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The Peaceful Solution

I feel like too often, especially in fantasy, everything has to climax with a big battle scene of good vs evil. And I get it, big battles are cool. But I like my stories to have a more peaceful message. My stories tend to climax with the main protagonist confronting the antagonist and uses reasoning to find a diplomatic solution to the problem at hand. Themes of Good vs. Evil are not in my stories. I don't believe that a person can be truely evil or truely good and not everything is black and white. I reflect my beliefs in my writing. I am a pacifist, and my main characters tend to be as well (although not all the time). While battles do happen in my stories, my main character is usually a civilian trying to escape or an onlooker watching from afar. They rarely combat, often choosing to use a voice and not a sword.

What do you think about peaceful solutions?
 

Saigonnus

Auror
I am a bit of a pacifist myself, so I understand the mindset. It isn't something seen often in Fantasy in general, so go for it.

As for the whole good vs. evil thing, in most novels it is more a my way of life vs. your way of life. How these things are vilified by their rival nations to make it "seem" that the people/leader is evil not necessarily that they truly ARE evil. I think the notion of pure evil is unrealistic. Just rival ideologies.

I think ultimately, there would be situations that simply cannot be solved through negotiations or diplomacy. Either the persons involved cannot find common ground, they are too set in their ways, or simply choose not to take that route.

Why negotiate when you can bring the sword and dictate terms? Especially for the antagonists.


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My books feature no antagonists whatsoever, and it is a mithril-clad law that no characters ever kill another [unless completely by accident for whatever reason].
 

Aurora

Sage
I feel like too often, especially in fantasy, everything has to climax with a big battle scene of good vs evil. And I get it, big battles are cool. But I like my stories to have a more peaceful message. My stories tend to climax with the main protagonist confronting the antagonist and uses reasoning to find a diplomatic solution to the problem at hand. Themes of Good vs. Evil are not in my stories. I don't believe that a person can be truely evil or truely good and not everything is black and white. I reflect my beliefs in my writing. I am a pacifist, and my main characters tend to be as well (although not all the time). While battles do happen in my stories, my main character is usually a civilian trying to escape or an onlooker watching from afar. They rarely combat, often choosing to use a voice and not a sword.

What do you think about peaceful solutions?
There is definitely evil in this world. Child molesters, killers, abusers. There are people in this world that are truly evil. But I digress. You can make your story whatever you want it to be but if you don't have good vs evil or anything vs anything, how do you handle conflict in your stories?
 

Jorunn

Dreamer
I always enjoy a clever, non-violent solution to a conflict as long as it makes sense. Even without Good vs Evil, conflicts can be bitter. They can also be way more interesting than cosmic G v. E. When you're dealing with "my way of life vs. your way of life" like Saigonnus said, I think you have to really know your conflict to make a peaceful solution work. Cultural and political clashes engender deep resentments on both sides that are often passed down generations and there is often violence (sometimes a great deal over centuries) before a peaceful resolution can be negotiated. There has to be a compelling reason for this particular character to succeed in negotiating a resolution, especially if the conflict is on a large scale or has been going on for a long time.

When the conflict is on a smaller scale, or is new in the time of the story I think there are more workable options. Fairy tale/spirit world inspired stories are great for non-violent resolutions because the conflicts tend to be more personal and it's often not about destroying the antagonist but outwitting or defusing them. The animated film Song of the Sea does this in a really beautiful way (and is also a gorgeous piece of artwork and storytelling in general). The protagonist's goal doesn't always have to be diplomacy to be non-violent, either. They could need to retrieve or restore something (see Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal. It's a Good v Evil story with no pitched battle and it's brilliant). The conflict can be largely internal, like in Voyage of the Dawn Treader (my favorite of the Narnia series, btw because ships!). There isn't a single conflict they face on the whole voyage that is solved with violence, it's all cleverness and compassion.

So peaceful solutions can definitely work in fantasy, the trick is to craft the story so that the protagonist's peaceful path feels natural.
 
Hi,

Actually my latest which is with my editor has a peaceful solution - after the big battle scene. In short the good guys went out to fight, realised they were completely outclassed, were barely holding their own, when a former bad girl saved the day by calling some allies. But then after the battle was ended, diplomacy and the exposure of plots / corruption were what really saved the day. And my heroes mother - who might actually be the most completely evil character in the book! - did it.

I wanted a story where the bad guys saved the day, and the victims weren't innocent, and the heroes didn't win the good fight. And yet it's not grimdark!

Cheers, Greg.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
One major trick is for a negotiated ending to make sense. Most times I've seen this from unpub'd writers it came off pitiably hokey. This works in some smaller scale situations, but in a nation vs nation situation (in particular if the cultures have nothing in common) peace is mostly negotiated only after someone's ass is kicked. I mean heck, the Hatfields and McCoys wasn't really settled it just kind of faded, as I recall.

Of course, in two of the three books I'm writing now peace is found by running the hell away, LOL. Mass migration.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
There is violence and non-violence. There is good and evil. Those two polar opposites often intertwine, but they are not synonymous. There is also war and peace. Let's leave aside good and evil (though I'm in the camp that does believe there is genuine evil in both the real world and in fantasy worlds), to look at the others.

Peace is little more than the absence of war. Peacetime hardly means a lack of violence. For a good examination of this, I refer you to, well, War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy.

Conversely, there can be remarkable acts of kindness and non-violence in the midst of war. Again, see Tolstoy.

What I'm driving at here is that I believe the OP sets up a false choice. Here as in darn near every thread I comment on these days, what matters is that the story is told well, not what themes are chosen. If you want to write a story that eschews or even outright condemns violence, then have at it. Do it well.
 
There is definitely evil in this world. Child molesters, killers, abusers. There are people in this world that are truly evil. But I digress. You can make your story whatever you want it to be but if you don't have good vs evil or anything vs anything, how do you handle conflict in your stories?

I would argue against there being evil as society sees it, but I don't think that is the place for that discussion since it involves touchy subjects. However, I never said my stories didn't have anything vs anything. There are antagonists in my stories but the stories is usually not about fighting them. The main character usually goes on a quest that helps them understand the antagonist's motive and at the end they use reason to end the conflict. I feel like other above probably said how it works better than I can, but I feel like I still needed to say something.
 

Rkcapps

Sage
Negotiating seems good to me but I'd like a twist, preferably unseen though hinted at. Hence that's what I'm working on.
 

Russ

Istar
I deal with peaceful solutions in my life. Personally I prefer more direct and satisfying conflict resolution in my fiction.

I think it can be quite challenging to write peaceful, negotiated solutions that will satisfy your readers. But as said above, if you can do it really, really well, go for it.

I struggle to think of much genre fiction where the conflict is ended without struggle, or by negotiation. And without conflict there is no story.
 
You could try reading Robert Asprin's MythAdventures series of books. They are light, comical stories, fairly short. Skeeve is a magician's apprentice who always finds himself in a position of responsibility with an overblown reputation—as far as magic goes, he's mostly a charlatan—and he's often put in the position of solving large problems for others, especially in the earlier books. So he uses deception, manipulation, wheeling and dealing to solve conflicts, by necessity.

It's comic, but many of the general ideas could be applied to more serious stories. Also, in some of the stories he's a third party to the conflict, or mostly so, and this is a pretty good place to be in when trying to manipulate both sides toward a relatively peaceful solution.

For me, the most important factor is being sure to create the setup in such a way that a peaceful solution can be possible at the end of the story. If you have hate-filled, warmongering forces invading, chances of negotiation might go out the window, hah. But if the leaders of both armies are rational, open to accepting other solutions, whatever, and your world building allows for various potential gains besides genocidal invasion, you could arrange some other settlement. If you don't create the setup right, trying to force a peaceful solution at the end could come across as hackneyed or inorganic, mechanical, etc.

Plus, of course, there are many other types of fantasy stories that don't involve clashing armies.

I feel like too often, especially in fantasy, everything has to climax with a big battle scene of good vs evil. And I get it, big battles are cool. But I like my stories to have a more peaceful message. My stories tend to climax with the main protagonist confronting the antagonist and uses reasoning to find a diplomatic solution to the problem at hand. Themes of Good vs. Evil are not in my stories. I don't believe that a person can be truely evil or truely good and not everything is black and white. I reflect my beliefs in my writing. I am a pacifist, and my main characters tend to be as well (although not all the time). While battles do happen in my stories, my main character is usually a civilian trying to escape or an onlooker watching from afar. They rarely combat, often choosing to use a voice and not a sword.

What do you think about peaceful solutions?
 
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Mindfire

Istar
Peaceful solutions are good, if only for the sake of variety. Even climactic battles might start to get boring after a while if that's all there is to the genre. The main thing is that your ending, whether there's a battle or not, must: follow logically from the story's events, showcase character development, support the themes of your story, and give the reader some kind of satisfying conclusion. Check all those boxes and you're good.
 
I feel like too often, especially in fantasy, everything has to climax with a big battle scene of good vs evil. And I get it, big battles are cool. But I like my stories to have a more peaceful message. My stories tend to climax with the main protagonist confronting the antagonist and uses reasoning to find a diplomatic solution to the problem at hand. Themes of Good vs. Evil are not in my stories. I don't believe that a person can be truely evil or truely good and not everything is black and white. I reflect my beliefs in my writing. I am a pacifist, and my main characters tend to be as well (although not all the time). While battles do happen in my stories, my main character is usually a civilian trying to escape or an onlooker watching from afar. They rarely combat, often choosing to use a voice and not a sword.

What do you think about peaceful solutions?

Hmmmm.

Well, the reasoning behind using a battle in the climax is that a battle is the final release of the tension built up throughout the story. A story 'builds up' to a climax. It's got to be tense and exciting. A situation that's resolved through negotiation would probably feel more like a sudden deflation of tension rather than an explosion.

But, that doesn't mean it has to be that way. I don't like the glorification of war in fantasy; a pacifist character would be refreshing. If you can resolve a story through negotiation in a way that still offers a tense, emotional climax that fulfills the tension built up throughout the story, then go for it. A climax doesn't have to be fighting.
 
I feel like too often, especially in fantasy, everything has to climax with a big battle scene of good vs evil. And I get it, big battles are cool. But I like my stories to have a more peaceful message. My stories tend to climax with the main protagonist confronting the antagonist and uses reasoning to find a diplomatic solution to the problem at hand. Themes of Good vs. Evil are not in my stories. I don't believe that a person can be truely evil or truely good and not everything is black and white. I reflect my beliefs in my writing. I am a pacifist, and my main characters tend to be as well (although not all the time). While battles do happen in my stories, my main character is usually a civilian trying to escape or an onlooker watching from afar. They rarely combat, often choosing to use a voice and not a sword.

What do you think about peaceful solutions?

I enjoy stories that are resolved by one party outsmarting the other, regardless of whether violence is required to seal the deal or ensuing negotiation suffices. I'm not so sure how easy it would be for someone to write a story resolved only by negotiation that I'd find entertaining enough to read, but if you managed it, that would be cool.
 
If you can resolve a story through negotiation in a way that still offers a tense, emotional climax that fulfills the tension built up throughout the story, then go for it. A climax doesn't have to be fighting.

This is a really great point.

Often when threads about creating tension arise, the question will seem to revolve around the idea that tension can only be created through action, maybe through physical violence and the threat of physical violence.

But tension can be created in so many other ways. What percent of all novels, of all genres, published each year involve armies in battle? Do those not using warfare have no tension and no climax?

I haven't written a peaceful (or at least non-violent) conclusion to any story involving armies at war, but I suspect that doing so successfully will require a lot of character drama, character tension, and the climax will require some kind of interesting conclusion to that tension.

The poet Auden mentioned in one of his essays the dehumanizing nature of warfare fought at a distance. A bomber pilot dropping a bomb on a field in which only specks are seen can distance himself a bit from what he's doing. Those specks might as well be sheep. (This was the image Auden used.) When writing about warfare, if we distance ourselves from the people on the ground, we may lose some of that potential for building tension through character conflict and be forced to rely on the physical aspect of that combat, and its resolution, for the climax. Often this means we are only in the heads of a POV character and close allies while most of the other combatants, especially on the enemy force, are little more than redshirts or plot devices. This is how we get those enemy commanders who are single-minded destroyers, maybe even evil incarnate, and how stories might be cast as good vs evil and can only climax when the good forces win on the battlefield.

But if we can write of these combatants as real people, with many aspirations and goals and even fears beyond merely fighting and winning battles, we might be able to find non-violent resolutions to the war. Accords, new alliances being made, carrots to work where the stick is unpersuasive, betrayals of a sovereign's desire for war at all cost, and so forth.

Edit: In any case....if a peaceful resolution is what's desired, the tension and climax need to revolve around something more than in whether Good Guys can defeat Evil Guys on the battlefield.
 
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Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I feel like too often, especially in fantasy, everything has to climax with a big battle scene of good vs evil. And I get it, big battles are cool. But I like my stories to have a more peaceful message. My stories tend to climax with the main protagonist confronting the antagonist and uses reasoning to find a diplomatic solution to the problem at hand. Themes of Good vs. Evil are not in my stories. I don't believe that a person can be truely evil or truely good and not everything is black and white. I reflect my beliefs in my writing. I am a pacifist, and my main characters tend to be as well (although not all the time). While battles do happen in my stories, my main character is usually a civilian trying to escape or an onlooker watching from afar. They rarely combat, often choosing to use a voice and not a sword.

What do you think about peaceful solutions?

This is certainly doable. You don't have to have battle or violence to have conflict, or to resolve conflict. It's just a matter of writing it and seeing whether the execution works.
 
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