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.
