4 Rules on How to Write the Conflict Between Loyalty and Self-Interest in Fiction
Author Kelly Loy Gilbert shares her four rules on how to write the conflict between loyalty and self-interest in fiction.
In my new book Everyone Wants to Know, the main character, Honor Lo, has grown up in the public eye: Both her parents are famous influencers, and her older brother and sisters are following suit. Image is everything to the Lo family. Honor, who’s allergic to that kind of attention, is torn between protecting her family’s reputation (and livelihood) and, eventually, blowing up the life she’s come to despise.
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It’s an age-old conflict in fiction: that between loyalty and self-interest. Do the characters continue to do what’s expected and demanded of them, or do they go on a kind of hero’s journey to self-realization and do what they believe is right? Here are four rules for writing the conflict in a compelling way.
The characters must be fully realized
If a reader has no investment in the characters, it’s hard to care about whatever conflicts they may face. Establish early on: What is your character’s core desire in life? What is that need in their heart, the thing they long for, that’s remained unfulfilled? What are their foibles, their quirks, their hidden vulnerabilities, their flaws, those tiny acts of everyday heroism? What are the things they’re afraid to face in themselves?
The conflict must be complex
It would be easy to portray Honor’s image-obsessed family as greedy and self-interested people Honor should certainly cut ties with or at least work harder to preserve her own interests against, but life is rarely so cut and dry. Tease out your conflict: What’s the history of it? How has it been a part of your characters’ whole life? How has it shaped them? What are the things it’s given them; how has it been sustaining even as it was harmful? For Honor, her family has been the only constant in her life, the only people who truly know her and accept her as she is.
The stakes must be real
The stakes need to be clear–what else will your characters lose and gain? What is something your character values deeply that they stand to lose? In Honor’s case, some of her most cherished relationships are threatened in a very real way when she starts to try to follow what she wants in life, and soon it becomes clear that she’s going to have to sacrifice either what she wants, or the people she wants in her life.
The story must be surprising
There’s no heat in a story that follows predictable tropes all the way to a predictable end. I won’t give away spoilers, but in Everyone Wants to Know there are several total gut-punching twists; just when Honor thinks she has a handle on things, everything is completely upended.
Kelly Loy Gilbert believes deeply in the power of stories to illuminate a shared humanity and give voice to complex, broken people. She is the author of Conviction, a William C. Morris Award finalist, Picture Us in the Light, When We Were Infinite, and Everyone Wants to Know, and lives in the Bay Area. She would be thrilled to hear from you on Twitter @KellyLoyGilbert or at KellyLoyGilbert.com.
