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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33766
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33766
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

My pet theory on this is that all story conflict is moral. That is, it is a conflict between values.

If a big pile of rocks falls on the road and our hero picks them up one by one and moves them out of the way, that is landscaping, not story.

If a big pile of rocks falls on the road and our hero starts to pick them up one by one and move them out of the way, but is soon exhausted and thirsty and aching, and looks up and sees that there is still a huge pile of rocks to move and wants to give up the quests and go home to bed, that is moral conflict -- a conflict between the virtue of ease and the virtue of continuing the quest. It is that moral conflict that makes it a story.

Now I have no idea what Brandon Sanderson means by a conflict with setting, but if I was to try to map it to an idea that made sense to me, I would say that setting can be a source of moral conflict by presenting obstacles that require moral courage to overcome.

In LOTR the companions of the ring try to cross the misty mountains and are stopped by a snow storm. They then have to make a choice between abandoning the quest, leaving some of the party behind, and going via Moria. There are several moral conflicts in this choice, all of which is triggered by the setting.

One could look at it this way: Character is defined by the intersection of two incompatible desires. Setting is the circumstances which make these two desires incompatible. Plot it the action that forces the character to decide between the two values.

Thus conflict arises out of all three working together. A different character with different desires many be perfectly content in the same setting. A character with these desires may be able to satisfy them both in a different setting. The same set of actions may lead to a different outcome in a different setting. Change any one of the three, therefore, and your story does not lead to the moment of moral crisis that differentiates story from landscaping.

### EDIT to clarify what moral means:

In case there is any confusion about what I mean by a moral decision, it is not simply about choosing to do the socially endorsed "right thing" instead of the "wrong thing". A moral choice is about a choice of values.

To borrow Amadeus's examples, if his pilot swims to shore, builds a hut, builds a signal fire, spots a plane, signals it, and gets rescued, this is merely a technical accomplishment. There is no choice of values. Just good sense and hard work.

The hiker with the trapped arm, however, does have a choice of values to make. He is choosing to subject himself to prolonged agony performing an operation that will probably kill him anyway. The choice between agony and death is by no means an easy one and it is very much a choice of values. Similarly the astronaut has to choose between loneliness, the pains of starvation, and despair and an easy death.

Put is this way, if the reader is on tenterhooks wondering, will he do it or not, it is a moral choice. If the reader is merely wondering, will it work, it is a technical problem. Certainly there is a will-it-work element to the astronaut's dilemma. But without the will-he-won't-he question, it is just a fictional documentary.

To be clear on this, even the simple moral choice of doing the right thing rather than the wrong thing is a choice between values. The hero is not going to contemplate doing the wrong thing unless doing the right thing is incompatible with one of his values. The countervailing value to doing the wrong thing is the social isolation that results from it. Does Jim want to keep the million and lose the respect of his wife and family?

In fiction, it is not the rightness or wrongness of the act that matters, but the choice of values that is inherent in it.

Original score: 5