9/48 *Conflict* When Land is Taken By the Sea

Really interesting choices.

However I think you are writing out the idea behind the song and not the conflict. Conflict is when a choice must be made between two stimuli. In the case of long black veil it turns out to be that the man in the song had to choose between remaining silent, protecting his lover and being executed or admitting he cheated with his best friend's wife and go free. Right? The specifics of the situation make it a powerful idea to write about.

What do you think?

Really interesting choices.

However I think you are writing out the idea behind the song and not the conflict. Conflict is when a choice must be made between two stimuli. In the case of long black veil it turns out to be that the man in the song had to choose between remaining silent, protecting his lover and being executed or admitting he cheated with his best friend's wife and go free. Right? The specifics of the situation make it a powerful idea to write about.

What do you think?

I disagree, the woman in Long Black Veil has to visit the grave at night so that noone will know. The conflict is within her. She has to keep her true heart in the dark.

Follow the action.The part of the story that you are concentrating on is in the past tense. The gtieving woman is in the present tense.

2) Write a song with conflict
I started working on this song during the week 44-46 period. It has a conflict topic which is Man vs Flood. I only have two verses and a chorus. This is is so far, I need help developing further verses: http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11087189

When Land Gets Taken By The Sea

1st verse
When God looked down on the wicked ways of man
What did he see?
He saw evil, greed, lust and pride
He took no pity
He cried Noah, Noah
Build an Ark for Me
Take the best, leave the rest
Cause, the land will be taken by the Sea
Oh the land will be taken by the Sea

2nd verse
It rained 40 days and 40 nights
They were captives of the tide
Till the Ark came to rest on Ararat
With the cargo safe inside
God said Noah, Noah
The rainbow was made by Me
A covenant, an acknowledgment
The land won't be taken by the sea, no more
The land won't be taken by the sea

Chorus
The Sea said:
Men all praise Your glorious prism
I curse the rainbow it's my prison
Let me obliterate the ground
Man and all his works be drowned
Man and all his works be drowned

the woman has to visit the grave at night so no one will know isn't conflict. Conflict is a choice between two usually opposing stimuli. The woman has to visit the grave at night so no one will know doesn't meet that definition. You are missing the "or".

So then what is the conflict? Could it be that she wants everyone to know, but can't cause it will hurt her husband? She no longer has the choice between the two men, one is dead, so that seems like a pretty weak conflict. I don't know.

Maybe it's she can visit during the day and everyone will know how she felt about this man, or visit at night and no one will know. Still not very strong. Keeping quiet and dying or speaking up and living, now that's strong. Just because the conflict is past tense, doesn't mean that isn't what the song is about. She is simply continuing on that conflict. Keeping quiet and suffering in her current situation vs speaking up, hurting someone and being free. In addition she also doesn't want her lover's sacrifice to be in vain. So her situation in a way mirrors her lover's, and it's a device to show that conflict. That's the horror of the song.

What is it you are saying is the conflict?

Unless I'm missing something your song really has no conflict either. Man vs. Flood isn't conflict. Also this isn't from one of your discovered song conflicts is it?

Discovering and defining conflict is harder than it appears.

We disagree on Veil. So it is.

On my song, the conflict is the desire of the Sea vs God's will. This in turn is allegorical to Man vs God's will. But I digress, you are correct, its not a recently discovered conflict.
I'll be leaving for Houston for a few days and was hoping I could get someone else to contribute verses. Shhhhhhh

I put a lot of thought into my reply and tried to explain it, but somehow you are missing the point of the conflict part of the assignment.

Can you frame your thought of what the conflict is into an either/or statement including the consequences of the ladies actions?

Man vs. God isn't the type of conflict choice we are talking about either. You could be thinking of conflict as a war between sides, but the conflict we are looking for is internal choices. She has to choose, do this and that happens, or do this and something else happens.

For the Veil issue: This is from the original assignment " Someone doesn't know how you feel, won't pay attention, doesn't know you exist, what ever"
The grieving woman is not able to express her true grief. If she does she faces unnamed consequences. The singer let himself be executed rather than reveal the truth. The consequences that she would face appear to be dire indeed. The only one who knows how she feels, that can see her, is the dead lover.

Song
"Man vs the will of God" is very internal. For information on the nature of this go ahead and Google the phrase. Lots of information the consequences of free will.

It isn't about what I can google. It's about can you identify the conflict.

In the assignment I also gave an example of choices and consequences. I've done that above for you too. I've clarified the assignment to make sure everyone knows that those are examples of objectives, not about the conflict choice.

I'm sorry if I'm offending, but I thought since you were missing the point of my assignment, I'd try to help. I'm not sure what the issue is, and why you won't try, but since I wrote the assignment don't you think I know what it is we are trying to do? What is all the negativity about?

I'll leave you to your own devices here. Good luck with your song.

Thanks.

I mhave decided to drop the whole personification of the Sea element from the song. I wanted to keep the chorus becaise I had become infatuated with the prism/prison rhyme.
I like the first two verses so I will save them for future usage. When I pick up this tune again it will probably follow a plot similar to "Well, Well, Well" which is the biblical story of Noah then goes on to say the world will be destroyed by fire next time. It is the story of the conflict between Mans free choice and God choosing to destroy man's world becuase of it. Sure sounds like consequences to me.
By the time I get to reworking it, there will be a new assignment.

Hey there :D

If I'm not mistaken, there seems to be some conflict going on here....?
Nick, does this qualify MrEWorm to get extra points for injecting real conflict into this weeks assignment? :wink:

Alright - All kidding aside now.
Let's see if we can clarify some things.
Feel free to agree or disagree with what I have to say.

This weeks assignment was about identifying and then working conflict into a song lyric.
And there seems to be some confusion with this on many levels.
What Nick is after seems pretty clear to me, though I think the confusion may stem from the complexity of story elements.
What Nick is after here (This Week) seems to be only the Internal Conflict that the Hero is facing.

There are other conflicts in stories though, to be sure. And In fact, there can be several conflicts in a story,
or even a song for that matter.

In addition to the aforementioned Internal Conflict, there is also External Conflict.
The external conflict is what usually maneuvers the hero into this internal conflict.
The external conflict is provided by the antagonist in the story.
the antagonist doesn't have to be a person, it can be The Sea, or something like that.
Anything that forces the hero into making a Decision is the antagonist that provides the External Conflict.
The anguish over the choices that the hero must make is the internal conflict.

So, using Nick's Garbage Day scenario, we have the Garbage Man starring as the antagonist.
The antagonist shows up and the hero, peacefully asleep, is now faced with a choice: Stay in bed (what he wants to do),
or get out of bed to throw the garbage out before the anttagonist leaves and it's too late (what he needs to do).

So, even though we have introduced a conflict, there's still not much of a story there. What would happen if he decided to stay in bed? You would think the story would be over....? That could be just the beginning though. Cos once he gets up, there could be all kinds of conflict going on (due to the garbage not being taken out) and he'll need to bring that conflict to a resolution. This will be done by finding a way to solve the original conflict in the story. Get that garbage out and all the other problems go away.

Or, say he gets up to take out the trash.... Story over, right....?
Well, not necessarily. He still has to get the trash out to the garbage cans before the garbage man gets there. This could lead to a mini-odyssey, with all kinds of things going wrong on his way to accomplish this simple task. All the while the Antagonist is getting closer - Ah, Tension.... Ah, suspense! Ah, manipulated temporal continuum!

Speaking of suspense, there should be suspense in the decision that the hero is faced with as well.
That is to say, he/she shouldn't take the easy way out.... The road to what seems a happy ending, is the road that shouldn't be taken. (The ending to the above mentioned scenario could be - I should have stayed in bed!) This will lead to a subtext conflict.

That is to say, we will sit here and wonder why the hero doesn't choose to be with the beautiful love of their life, instead of being a rootless gypsy who can't quite seem to settle down.... But in a way, it will be understood through subtext.

(The woman in "Veil" - Her actions are conflict in subtext, no? Revealing an intrinsic motivation perhaps?
But not necessarily internal conflict.... She isn't torn between two or more ways to go).

Finally, when trying to come up with internal conflict, try and consider the hero's flaws and weaknesses. Every hero has (and MUST HAVE) a weakness. Don't forget that word, HERO. They are more than likely heroes for facing their fears.
That is what needs to be exploited.

Ken