Gritty, Real and HardWhy I don't shy away from unpleasant reality 
I'm going to start off a little academic. It's been said that the basis of plot is conflict. Without conflict you can have a sweet little romp, but the characters will not grow within the story. Conflict drives the arc of a story. The characters have needs, desires and fears within themselves. Those needs, desires and fears are shaped by the world around us.
We don't live in a nice world.
At least I don't. I live in a world that often reeks of prejudice. I live in a world where friends and family have been hurt simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I live in a world where ex-lovers have sought retribution for a break up. I live in a world where people often do horrible things, physically and mentally, to those they profess to love. Every single one of those things leaves a permanent scar on our psyche.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a raging cynic. I also have seen staggering acts of kindness between strangers. I've been absolutely head over heels in love. I have friends who I enjoy just being with as much as they enjoy being with me. My family loves unconditionally.
While that may make me a happy enough person, it doesn't make for good plots or good characters.
A character's experiences lead to his expectations. Expectations define how a character reacts to the outside world and the roadblocks in front of him. What happens to the character when he reacts to a situation creates a new set of expectations. So I see no difference between internal and external conflict. You can't separate the two. Conflict coming from outside sources is filtered through internal monitors. Internal conflict of thoughts and feelings is constantly bounced off what is happening around the character.
Take Brandon Carr (Cheating Chance & Inland Empire), he is a closeted cop who learned to be that way because of incidents of gay bashing he witnessed from his peers on the force. He suffered the loss of his mother at an early age, and his father emotionally withdrew into his own grief. So is Brandon's fear of coming out internal or external? It's both. His lover Nicholas O'Malley is out and proud and comes from a supportive background of friends and family. While he's had some negative experiences, they haven't been such to cause him to live in fear. Those experiences color how they not only deal with each other, but how they interact with secondary characters, why they choose to react to threats in a certain way.
My guys don’t over-analyze or talk things to death. Men don't…at least the ones I know. Gay. Straight. Bi. Brandon sure as hell doesn't. He has trouble acknowledging his own feelings even to himself. Articulating them, so that Nicky knows – it's pretty beyond him. Not that he doesn't feel deeply. He does. He just shows it instead of drifting into long winded declarations.
People will notice that I tend to write a lot of cops. I love cops. I wanted to be an FBI agent at one point. I did, for a brief time, work in the prosecutors' office where I came into contact with a lot of police officers and detectives. Cops don't go rogue and try and solve murders, rescue victims and such, single-handedly. They are trained to work as a team. They make very mundane, yet life altering, decisions about the lives of those they come in contact with. Does the cop pull this guy in for getting drunk and busting a guy's face – when that's going to yank his probation, throw him on a third strike and leave his four kids on welfare? Or do you let it slide, throw everyone in the drunk tank to sleep it off and pray no one decides to pull a gun next time?
Doing the right thing, by the book, is never as exciting as the crazy stupid "cowboy" shit. Cops aren't Rambo. And, even if they can't tell you why, they understand that.
Somewhere in Brandon's psyche lurks the desire to beat the living crap out of the thugs that beat up Nicky. He doesn't. Cops don't do that. Not real ones. Nate O'Reilly (The Good Thief) same thing. His love interest Caesar is battered by a group of crooked cops. Instead of pulling a Dirty Harry, Nate works within the police department to bring a resolution. They do their jobs. They arrest people. Then they let the justice system take over – knowing that things won't be tied up in pretty bows, bad guys will get off or not get all they deserve. But they've made a choice to work within the system. Those are real reactions of working men. They have hard choices.
Sometimes they choose wrong.
I never let my characters take the easy road. Nate, as a cop, doesn't help out Caesar because he can, initially he does it because it's his job. The fact that his emotions get involved just adds to his distress…but he still reacts, first and foremost as a cop. In Inland Empire, Brandon freaks when Nicky gets involved in one of his department's investigations. He doesn't want Nicky helping out because of the very real risk to life and limb. Eventually Brandon must deal with the fact that Nicky is involved. Personal risk always takes a back seat to the needs of the investigation.
I anchor my men in their humanity. Humans are flawed and fractured beasts. Some of my characters have more visible flaws than others. In Twice The Ride, Jess Graff blows it when he steps on Manuel's pride in public. Some of that is his own stubborn nature and some as a result of cross-cultural differences. The result is still the same…Manuel decks him. The two of them don't talk about it. They have a confrontation, a catharsis and emotional fallout which they often resolve more through how they act than what they say.
In Hard Fall, Joe Peterson is a gay, closeted Mormon cop. Because of his internal conflict – the need for emotional connection with another man – he takes a great deal of risk to be with Kabe. Joe makes some bad choices for his religious life and career for love. That external conflict cannot be parceled out from the internal one. Joe is his religion and his job. He only breaks down when he has to face the very real consequences of his actions. When he dissolves into tears, it's not "I'm upset that you didn't notice the notes I left you," it's falling apart because he may have just lost everything that is meaningful to him.
Chase Nozick (upcoming Personal Demons) is an alcoholic. He has "I am screwed up!" tattooed in invisible ink on his forehead. Yet despite his addiction, what could be a major incurable failing, he redeems himself in other ways. His internal mess of dependence and, to an extent, self destruction, color how he reacts to the events surrounding the murder he and Enrique Rios-Ochoa investigate.
Internal and external conflicts are interlocking bridge supports. If you do not have both married together in a sound structural duality, you have a story that will crumble. They are symbiotic: one cannot exist in the vacuum of the other.
Candy plots are fine for what they are, but you can't live on them. You have to have meat and veggies too. I think readers want and need the more reality based fiction. If I were to write my characters in a setting where everything was okay and the biggest arguments were over what color sheets for the bedroom…it'd get old fast.
So, I'm going to give you conflict, as much as the characters can stand. I don't ever promise a reader roses and a wedding from the conflict – but I will give you an understanding, a happy for now and hope for the future. And that, while fantasy, is gritty, real and hard.
Bio: James Buchanan, the author of over ten gay novels and single author anthologies, lives in a 100 year old Craftsman in California with SexyGuy, two demon spawn and a heard of adopted dogs, cats, rats and fish. Between managing a law practice with SG, raising kids and writing books, James volunteers with the Erotic Author's Association, Liminal Ink, the EPIC Awards Committee as well as coordinates the newsletter for the ManLoveRomance Author's co-op. James has spoken and read at conferences such as Saints & Sinners and the Popular Culture Association. In the midst of midlife crises, James bought and learned to ride a Harley - it went with the big, extended cab pickup. James has been a member of CorpGoth since 1993 and been know to wear leather frock coats to court.
If you don't find James at the computer working on the next book, you probably won't find the bike in the garage.
Website:
www.James-Buchanan.comContest Time! Easy-Peasy…Post a comment. Right now I'm really, really sexing on the 2010 Harley Davidson FatBoy Lo. Give me excuses to trade in my almost paid off HD Sportster for that bike… or just say hello. I'm easy and SG will confirm that. In 24 hours, I'll randomly choose one commenter to win a download of either, any of my back-listed eBooks, or the upcoming eBook release of Personal Demons (which comes out Mid-September) and post the winner here (and on my LJ and my Twitter)
