Hello, I'm a pretty green writer in a bit of a weird spot. I was collaborating with a writer for quite a while on a rather long story with the intent of making it a webcomic. No aspirations or goals with it just purely a 'for fun' thing. Though he's largely decided not to work on it anymore and I feel an itch to see this thing through. It's definitely far outside of my scope of capability but I'd like to learn how to write to do it. After all I learned to draw. The thing is I can never escape this hurdle of crafting a genuine compelling conflict, no matter what kind of story I work on. I can come up with plenty of short story ideas but this is always that giant road block. It's a bit easier if it's a character dealing with inner demons but when I'm dealing with something that concerns a fantasy world's politics there's just one little problem. I can't really comprehend individuals, let alone entire nations/ corporations who are like this one dimensional cartoon villain who're so obsessed with greed and self gain it sort of just defies all common sense. A world I'm writing for requires it for a few factions, and the frustrating thing is that I can look for countless examples at people and nations who operate like this in the real world. Both current and past. I just don't really understand why it is when I try to write a nation that operates in this fashion, I still feel like the conflict that results from it is a giant "meh". I mean hell even right now look at the sort of insanity ensuing from countries locking down amidst the virus and leaving people unable to pay their bills. There's no way we're not walking away from this without some kind of major cultural impact, whatever it may be. Half the issue is I can't really get inside the head of someone who thinks like this, because these ways of thinking honestly don't seem very logical to me. Altruism isn't even entirely... altruistic. It just tends to benefit you most when others in your community are happy and healthy. If I wanted to be greedy, I'd be a filthy rich philanthropist. I have read books on psychopaths, I understand some are just sort of wired that way from birth and others are forged by nature and nurture (or lack thereof). Maybe I'm over thinking it, maybe obsessing on greed just gives people a sort of tunnel vision where it's very easy to forget the footprints you leave behind. I don't really know. Maybe I need more research on this. I'd really like to start working on some of my stories by committing them to storyboards, it's just not really worth it unless I have a solid outline first, otherwise I'll have inconsistencies aplenty. I just have to write... the 'story part' of the story first. What are some resources that tackle this sort of thing?
When I have this problem I try to think of conflict more narrowly. The big picture conflict of nations and factions is cool, but it doesn't really drive the story. Characters have conflicts, not the settings. Vonnegut said, "every character wants something, even if it's only a drink of water." Somebody else said "you don't have a story until something goes wrong." So if you think about conflict in those terms, it's really nothing more than wants and problems. So, a guy who has to take a piss but can't find a bathroom is very compelling. Especially if he's locked himself out of his house and his neighbor is a raging dickbag. But nobody else is home. And he really has to piss. I know, it doesn't have the scope of War and Peace, but it's a problem and a want everyone can understand. And a character who can make that interesting can do it in any setting... it works on a spaceship, in ancient Greece, or in a sword and sorcery fantasy. Tie a few little conflicts like that together with a big macro-conflict in the background, and you have a story. Or at least a chapter.
Well I don't have a lot to go on because I don't know actually know you, but the problem appears to be a one-dimensional perspective when it comes to grand issues. I suggest seeking out the viewpoints of those you specifically disagree with, the "illogical" ones. Really dive deep. I personally rarely see countries/corporations doing things for simple reasons like greed. Greed can absolutely be a part of their decisions, but simplifying it down to a single word is intellectually dishonest. An international conflict will likely feel pretty 'meh' if the villainous nation acts like Smaug, because it's not very believable. As an aside, whether or not 'greed' is a bad thing is a matter for the debate room. I personally think it is not bad compared to coveting another's wealth. As far as logic goes, and this is also probably a matter for the debate room, the countries are locking down because they don't have the resources to support the ~10% pneumonia complications all at once. There are countries right now having to choose who lives and who dies due to a lack of respiratory equipment. North America (and I'm sure many others) doesn't even have enough N95s or gloves stockpiled for its own health workers to handle the influx without they themselves getting sick. So there's logic there, a bountiful amount. Sometimes it's not very obvious. Lastly, you seem to take issue with philanthropists. I don't really understand why, but this is an opportunity to experience some nuance. Read Bill Gates' annual report, or about what humanitarian work George Clooney has done (I disliked him strongly until I read about it). Hell, just google a big ol' list of them. Even if these people are disingenuous, which I think is your complaint(?), it's pretty hard to ignore cold hard effort and results. Sometimes bad people do good things. For conflict on that scale to be compelling, it's typically good to have some of those complexities that we see in real life.
Don't create 2-dimensional moustache-twirling villains. That's not drama, its melodrama. Good conflict demands good characterisation, and that means 3-dimensional, with some depth to them. All of them. You can't have a good hero without a good villain. That's actually a bad word for it, think of them as characters or people doing what they think they need to, which conflicts strongly with what the main characters needs. In the immortal words of Dave Mason (who you've probably never heard of unless you listen to classic 70's rock): There ain't no good guy There ain't no bad guy There's only you and me And we just disagree
It seems to me the topic doesn't interest you at all. I see no reason why you should feel any need to work on it. You can leave that story and try something else instead, something you feel passionate about, or at least something you can connect with. You could try to read other authors, or read general history and get into it, but as I've said, you can always try something else. The story you mention won't grow legs and scape from you, it'll be still there after you've made up your mind, or finished something more exciting. Last but not least, if you don't have strong characters, the plot will always made you go a bit 'meh'. And so will the reader. Good luck.
The inner demons of the individuals within an organization ultimately decide that organization's fate. What's that Men in Black quote? A person is smart, but people are stupid. The superorganism is insane in part because all of the people in it are pulling it in multiple, contradictory directions. Well, there's your problem right there. You're thinking of these entities as cartoonish villains right from the start. That suggests to me that you need to get into the heads of people in these organizations. Write from the perspective of a chief executive and write that person until you can see where they're coming from (maybe even agree with them). I've been working on a story for a while about the nature of power, and I have found that theme very helpful in writing the story. How does a charismatic leader rise to power? What drives that leader and what drives the followers? One of my characters fancies that he has been chosen by the gods to lead not just his clan, but all clans. The evidence is striking, in his mind: he is talented, skillful, charismatic, and really good at diplomacy and warfare. Further, he was given the name of his banished uncle, who wasn't worthy of the name and so was banished. His birth was heralded by the flight of an osprey, and his aunt is the foremost soothsayer of all the clans of the western coast. Yeah, that all sounds like nonsense to us, but in a certain cultural context, it does sound like destiny. In a more contemporary context (that's obviously an ancient world kind of setting, a Genghis Khan or an Alexander the Great), look at the Berlin Conference and the Peace of Westphalia. Why did the European powers think slicing up Africa among themselves would address the rising tensions in the region? It might have had something to do with the fact they did the same thing with some success in their homelands a couple centuries before, and had been using territory trade to diffuse dangerous situations ever since. People always ask, "How did we get here?" As a writer, answering that question in your story is your primary concern. If your characters' motivations make no sense to you, your readers will be just as lost. Then start at the bottom. What got that character into this position in the first place? It didn't happen instantly, they weren't born that way. What got them there? I promise you, try to follow their journey, and their logic will at least be comprehensible, even if you think it's broken. Biographies and autobiographies. Start with Steve Jobs and Otto Von Bismarck.
Maybe that's your problem you think these people need logic to address their decisions when stuff like greed is rooted more in emotion. Think about it this way - what if you had two choices; a girl who liked you back and she was pretty and nice and kind, or a girl who was gorgeous, not especially nice and treated you like dirt. Logic would have you falling in love with the nice girl - unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. Lust doesn't work that way. And look at greed. Sometimes it makes no sense. I wanted a Cabbage Patch Doll in the worst way in the 80s and I HATED dolls, I even hated Cabbage Patch dolls but for some damn reason. I had to have one. My dad went and bought me a ripoff one with pink yarn hair and I felt so terrible, because I felt like yelling - this is a damn ripoff doll, that I realized I was being petty, selfish, ungrateful over a stupid status symbol. Look to your own life where you've been unreasonable, weird, greedy, stubborn about something and channel that into your characters motivations.
I don't know if this really help, but I've had the same problem where I create a character that is not suppose to be logical, and of course people think the character is not logical enough, but the character is not suppose to be and it's intentional. Still trying to figure out this one as well .
