thread: 2012-06-25 : "Conflict" "Resolution"
On 2012-08-08, Roger wrote:
This topic puts me in the mood to dig out Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing, so that's what I'll do. He's even got a chapter called "Crisis, Climax, Resolution."
His usage of "Resolution" in particular is different from the way you've approached it, but I'll give you the whole thing (more or less.)
"Romeo, driven by his incomparable love for Juliet, returns and hears her (crisis). They decide to get married (climax). The next day, in the cell of Friar Lawrence, a friend of Romeo, they do get married (resolution)."
"Death is a climax. Before death is crisis, when there is hope—however slim it is."
"Crisis: a state of things in which a decisive change one way or the other is impending."
"A man steals: conflict. He is pursued: rising conflict. He is caught: crisis. He is condemned by the court: climax. Transferring him to prison is the conclusion."
"Let us ask the question once more: what is crisis? And we answer, "Turning point; also a state of things in which a decisive change one way or the other is impending.""
(I find myself particularly fond of the phrase "turning point" here—it seems to capture all the uncertainty and untenability of the crisis, while simultaneously holding the promise of its resolution.)
On the RPG side, Primetime Adventures is particularly helpful in distinguishing clearly between the Climax—that moment when the cards are dealt and we veer towards one side or the other of the Turning Point—and Resolution, which consists of someone narrating precisely what happens.
D&D is particularly bad at muddling them—there is a point in every battle where the winners have won and the losers have lost, yet everyone must grimly grind onwards through the Resolution until everyone on one side is dead.
My own personal problem with FATE, in this light, is how critically indecisive it is at the moment of Climax. The ongoing expenditure of FATE Points that swings the Turning Point from one outcome to another just makes me unhappy, and I think this is why.
In some ways I'm beginning at the end here, because I think I'm on firmer ground with Egri here with Resolution and Climax. Before all that comes the people and their interests, of course, which is harder to isolate.
Egri describes several times characters having "convictions", and this might be closest to what we mean here. He also writes "Where there is no contradiction there is no conflict." So perhaps 'convictions' are not enough; we should clarify that we mean 'contradicting convictions'. He goes further to discuss characters bound in the unity of opposites, but I suspect that is a bit outside my scope.
So, to summarize, we have something like "a person or persons with contradicting convictions in conflict. This conflict escalates to a crisis—a turning point. The crisis is decided, and the resolution follows."
According to this Egri guy, anyway.
