Conflict Resolution for the Holidays
Not Just for Writers
Half of me exists firmly planted in narrative soil while the other half is all about healing and wholeness. It feels natural for me to combine the two. This week the prompt and the thoughts arrive as one. Writing, theatre, and all the narrative arts make space for cultural and personal growth and healing. So however you use this, as a prompt or as a way forward (and I hope you will use it), I’d love to hear back. How did you use it? Are these ideas helpful? Thank you for being here!
The Prompt:
Most storytelling centers on conflict. You might think those of us working to create stories in any media/form or genre might be great with conflict ourselves since, in a way, we study it and are hopefully mastering it. But mostly we’re not. I know I’m not. Some of you cringe at the word conflict. People who are conflict-avoidant are those whose first response is to flee (or hide). Me, I’m a fighter, always have been. I do not shy away from conflict to a fault. (Fortunately/Unfortunately, see below…)
Maybe I’ve spent my life studying how to manage conflict because it’s such a problem for me! As I work as a dramaturg with many people and see their early drafts, I notice we often swerve whenever it comes to the obligatory scene where the actual conflict must be addressed. So maybe it’s time to move beyond subtext and work on dealing with actual conflict.
In my coaching work, I also have been studying ways to help people (and myself) deal with conflict, both internally and interpersonally (with other people) and with the world at large, including the social systems we struggle against. These are the 3 ways I suggest we build layers of conflict in our stories. Whether you’re building a protagonist (or several in an ensemble piece), they have an internal conflict within themselves (should I or shouldn’t I, usually set up as a conflict of values - they value family but they also value freedom…) They have interpersonal conflict with an antagonist (a character or several characters). And they have a conflict with the larger social forces at work like poverty or access or racism/sexism/ableism etc. Incorporating these 3 different ways to experience conflict help to raise the stakes, provide a lot to struggle against, and make our stories more 3-dimensional and mimetic (life-like) because we’re never struggling against just one thing.
Attending a course at the IFS Institute, I learned a model for dealing with conflict presented by Fatimah Finney. While I can use it in my own conflict-ridden life, I hope it will also help you with a way to plan scenes where you want to be able to address conflict directly and skillfully.
We learn by doing, but we also learn by watching. Mostly we see conflict being handled poorly with disconnection and violence. I am autistic, in case you forgot. I take what I see very literally. I grew up on a lot of Starsky & Hutch. I thought that was how people really behaved. So at 16, when I got into a conflict with someone in a bar, I used an empty beer bottle to threaten the guy who was threatening me. He wasted no time in breaking my arm. So fortunately/unfortunately I learned a lesson: real life conflict needs better skills than conflict on TV.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could actually learn how to really deal with conflict in helpful and even healing ways through the culture we ingest?
Here is a model for real life, but why not put it on the screen or the pages of a story? Get it to a larger audience. Making connection through conflict is still a high stakes story without violence.
Fatimah Finney’s model, The Authentic Communication Process, has 4 steps, but because I’m Audhd, I felt it was necessary to add a few more (numbers 4 and 5).
Speak for your goal for the relationship and the overall outcome, “I want for us to be able to…”
Clear your feelings about having this conversation, “my fear is…”
State the issue, “I’ve noticed that…”
Listen. Listen without forming your next response. Listen to understand. Listen so that you can actually reflect what the other person/character is actually expressing. “What I hear you saying is that you feel…”
Make space for dialogue. Make sure each feels seen/heard.
Make a collaborative plan to move forward, “maybe we could…”
You could think of these as beats in your story, steps of rising action (or falling action if this happens after the the Midpoint). Or you could think of this as a way to create more connection over the holidays with people you are related to who don’t share your point of view. Either way, I hope it helps.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudion on instagram
Do you know someone creative who has trouble starting (or finishing) their projects? With prompts, grounding practices, & discussions, Brave Space inspires even the most blocked creatives! Playwrights, poets, painters, potters! Novelists, memoirists, musicians & artists working in any medium! Brave Space is a safe place to make meaning in community. $5-25 suggested per session. 4-6x/week! On or off camera. No commitment, drop-ins ok. Try it!
Brave Space Schedule:
12/8 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space & 730pm ET Sharing Salon
12/9 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/10 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching for ALL
12/11 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/12 Thursday 10am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/13 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/15 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
12/16 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/17 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching for ALL
12/18 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/19 Thursday 10am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/20 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/22 Sunday 6pm ET Brave Space for All Humans
12/23 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/24 - 12/26 NO Brave Space for Winter Holidays
12/27 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Friday 3pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
12/29 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
12/28 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/29 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/workshop
12/30 through 1/4/25 Winter Holidays
Each week Tuesdays includes fast feedback for up to 1 page (@250 words) of writing or you can bring in a craft issue/ask for help with your project.
Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons: Second Sundays (730pm ET) and Final Fridays (3pm ET) for sharing up to 10 minutes of work (up to 1500 words).Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
Jewish Voices for Peace has a webpage that offers helpful ways to have hard conversations this weekend and for the future. If you’re interested, click this link.
Marie Cloutier's essay about disenfranchised grief is worth reading, not only if you have experienced or are experiencing disenfranchised grief, but because she describes a writing process that is illuminating.
Marilyn Ness is raising funds to finish her documentary film about her play, POST MORTEM, that many of you remember we workshopped in the WriteNow Workshop with 29th Street (pre-pandemic)! Here is a link to the update where you can find out what she was able to do with it, and where it’s headed! Congratulations to Marilyn, and I hope we can all get behind this project with support of any size.
Streaming Tickets to Golden Thread’s 11 REFLECTIONS created and directed by Andrea Assaf featuring acclaimed Syrian opera singer Lubana Al Quntar and Turkish composer and violinist Eylem Basaldi - watch now online!
12/4 - 12/29 Get your tickets to the world premiere of the beautiful land i seek (la linda tierra que busco yo) by Matt Barbot produced by Fault Line Theatre with Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and Latinx Playwrights Circle. Use the DISCOUNT CODE FLT10 to purchase any ticket at a 10% discount. It’s funny, it’s theatrical, it’s philosophical, it’s political and truly remarkable. I love this play! Go!
12/6 Sair Kaufman (Fran from my play Winners) will be performing at the Pink Frog Cafe in Brooklyn. Join me!
12/20 online 11:30 am ET - 1pm ET Center for Mindfulness & Compassion IFS Research Fundraiser with Richard Schwartz, Martha Sweezy & others. Register for Free Here. Donations Here
12/21 Transcend, a trans/gender-expansive chorus, will perform their Winter Solstice concert in person and live-streamed from NYC. TICKETS HERE (start at $5 for streaming)
1/4 & 1/5 Leap with Passion this coming January! (Either day) Get ready to leap into your New Year! Rhonda Musak’s fabulous day-long workshop to help you find focus and clarity around your life goals is transformative! I highly recommend it! Register Here!
Opportunities:
12/6/24 for Creative Producers in the United States, CIPA 2025 Fellowship Program which is a year-long paid fellowship for people who want to produce creative work. More info HERE
11/1/24 - 1/31/25 Autistic Oral History Project is offering grants of $3K to Autistic folks and Autistic-adjacent folks who want to participate in collecting oral histories.
11/1 - 12/31 Autistic Voiceover Artists is a new initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering autistic adults through voiceover training and practice. AVA’s mission is to create an inclusive and engaging space where autistic adults can explore voiceover as a means of self-expression, skill-building, and creativity. This November and December, AVA is offering free online voiceover workshops for Autistic adults! Webinar schedule and more info here.
12/15/24 The Orchard Project is accepting submissions for:
The Orchard Project Performance Lab (link), for development of work intended to be performed in front of a live or virtual audience.
The Orchard Project Greenhouse Program (link), for collaborators generating new works and collaborations in a multitude of forms;
The Orchard Project Episodic Lab (link), for writers working on the advancement of original TV scripts;
The Orchard Project Audio Lab (link), for early development of scripts and ideas in the audio storytelling form.
12/17/24 NYFA grant deadline for Playwriting/Screenwriting, Photography, Choreography and other disciplines for New York artists. For $8K, no strings attached, it’s a tough application, but worth it. Break a leg!
The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis offers the following programs to apply to:
-Core Writer Program - open to any committed professional playwright, deadline in January 2025
-Jerome Fellowship - for any early career playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in November 2024
-Many Voices Fellowship - for any early career BIPOC playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight National Residency and Commission - open to established playwrights outside of Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting - open to mid-career Minnesota-based playwrights, deadline in January 2025
-Many Voices Mentorship - open to beginning BIPOC playwrights based in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-Core Apprentice - open to playwrights in or recently graduated from undergrad and graduate programs, deadline in February 2025.
Loved this. And I need to watch the latest video from Fatimah!!!
Thank you for this timely post Emma!