Finding the Conflict and the Obstacles



challenge road sign

One of the fundamental components of any good family history story is recognizing a conflict your ancestor faced in their life and bringing that to the front of the story. Without conflict, there is no story.  Story is built around a conflict, a challenge and the obstacles your character faces in pursuit of his goal. It’s crucial in keeping your reader engaged to the end. It creates a story question. How does my ancestor overcome this conflict, this challenge? The reader wants the answer and, for this reason, stays with the story to the end.

By the end of the beginning of your story, you want your readers to understand your ancestor’s challenge and how they intend to overcome this problem.

Let’s create an ancestor, Henry Jones, for the purposes of demonstrating conflict and obstacles, and follow him through a story plot. Of course, in your own family history, you’re going to pull this information from your research.

We start by understanding Henry’s goal.

Henry’s Goal: Henry Jones wants to own land.

Of course,  in order for this story to be a story there must be some conflict, some challenge in Henry’s pursuit of that goal.

Henry’s Conflict– Henry cannot own land in his current country, land is owned by the wealthy, Henry is a peasant and will spend his life farming the land of the wealthy.

The First Turning Plot Point – this is the moment when your ancestor changes his path in pursuit of his goal. This is also often called the inciting incident.

Henry’s First turning point – Henry makes the decision to emigrate to the New World, where land is plentiful.

Obstacles

In our family history story,  obstacles block our ancestor on their path to achieving their goals. In a story plot, they are often referred to as plot points.

There are three types of obstacles that your ancestor may confront:

ancestor vs. another person

ancestor vs. circumstance

ancestor vs. self

 

What is the difference between conflict and obstacle?

The conflict is the overall idea; Henry cannot own land. While obstacles are those roadblocks that stand between Henry resolving his desire to own land.

Keep in mind that both conflicts and obstacles may be both internal and external, they can come from within the protagonist or from external forces, friendly and not so friendly.

If we continue to follow the example above, our ancestor Henry who wished to own land may come up against many obstacles.

Henry’s Obstacles

Obstacle 1 – Henry arrives in United States, there is plenty of land but he must head west, Henry has no money to get there.  He overcomes this obstacle by getting a job.  ancestor vs. circumstance

Obstacle 2 – He’s saving his money and close to leaving when he meets the love of his life. But, Mary doesn’t want to leave her family behind and travel west for land; Henry must convince her this decision is in their best interest.  ancestor vs. another person

Obstacle 3 – Along the way they fall on hardships, and Henry doubts his choices. Ancestor vs. self

Obstacle 4 – There journey is delayed  by a violent storm. ancestor vs. circumstance

These obstacles are plot points in our story and keep our reader compelled to keep reading. The obstacles tell a story,  but also show growth of your ancestor, from poor to rich, sad to happy, hate to love, weak to strong.

Look at your research, what obstacles did your ancestor’s face in pursuit of their goals?

1 thought on “Finding the Conflict and the Obstacles”

  1. This is exactly what I needed for my next step! My Revolutionary persons (not yet proved as ancestors) was Captain Reuben Dickinson and his son Reuben of Amherst area in Massachusetts. After the Revolution he was involved in Shay’s Rebellion and ended up having to “high tail” it to Vermont. There’s not a whole lot written about him although I am slowly gathering bits and pieces from here and there. So far my title is “To Walk in Freedom” and I’ve been working on their time lines. Thanks so much!

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Related Post

Enriching Your Story with HistoryEnriching Your Story with History

In the Getting Ready to Write and Authentic Ancestors workbooks, I mentioned historical timelines and their importance in organizing your research and writing your ancestor’s stories.  Not only is it important to map your ancestor’s life on a timeline, but also to map world, regional and local history. It’s necessary to consider what was happening in the world around your ancestors and it’s relationship to their life.

I want to spend a few minutes today discussing how we can use historical events to enrich your stories.

Historical events can provide both a background and a setting for your story. However, while these events can add a lot of colour and depth to your story, it’s important to not just insert a historical event in your ancestor’s narrative only because it happened during their life.  It’s important to look at how those events may have impacted your ancestor’s life, actions, and reactions.  While some events will be easy to include due to your ancestor’s direct relationship to an event, do not discount an event because it did not happen directly to them. It may be happening in the background and influencing their life.

These historical events can happen before, after or during the story. It may be something from the past that sets in motion a current event in your story. Historical events can add richness to your story and can place your ancestor’s life and story within the context of the world. It can also help to establish the tone of your story for your reader.  By linking your ancestor’s story to something happening or that has happened, this event may impact them or people around them. It’s important to consider how the event may change their feelings, attitudes, culture, or society.

These historical events may strengthen your story ideas and feed your ancestor’s stories. Perhaps your ancestor’s story will be a political or social statement about abortion, adoption, slavery, corruption in politics or the environment to name but a few. You can look to historical events to help you build your story ideas and theme.

An excellent resource for looking at events in a variety of categories is The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun.  This book is organized into seven categories, history and politics, literature and theatre, religion, philosophy and learning, visual arts, music, science, technology and growth, and daily life. It spans from 5000BC up to 1991 and is organized on a year by year basis.

I’ve also provided you with a small chart below for you to download and use if looking at the historical events of your ancestor’s life and analyzing them for the impact on their lives. Completing this chart might help you to shape your story with regards to plot, theme, and your story question.

Don’t limit yourself to just the large world events. Regional and local historical events must also be considered. We often think wars and national tragedies when discussing historical events. However, a local storm that causes devastation to area crops or local politics may play a significant role in your ancestor’s life and decisions.

Historical events provide context and richness to your story, and  it places our ancestor in the world making them more real and believable to your reader.

Here’s the timeline with a couple of examples filled in.

Timeline Table

Timeline Table – blank