THE ART OF INTIMACY: CREATING AUTHENTIC CONFLICT

Characters fight, not just because they hate each other, but because they hate each other and love each other—because they want things from each other desperately—acceptance, forgiveness, security, transformation.  Conflict in the best fiction is about characters trying to get what they want from each other—and these conflicting desires create fiction’s emotional and moral richness and ambiguity.  In this two-session intensive course, we will explore how characters’ desires drive scenes in the fiction of Robert Stone, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, and other writers, and then create scenes in which our own characters try to get what they want from each other.