict and goals and motivation — the building blocks of plot — a lot of writers get that glazed look on their faces. So listen up. Next to character, the single most important element of your book is the plot.

A story is not made up of random things happening. That’s called real life; it doesn’t always make for good fiction. Let alone happy endings. No, the events or scenes of a story evolve naturally — organically — from earlier events or scenes. They have to make sense, they have to be there for a reason — you’re not just filling space between sex scenes. And in order for these events or scenes within your story to make sense, you have to plan them. (This is why an outline is such a good idea.)

The way it works is that each event or scene will complicate the situation between your protagonists a little more. The divide between them will seem to grow wider and wider with each scene or event. Conflict and problems and frustration will rise right along with sexual tension and attraction. Your characters are falling deeper in love — whether they like it or not — while the obstacles between them mount.

Now, you might be thinking that this is the opposite way it should work. There are plenty of obstacles to any two people building a life together, and you’ve got two great guys who, in theory, should be perfect for one another. Isn’t your job to swiftly move them around the potential roadblocks and get them together? Of course it is, but getting them together is called the ending. Your story is over at that point. So unlike real life, your job isn’t to smooth the course of true love starting on page one. Your job is to create enough problems and obstacles to make up a story about how these two met, fell in love, and finally worked out the differences between them so they could have a Happily Ever After. It’s called telling a story.

That said, plot is where storytelling gets tricky for a lot of M/M writers, even those currently selling stories. Conflict, in particular, is a weak point for most M/M writers. Yep, the majority of M/M writers do not understand the difference between genuine conflict and contrived bickering between characters. If you can master this concept, you’ll have an edge over your fellow writers.

There is no story without conflict.

Conflict is the clash of your characters opposing goals and motivations — their hopes, dreams, ambitions, and desires running headlong into someone else’s fears, insecurities, plans, and prejudices. So, yeah, your characters may squabble about a variety of things, but the squabbling needs to result from something more dramatic and fundamental than he’s a neatnik falling hard for a slob — not that the Odd Couple dynamic can’t work; it’s the stuff of romantic comedy, but at the heart of those differences should be something profound.

In far too many stories, the only conflict or obstacle to the lovers’ happy ending is the external conflict provided by the genre plot: amnesia, competing for the same job, marrying for money (or to hide sexuality), a tornado or a tidal wave. That’s fine as far as it goes — but it doesn’t go very far. Obstacles have to be complex enough to believably keep two smart, rational, well-suited men apart from each other — and this distance has to be emotional as well as physical.

A competently executed romance plot combines external (situational) and internal (personal) conflict.

An example of external conflict would be found in my novel Fatal Shadows when Homicide Detective Jake Riordan suspects bookseller Adrien English of murder. That’s an external conflict supplied by the plot. Jake’s suspicion is a barrier to his growing awareness of and attraction to Adrien. Another potentially final barrier is that Adrien in being stalked. An HEA is contingent on his survival. Both of these are external (situational) conflicts and complications.

External conflicts are relatively easy to resolve.

The real barrier to Adrien and Jake’s happiness is Jake’s conflicted feelings about his own sexuality. Jake is a closeted cop, and he has no intention of leaving the safety of that closet. That’s an enormous obstacle to finding an HEA with Adrien. It is an internal (personal) conflict driven by Jake’s personality and character, and it dogs their relationship throughout the course of the series.

Usually the most intense and dramatic conflicts will be the internal ones. But — please take note here —

You need both internal and external conflict in order to write a satisfying romance.



One detail: remember not to cook up conflict so destructive or insurmountable that you’re unable to resolve it believably within your allotted timeframe. The reader will work with you, but you’ve got to do the heavy lifting. Some of this has to do with pacing. If you throw a gigantic and disastrous point of contention between your characters in the final third of the book, you’re unlikely to be able to resolve this without rushing — something readers resent. The successful working out of problems and differences is part of what readers find so emotionally satisfying; if you cheat them on this, they won’t believe in your HEA – or even your HFN (Happy For Now).

Romance is character-driven. Romance is all about emotion. So the best conflicts are going to be emotional ones — character-driven ones. Typical issues driving internal conflict include trust, control, self-image, sexuality.

In itself, Gosh, he’s cute but he’s a vampire! is not enough conflict. Not for fiction, anyway. Real life, yeah, that could be complicated. Remember, fiction is not real life. Fiction is bigger — and better — than real life. The best fictional conflicts result in one protagonist fighting himself and his attraction to the other protagonist. So our plot becomes Gosh, he’s cute but he’s a vampire — and I’ve sworn my life to destroying all vampires. This time it’s personal.

It’s got to be personal, or else the conflict devolves into nothing more than heated intellectual debate, and your characters spend pages bickering. That gets old fast. We expect mature, intelligent, strong-willed people to disagree, and to work their differences out. Your challenge is to make it difficult for them to work those differences out. Take a subject like the outing of public figures. A lot of gay men disagree on whether it’s right to forcibly out public figures; that’s an intellectual disagreement. But suppose one of your protags is a reclusive, closeted actor, and the other is a crusading reporter for a gay magazine. Now they both have something to lose. Now it’s personal — and painful.

And the main reason it’s painful is because of a little something called sexual tension. Sexual tension is the physical desire characters feel for each other but are prevented from acting on because of all that external and internal conflict. The main ingredients are physical awareness — sexual attraction — and conflict.

Questions or comments?