C&R format is the standard scheme for many novelists. The protagonist gets into a tight situation and struggling hard he eventually gets out of the situation. Mostly when you write a story line this will the synopsis of the story. This helps the reader to identify with the protagonist. And feel comforted when the story ends.
Most books of fiction can be reduced to this format. Although on occasions especially with great works the resolution might be as in Romeo and Juliet and other tragedies. Such endings do not leave you satisfied. They leave you thinking. Or The Silence of the Lambs where goddess wins and the wicked are punished, the story still leaves you unsatisfied because you feel there has to be more.
That is because both conflict and resolution are difficult ideas. It is not a wrestling match with your conflict towering right in front of you and resolution is either your victory or loss. You have seen this happen in Rocky.
But what about War and Peace, or Moby Dick or One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The conflict can be spiritual or emotional or even totally internal. Think of The Last Temptation.
And the resolution if any can be more painful than the conflict. Sometimes nothing is resolved.
But the Conflict-Resolution scheme is popular with readers and writers. It is a simple structure. You can write about murder. You already have a conflict. At least with the Law.
Amazingly, even The Bhagvad Gita follows the Conflict-Resolution format. Arjun, the protagonists is reluctant to fight his relatives and suffers a turmoil so much that he decides to opt out of the battle. At the end of the poem, the master archer, finds his conflict resolved.
1 Trackback or Pingback