Writing.Com General Discussion

I question the underlying premise built into your question: if there's no conflict, is there a story? Understand, conflict doesn't need to entail shootouts, car chases, betrayal and revenge, or unrequited passion (though none of those should be discarded out of hand). Conflict is simply an imbalance in whatever constitutes the status quo of your universe. You suggest as much when you refer to your character's growth. That in itself implies change, which is the single most essential quality of a story. Characters start at point A and after a sequence of events, arrive at point B. If your character hadn't changed, by definition he would not have grown.

But you're failing to take into consideration the other half of the equation: your potential readers. If you're not willing to at least consider the issues involved in keeping them reading, you probably won't attract too many in the first place, and you probably won't keep the ones you do attract. That means you have to entice them to wonder "What's gonna happen next?" A "next" implies a progression, which takes us back to characters growing, evolving, developing, and moving from point A to point B. The transition between the two, however it appears, will be your story. To make it interesting enough to capture a reader's attention, you have to provide a reason for the change.

Otherwise, you just have real life, which, for most of us, is depressingly devoid of actual stories. Things happen, then other things happen, and then the same things happen again, and we don't so much grow as we simply endure and adapt. Real life can be darned boring. But even the most banal of lives will contain moments of growth, of insight, of evolution. Examine those moments, move in close and discover the actual narrative arc contained within. That's where you'll find confrontation with that imbalance in the status quo, and the efforts to regain it. Or replace it with something else. And that's where you'll find a story.

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"A screaming comes across the sky."
'Gravity's Rainbow