4 ms·

For whatever reasons I vividly remember asking the question in 7th grade, "can't a story not have a conflict? Can't it just be about some nice people getting al

For whatever reasons I vividly remember asking the question in 7th grade, "can't a story not have a conflict? Can't it just be about some nice people getting along without anything like that happening?" and my teacher simply said "No."

jbob2000 9y ago
That's a semantic argument. Your teacher is arguing that in order for something to be a story, it must have conflict, otherwise it's just a list of events.
mannykannot 9y ago
Possible counter-example for your teacher: Arthur C. Clarke's 'The Sentinel'? I also recall Robert Graves' writing, in 'Goodbye to All That', of one of his fellow soldiers saying that after the war, he would read the whole of Trollope's Barchester chronicles, as nothing happens in them, though that is not strictly true.
dsr_ 9y ago
Graydon Saunders' A Succession of Bad Days: top review on Goodreads: "There's no plot to speak of--things happen, and then it ends. There's no conflict to speak of until the last chapter. Most of the book consists of detailed descriptions of civil engineering projects and the magical techniques used for them. The characters are ludicrously overpowered special snowflakes. The language is nigh-impenetrable, and the innocent comma is tortured beyond all reason. But you know what? To hell all that. I loved it. This is a story about where legendary sorcerers come from. Five young people (ages range from late teens to early thirties) with magical talent take part in a highly experimental training program. Talent is hazardous; absent training, none of them are expected to live to see fifty. Traditional training, which runs along the lines of "spend several years sweeping floors and learning control before moving on to lighting candles", has a roughly fifty percent survival rate. Their program, in contrast, starts with completely reconstructing a square mile or so of geography and scales up rapidly from there." It is, in fact, an extremely good story. I also suggest Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper series, a far-future space story in which nothing much happens and it is fascinating. Excitement is largely provided by superior coffee making and people management skills.
- KVFinn 9y ago
  I love the Graydon Saunders books so I'll be sure to checkout the Solar Clipper series! It looks like the author even has free to close to free versions on his website.
- mcguire 9y ago
  Re: Nathan Lowell... That's true about the first book, perhaps the second (is clothes shopping conflict?), but the third is completely different.
mrspeaker 9y ago
Napoleon Dynamite is pretty much a story about some nice people getting along without anything much happening
- colanderman 9y ago
  There's at least internal conflict in Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon is struggling with his confidence, both to start a relationship with Deb, and to stand up to Uncle Rico's bullying. I don't disagree in general that stories can be conflict-free. But, good stories usually have character development, and character development almost always entails overcoming some internal conflict.
plastroltech 9y ago
I always liked Brian Moriarty's definition of story: "a particular causally related sequence of events". Which certainly does allow for a conflict free story. The important thing is that a story has events which are causally related. Otherwise it really is just a list of unconnected statements.
- JadeNB 9y ago
  > I always liked Brian Moriarty's definition of story: "a particular causally related sequence of events". By this logic, it seems that a recipe is a story. (Maybe that's intentional!) I'd almost view the definition of a story as more about the intention than about the content—rather like art, which can (arguably) be created simply by the act of presenting it as such (in the sense of "found art" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_object https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_object )). So too, surely, can one have a "found story".
lisper 9y ago
Your teacher was an idiot. The right answer to that question for a 7th grader (and, actually, for anyone else too) is: why don't you try writing one and see what happens?
- nsxwolf 9y ago
  Ha. Might have been the same teacher that showed us the 3 perspectives a story can be told from - 1st person, 3rd person, 3rd person omniscient. I asked "What about second person?" and she said "There's no such thing." When I learned 2nd person is indeed real I was pretty mad about that. Of course I should have already known it was real, reading Choose Your Own Adventure books, but I just didn't make the connection.
EamonnMR 9y ago
You could read a conflict into almost any story if you want to, the difference being that it'd be more of a stretch in some cases. At a 7th grade level the goal of the class was probably to teach you to find a conflict-being able to say "there isn't one!" would be an easy out that would let you get away with not writing an essay. Similarly, early math classes won't have questions for which "no solution" is a valid answer, but later ones will.
JadeNB 9y ago
In addition to the many nice examples others have mentioned, I would like to point to one book of which I am currently in the middle: Becky Chambers's "The long way to a small, angry planet". This book is delightfully conflict-free so far, and it's hard to think it's not intentional; indeed, one of the (non-human) characters even lampshades it during a gaming session by referencing the way that human games seem always to be built around conflict and competition.
- combatentropy 9y ago
  > one of the (non-human) characters even lampshades it Had to google. Was delighted that I got to go to TV Tropes. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging

jbob2000 9y ago

That's a semantic argument. Your teacher is arguing that in order for something to be a story, it must have conflict, otherwise it's just a list of events.

mannykannot 9y ago

Possible counter-example for your teacher: Arthur C. Clarke's 'The Sentinel'? I also recall Robert Graves' writing, in 'Goodbye to All That', of one of his fellow soldiers saying that after the war, he would read the whole of Trollope's Barchester chronicles, as nothing happens in them, though that is not strictly true.

dsr_ 9y ago

Graydon Saunders' A Succession of Bad Days: top review on Goodreads: "There's no plot to speak of--things happen, and then it ends. There's no conflict to speak of until the last chapter. Most of the book consists of detailed descriptions of civil engineering projects and the magical techniques used for them. The characters are ludicrously overpowered special snowflakes. The language is nigh-impenetrable, and the innocent comma is tortured beyond all reason. But you know what? To hell all that. I loved it. This is a story about where legendary sorcerers come from. Five young people (ages range from late teens to early thirties) with magical talent take part in a highly experimental training program. Talent is hazardous; absent training, none of them are expected to live to see fifty. Traditional training, which runs along the lines of "spend several years sweeping floors and learning control before moving on to lighting candles", has a roughly fifty percent survival rate. Their program, in contrast, starts with completely reconstructing a square mile or so of geography and scales up rapidly from there." It is, in fact, an extremely good story. I also suggest Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper series, a far-future space story in which nothing much happens and it is fascinating. Excitement is largely provided by superior coffee making and people management skills.

KVFinn 9y ago
I love the Graydon Saunders books so I'll be sure to checkout the Solar Clipper series! It looks like the author even has free to close to free versions on his website.
mcguire 9y ago
Re: Nathan Lowell... That's true about the first book, perhaps the second (is clothes shopping conflict?), but the third is completely different.

mrspeaker 9y ago

Napoleon Dynamite is pretty much a story about some nice people getting along without anything much happening

colanderman 9y ago
There's at least internal conflict in Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon is struggling with his confidence, both to start a relationship with Deb, and to stand up to Uncle Rico's bullying. I don't disagree in general that stories can be conflict-free. But, good stories usually have character development, and character development almost always entails overcoming some internal conflict.

plastroltech 9y ago

I always liked Brian Moriarty's definition of story: "a particular causally related sequence of events". Which certainly does allow for a conflict free story. The important thing is that a story has events which are causally related. Otherwise it really is just a list of unconnected statements.

JadeNB 9y ago
> I always liked Brian Moriarty's definition of story: "a particular causally related sequence of events". By this logic, it seems that a recipe is a story. (Maybe that's intentional!) I'd almost view the definition of a story as more about the intention than about the content—rather like art, which can (arguably) be created simply by the act of presenting it as such (in the sense of "found art" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_object https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_object )). So too, surely, can one have a "found story".

lisper 9y ago

Your teacher was an idiot. The right answer to that question for a 7th grader (and, actually, for anyone else too) is: why don't you try writing one and see what happens?

nsxwolf 9y ago
Ha. Might have been the same teacher that showed us the 3 perspectives a story can be told from - 1st person, 3rd person, 3rd person omniscient. I asked "What about second person?" and she said "There's no such thing." When I learned 2nd person is indeed real I was pretty mad about that. Of course I should have already known it was real, reading Choose Your Own Adventure books, but I just didn't make the connection.

EamonnMR 9y ago

You could read a conflict into almost any story if you want to, the difference being that it'd be more of a stretch in some cases. At a 7th grade level the goal of the class was probably to teach you to find a conflict-being able to say "there isn't one!" would be an easy out that would let you get away with not writing an essay. Similarly, early math classes won't have questions for which "no solution" is a valid answer, but later ones will.

JadeNB 9y ago

In addition to the many nice examples others have mentioned, I would like to point to one book of which I am currently in the middle: Becky Chambers's "The long way to a small, angry planet". This book is delightfully conflict-free so far, and it's hard to think it's not intentional; indeed, one of the (non-human) characters even lampshades it during a gaming session by referencing the way that human games seem always to be built around conflict and competition.

combatentropy 9y ago
> one of the (non-human) characters even lampshades it Had to google. Was delighted that I got to go to TV Tropes. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging