take for the day: “hey mamas lesbian” jokes were only funny when used by lesbians but now that the rest of the community + straight women make them it feels more like genuine hatred of lesbians than a joke
Exhibit A why parents should have as little input in their children’s education as possible
I’m so glad this was posted in disagreement with these statements because I’m yelling. however I don’t think these people are being generous in their definition of ‘conflict’ at all - studio ghibli films have conflicts, in fact they can have very prominent ones. there is more to conflict than an altercation or a physical fight… mixed feelings is a conflict. helplessness is a conflict. lack of choice is a conflict, too much choice another. not knowing how to proceed… all conflicts lol
I disagree. Things can be interesting and beautiful and worth telling with literally no conflict at all. One of my favourite poems, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Bells, is literally just a description of different types of bells. And it’s gorgeous, it evokes emotion, it’s good.
If a kid wants to write a story with no conflict, I see no issue with it. What, are we going to put rules on creative writing? Gonna tell Edgar Allen Poe that he’s wrong and a bad writer?
The Bells isn’t a *narrative*
It doesn’t have characters, in a setting, doing things. Purely descriptive pieces of writing, like an essay or some kinds of poems, don’t need conflict because they aren’t *narratives*.
But if you’re teaching children the pieces of a *narrative*, then yes, they contain some form of conflict. Conflict, even small internal conflicts, are what create motivations and drive actions.
Context: Matthew Salesses is a Korean American writer and professor who is making a specific critique of Western storytelling’s emphasis on conflict and how this is affecting his daughter. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese narratives often uses change or contrast instead of conflict. His daughter does not deserve to be penalized or “corrected” for her cultural storytelling practices.
So, I’m not an expert on Korean storytelling by any means. I will not pretend otherwise.
However, this feels like we are confusing the more everyday definition of “conflict” for the literary use of the term conflict. The examples in that article *have conflict*- notably internal conflict.
These both have clear internal conflicts. They are more subtle than what a lot of us are used to (which also isn’t unusual for very very short compositions.) But man vs self- grappling with indecision, doubt, grief- these are a form of conflict.
Now, I can see an argument that this form of change or twist falls outside our normal ideas of what constitutes conflict, but I think the brevity also makes the whole narrative fall outside our normal ideas of narrative structure. And that’s very interesting and cool and these are beautiful pieces of writing.
Now, maybe the teacher in question was being very specific about the type of conflict they wanted in this story. Maybe they very clearly wanted an external conflict, or a more pronounced conflict. That isn’t conveyed in these tweets.
But also- on a school assignment, it is perfectly reasonable for a teacher to require that specific features are included if you’ve been learning about that in school.
When my students write an ode, and we’ve been studying figurative language, it’s perfectly reasonable to require them to including some figurative language in their poems. That’s not to say that poetry without figurative language is invalid and lesser. It’s just how writing assignments work. You learn about a technique, then you practice applying the technique.
I think it would be awesome if writing classes incorporated more multicultural approaches to structuring narratives. But “we are learning to identify and analyze conflict in stories. Write a story with a conflict in it” is a very normal writing assignment.
Yeah, conflict doesn’t always mean two or more people fighting; it can mean a single person feeling *conflicted* about something.
Nervous didn’t quite cover it. The first time is always fraught with uncertainty, but this seemed particularly up in the air, like she was being juggled and she had absolutely no idea if he could handle this many things flying through the air at once. She did a little flip in her head. Maybe it was the wine.
Even still, there was a certain groove to things that she could take solace in. They’d kissed outside the restaurant, and while it had taken her by surprise it had set a tone, pushed things into a rhythm that they’d followed all the way back to her flat. That was an anomaly; usually she would go to his, the royal him, the scattering of men who had been good/bad/mediocre/occasionally mindblowing in her past. But instead it was her key fumbling in the lock, and him stepping after her into the darkness of her porch.
From there the momentum of the moment took care of things. Whisked them through a few doors, kissing all the while, with clothes cast off them like bits of fuselage chasing a plane crash. They were littering the countryside with flaming bits of metal, one great scar in the earth from doorway to bedroom, passion cleaving the furrow deep.
Things faltered when she was down to her underwear. Her arms became clipped, kept close to her torso so that her hands could provide ample coverage. He looked slightly surprised, all told, but it didn’t lessen the ferocity of his mouth against hers, or the way his hands seared over her body.
He unclipped her bra, and she reached for the light, seeking the safety of darkness. She wanted to slip into anonymity, slip into the groove of familiarity, where she didn’t have to worry about how she looked, only enjoy how she felt. Insecurity has a way of becoming amplified through repetition, grown anemic from lack of exposure to the outside world. She didn’t like to be looked at, and she’d managed to make sure she wasn’t.
She reached for the light, but he stopped her. His hand around her wrist and it felt like a shackle, liberation swapped for imprisonment, throwing her for a loop. She opened her mouth, tried to think of something to say, but his finger was there, pressed against her lips, hushing her. She wanted to scream. Thought about it, but reconsidered.
Her bra tumbled down her arms, and fell onto the bed. She knelt on the bed, in his lap, and her skin crawled, every anxiety and insecurity manifesting into that singular sensation, so that it felt as though her skin was alive and petulant, rebelling against her.
And then there were those lips. Against the underside of her right breast, tickling down her ribs. He said nothing, this man, just kept his eyes on her when he could, kept them closed when he couldn’t. A mouth that wandered over her body with a casual attention, quieting that crawling wherever it went. It was like a balm. Earth on fire.
When he was done, when she’d stopped shaking, he pulled back and looked at her. They stared like that, into one another’s eyes, until she couldn’t bare it any more. Couldn’t quite stand to see that understanding and kindness, the care with which he was regarding her. It felt undeserved, and all she could see reflected in them was her own weakness, that she’d tried to hide from herself, hide herself from him.
Then there was that hand against her chin, turning her face to look at him again. Only it wasn’t his eyes she was looking at this time, just the overwhelming closeness of him, blurred and present, filling her vision as he kissed her again.
If you’re saying M’lady you should be wearing tights and a neck ruffle. If you’re wearing a fedora you should be saying like… see here and dame. Classy fedora dudes never said M’lady. Wtf.
And why do they always have katanas? There’s like 5 different time periods in this horrible trope.
