Week One

Halt 1
The point of this class is to make your prose engaging by heightening the tension throughout rather than just focusing on the major plot points. Making situations bothersome in a random way isn’t particularly effective; instead, use the pattern laid out in this course so the characters react to annoyances the way you want them to. Your readers will thank you.
Watching the shows before reading the analysis could make it easier to follow, but if you don’t want to, that that’s fine. You don’t need to understand the plots; we look at extracted moments that demonstrate how Micro-obstacles lead to Flow that leads to major conflict. You can discover methods, timing, and reasons for using Micro-obstacles in these lessons without even reading the full analyses of the TV shows and movies, so if that element doesn’t resonate with you, in the movie/TV analyses, you may read only the sentences outlined in red and the yellow highlighted Recaps and you extrapolate the main points. The class includes fiction examples as well as direct summations of the technique, so however you learn best, you should be able to grasp the concept.
The key to it all: Micro-obstacles are little problems that prevent the ease of forward momentum. When characters face them, they naturally become frustrated at not being able to achieve the goal of the moment. There are complex and varied reactions to this depending on the scenario, which these lessons go into in detail. As one example of what happens — the characters become so overwrought their defenses break down.
To continue that example – once characters can’t take it anymore, they reveal information they’ve been resisting communicating. Words spew out in a moment of Flow.
They’ve now said more than they should, have acted impulsively in anger, sexuality, carelessness, honesty, etc. Because a narrative is constructed out of disasters until the Climax, we expect that this Flow will create major conflict.
Show Analysis
The TV show Halt and Catch Fire provides beautiful examples of the methods and benefits of Micro-obstacles that many great writers of screen/teleplays/fiction put in the way of characters’ forward momentum. After such frustration, the characters can’t take it anymore and dramatically open the gates to Flow, revealing more information than they would have otherwise, and in a more explosive way.
Let’s begin with Season 2, Episode 6 in this series about the uneasy relationship between these characters’ computer companies. Note that Flow can be negative, and Micro-obstacles positive.
Main characters:
Gordon is Donna’s husband, working from home on computer innovation with his own new computer company.
Donna (Gordon’s wife) works at Cameron’s company, Mutiny. She is privately dating Ryan.
Joe is Building Manager at a company run by Jacob. Joe is benevolently trying to network the company he works for with Cameron’s company. Joe, now engaged to Sarah, used to be romantic partners with Cameron, and still loves her, but she and Donna are wary of him and thus treat him as the enemy rather than as their benefactor.
If the series Links to an external site. intrigues you enough to binge watch to catch up to that episode first, it’s available at Netflix and Amazon.
Episode Summary Links to an external site.: “Jacob tells Joe that he revised Mutiny’s network rental contract, raising their hourly rate from $3 to $5. Gordon takes his daughters to California to see his brother Henry, and Gordon reveals his condition to Henry; Gordon also reconnects with Henry’s ex-girlfriend Jules Duffy, which later escalates to an affair. When Joe goes to Mutiny to discuss the new terms, Donna lashes out against Joe, which results in him taking Mutiny offline. Donna goes to Westgroup to apologize to Joe for her outburst; he then offers Mutiny a reduced rate if they meet certain technological benchmarks, including porting their programs to the Att&T Unix PC. Thinking Joe won’t know the difference, Tom suggests faking the Unix demo to get the reduced rate, then go cross-platform at their leisure; however, when Joe returns to Mutiny for the demo, he sees through their deception. After lying to her mother earlier about having a miscarriage, Donna has Cameron drive her to an abortion clinic. Gordon’s trip is cut short when he and Henry have a falling out over Gordon’s affair with Jules. Despite their ruse, Joe saw potential for innovation within Mutiny, and he suggests to Jacob that Westgroup should acquire them.”
Episode 6 begins with a Micro-obstacle: Joe unsuccessfully attempting to communicate with his fiancé, Sarah, on the phone, leaving her a gentle message asking her to call him back and to return to their shared home; she’s been gone for a week and won’t pick up. When he gets a call right after, he gets excited, thinking it’s her, but it’s his boss. The Micro-obstacles make the experience of the phone call from his boss more dramatically intense.
The boss, Jacob, says Business Development has made some tweaks to the contract with Joe’s ex-girlfriend Cameron’s company, Mutiny. Jacob wants to change their hourly rate, which would be devastating for Mutiny. Joe goes to see his boss in response to the call to go to bat for Mutiny, which Joe’s boss still wants to let go if they don’t sign the contract with the new rate.
Gordon flies out to see his smiling but bewildered brother, who asks what prompted that decision; Gordon puts off answering the question, thus creating a Micro-obstacle. So, after that Micro-obstacle, though we might not have cared otherwise about whether Gordon opens up to his brother, we do now. Why? Because we’re not given the information easily; it’s withheld from us. Now, we want to know how it turns out. The upcoming scene of the conversation has been foreshadowed, and we know Gordon needs the right moment to feel comfortable, needs a situation in which the brothers are experiencing intimate Flow to share his disturbing secret.
And we empathize with the desire of the brother to learn the answer. When the conversation finally happens, as Gordon we feel a vicarious release of feel-good chemicals, in a scene full of warmth. Gordon has appeared at his brother’s house to release the pressure of a pent-up secret, letting the truth out about his recently discovered brain malfunction that makes him become hypomanic. Brother-to-brother talks about health problems aren’t thought of as all that exciting, so craft must make them so.
That Flow has a psychological effect on Gordon, making him vulnerable, and ready to continue acting with Flow, even if it’s a dangerous thing to do, something he wouldn’t have done in a more controlled state of mind. (That scene, in which he is too sexually forthcoming, is described shortly.)
Recap:
• Micro-obstacles while delivering information create extraneous interest and character development, anticipation, the desire to know, and cliffhangers –for the audience. Never random, frustrating obstacles to characters’ progress create the emotional urge for growing momentum toward release, which makes the audience pay more attention and want the information they’re so focused on trying to obtain, against the odds.
• Micro-obstacles affect the characters, so we see how they handle stress. And when the trend of frustration is over, and they open into Flow, they often become over-confident, excited, accepting, loving, forthcoming, which makes them vulnerable.
In a domestic scene with Gordon’s wife, Donna, and her mother, we see demands on their patience. Toys underfoot represent how children interfere with Flow. A conversation with Donna’s mother needs something active happening to make it interesting, right? (Conversations in passive situations are rarely part of a successful narrative.) As they talk, her mother presents a couple of Troll dolls she found in the pockets of the pool table. Donna says — “Joanie practically refused to go to California without them.” The event symbolizes the helpful role of mothers.
When her mother laughs, Donna doesn’t; we know she needs to talk honestly about her psychological pain. The tone of the laugh, while sweet, is irritatingly shrill, which makes us feel even more for Donna. We want the mother to find relief before the sound becomes overwhelmingly acrid.
“Are you alright, honey?” asks Donna’s mother. Donna’s not ready to open up; if she were, there would be no Micro-obstacle tension in the scene to build up to the revelation of information.
After her mother continues prodding her, Donna finally lets the floodgates loose with, “Yeah, well, Gordon has a thing called ‘free time!’” Her regret for snapping at her mother makes it more likely she’ll open up with further detail to soothe their relationship. Donna’s secretive personality creates Micro-obstacles to communication.
“How about you tell me what’s really going on,” mother says more loudly with determination. Donna stops jerkily washing a dish. Normally, people aren’t keen to overhear marital woe conversations between mothers and daughters. Craft makes us want to listen.
Donna’s half-truths balance the straightforward personality of the mother. She defensively releases the message the best she can while fitting into her mother’s world. So, she calls the abortion a miscarriage, and when her mother shows sympathy, Donna claims it’s a good thing.
Recap:
• Micro-obstacles represent aspects of humanity that readers/viewers identify with, such as the patience of mothers with children.
• Micro-obstacles arise from important personality traits, such as secretiveness so that they become important to the core conflict.
• Micro-obstacles build so much pressure characters break into angry conversations; creating characteristic revelations of things they wouldn’t let out otherwise. This is a type of Flow, which may be productive or non-productive.
Next, we see the conflict of Cameron’s tech workers trying to get a TV to play, but it won’t give them the information they seek, so they exclaim before running out of the room, making us feel the frustration, so we want the information. A knock interrupts Cameron and Ryan’s sex, so their attention heightens. The whole department strains outside the door listening to them, and the information we need to know is quickly yelled through the door, while Cameron pulls on her clothes. The abstract information itself isn’t visually appealing. Micro-obstacles make the very technical information dump pleasing.

When Joe brings Cameron and Donna a contract, they don’t sign without resistance and disagreement. Joe and Cameron argue. Joe is dominant because he can’t negotiate the price. The irony is that he would give them the lower price they’re prepared to pay if his boss let him. But the women treat him like he’s being ruthless, creating obstacles. That unfairness makes us sympathetic to him.
Whether people sign a contract may not matter to us, but we do care about someone we perceive as our friend, because of that evoked sympathy. Joe grows increasingly considerate of others like Cameron. He accepts his punishment and being distrusted because of his risk-taking. The frustration of Micro-obstacles is amplified, so the scenery changes to match.
The powerful symmetrical visuals in this major stand-off and the one in the screenshot below contrast with niggling Micro-obstacle scenes. In fiction as well, place people in locations where the composition has a meaningful subconscious impact. For major conflict, locations can be stark, unyielding, showing the equal power of the antagonist and protagonist. When one is winning at the end, that person moves forward, slightly sifting the balance. Major conflict locations are visually very different from locations of scenes of Micro-obstacles, which are messy and complex.
The conversation between Joe and Ryan as they lean against the kitchen sink is not overtly dramatic. But the visuals indicate the important subtext: they’re back-lit, in black and white, equally paired off, with cabinets on either side of them as they vie for Cameron’s love. The cabinet doors divide the screen down the center, suggesting their barely acknowledged sparring could sway Cameron toward either man.
Ryan throws the gauntlet when he says, “She knows what she wants.” The implication is that since she’s already married Ryan, Joe has lost. Joe comes out ahead through subtle visual subtext in discussion with Ryan at the sink, so we know he will ultimately win her over. He’s the one who leaves, coming into the camera, while Ryan shows a nuance of frustration as he remains by the sink. That subtle moment sets the tone for the rest of the series.
Recap:
• Micro-obstacles are unpleasant for us, so we selfishly are invested in the characters resolving their issues.
• Micro-obstacle locations are messy, complicated, not symmetrical, in strong opposition to locations of scenes of major confrontations.
• Micro-obstacle sounds tend to be frenetic.
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So, now the show returns to the Flow scene in the bar we left off with near the beginning. The long-awaited conversation about Gordon’s mental health shows his concerned brother sympathizing and asking what he can do, though, ironically, skipping out on the tab. Eventually, they drink more beer and get more relaxed. Gordon happens to meet his old flame, Jules, there, after having immersed himself in the attempted Flow of the revelation to his understanding, if weak, brother, and the beer, and warm lighting with a string of colors linking them.
Alcohol, drugs, mutual sexual attraction, costumes, a grand idea, a past connection rekindled, fog, playfulness, mania and refreshingly bold honesty all create a sense of Flow, making characters make different choices than they do when frustrated by Micro-obstacles.
The soft dim light instead of visible right angles of the walls contributes to the relaxed pace, and the ambient light is like fog, joining them together moistly. Jules comes over only after the brother has left the room. By setting the scene up that way, the Micro-obstacle released into Flow, a “gutter” is being built for Gordon’s emotions to move toward Jules naturally. No obstacles come up. They reminisce about the past; continuing to spend time together seems natural.
Recap:
• Flow happens by design, since people seek it out, with dim, warm lighting, drugs, and alcohol. They let down their guard with trusted people, mutual attraction, playful costumes meant to facilitate expressiveness, being out in good weather, easy walking, pleasant water experiences like surfing, boating or swimming for fun, sports-in-the-zone. It’s enhanced by smooth voices, good-times horseback riding or skating, relaxed dancing, organic architecture and places meant for facilitating ease of casually meeting people, music with notes held a long time or sliding from one note to the following one. It urges people to take risks of intimacy.
• Flow also arises naturally when things are making sense, maybe even too much sense, as with Gordon’s hypo-mania. It can lead to poor judgment and wishful thinking, acting too quickly on an idea before thinking it through.
• Flow happens after Micro-obstacles create frustration. People have positive associations with effortless moments compared to Micro-obstacles. They may experience more passion and a sense of liberation in contrast to pent-up desires, putting themselves in danger because they’re not cautious about their surroundings.
Donna and Joe square off as she tries to establish equality regarding the business deal; again, we have the fantastic background images of the location. This visual scene of a major conflict is in stark contrast to moments of Micro-obstacles, which are human, often funny, showing the Everyman aspect of ordinary life that we can relate to. Characters become larger-than-life archetypes. Superheroes never experience Micro-obstacles or the unbalanced, vulnerable Flow. They exist in archetypal settings, not messy, mundane ones.
The characters standoff in an office with imposing rows of fluorescent lights angling toward them. The symmetrical setting alternates between Joe and Donna standing in the center of the frame. Everything is huge, white, sterile, and impersonal. Joe stands, arms crossed, unable to budge on the price, while she pleads for humanity. The visuals are static and unyielding, just like Joe’s boss’s offer, which Joe must represent. Joe stands with arms crossed, blocking her pleas.
When Donna and Ryan consult Cameron about it, Cameron has two choices. As the powerful owner of the company, she’s poised in the corner of the kitchen. When Ryan suggests outsmarting Joe, we expect from the conclusion of that previous kitchen scene that Ryan will remain in the weak position. Joe’s strength is honesty, while Ryan’s dishonesty has no secure foundation.
They rig the computer to fool Joe. Everything is visually complicated, full of Micro-obstacles. Things seem to go smoothly when he inspects it. Will they get away with it? The Flow gives them hope until the mood shifts dramatically when Joe figures out the deception in is the traditional dramatic beat of the False Win.
So, the mixed Micro-obstacle of their fear and their hope during the Flow raises our hopes. Simultaneously, we want them punished for their crime, and for Joe to get a break. The exciting build-up of the Flow makes us think maybe they have a big win. But no.
Flow can be mixed with Micro-obstacles when different characters are at odds; people in Flow behave gracefully with relaxed muscles, while people experiencing Micro-obstacles speak in terse sentences are jittery, with jagged movements, and tense faces.
Recap:
• Flow can get our hopes up and seem to be building in one direction, which suddenly shifts a good dramatic technique.
• Micro-obstacles make characters relatable, which makes it easier to believe their fictional lives. The composition of their settings is ordinary.
• In contrast to messy Micro-obstacles or fluid Flow, major conflict settings include symmetry.
Gordon meets up with his old crush, Jules who reveals the extent of her husband/Gordon’s brother’s alcoholism. It’s a Micro-obstacle scene, so the daylight is harsher than at the bar, they don’t seem as in sync, and the compositions are disjointed, and she’s about to leave without them growing any more intimate. The scene ends with foreshadowing — the suggestion of “weed,” so we suspect the sequential scene with them will Flow and the tension of this part will be released, and we can anticipate that they may overcome their reluctance.
And, so it is. This time they’re contained in the back of his truck, arms and legs angled toward each other as well as spread into the relaxed adventure of speaking honestly. They bring up why she went out with his brother instead of Gordon. Her first answer is rough, but her subsequent answers are flattering, the Flow moves toward union. Scenes of Flow that ends up with oceanic, euphoric feelings begin with tension.
Gordon and Jules are gently arranged on their corners of the truck, his arm, laid straight across, reaching slightly farther over the center line than hers does. We expect from the Flow and directionality of the composition he’ll succeed in an assertive act toward intimacy. We also see the gasoline can in front of the lit joint and can guess, consciously or subconsciously, this foreshadows his marriage blowing up.
Contrast between the frustrating Micro-obstacle static of his married life and the Flow with Jules is palpable. The Flow and mimics the sensation of infatuation, being in the zone, the rush of neurotransmitters like dopamine, the invitingly deceptive ease of releasing pent-up emotions into open communion with someone compatible and forbidden. The ease of the moment wafts them into love-making.
He tries to ride the Flow to spill information about his brain issue to her. At first, it works, but she reads his attempt at Flow as artificial, selfish, so this leads to major conflict. Jules feels Gordon’s dumping on her.
Scenes end with the resourceful person establishing Flow; Donna gets the daughters to sleep next to Gordon in the motel room, and Joe proposes to his boss that they acquire Cameron’s company where Donna works.
Micro-obstacles happen most often in the early parts of a narrative, but they can happen at any stage. Toward the end, however, the action tends to be grander, with bigger obstacles.
Flow rarely lasts long. Conflict is the stuff of fiction. But if we never experienced Flow, the effect would be grim, without suspenseful ups and downs to play our hopes against our fears.
Flow scenes that end positively ends with a subtle hint of the larger obstacle the vulnerable trust, risk-taking, etc. is engendering. (The exception is the final scene of an optimistic novel. In a Romance, we assume a fairy tale marriage. And we’ve seen other scenes of Flow leading up to that, persuading us the couple is right together because they’d live a happily ever after Flow after marriage.)
Recap:
• Micro-obstacle scenes lead to scenes of Flow that leads to major conflict. Flow scenes begin with Micro-obstacles, so the scene has a chance to flip from negative to positive.
• Micro-obstacles and Flow portray powerful contrast between reality and the desired situation. This motivates the character to struggle to achieve his goal, which is plot.
• When Flow occurs if it’s not deserved, that leads to major conflict that punishes him. In a way, the audience wants the character to achieve his desires. Yet we ultimately prefer him to get what he needs, challenging as that may be. The character’s arc involves releasing what he wants to instead accept what he needs, or – to integrate the two.
• When one character is in Flow, often another character is not, and that dichotomy leads to tension we want resolved.
• Resourceful people can achieve productive Flow though suspenseful struggle. If the quest is in integrity, we appreciate and admire them for it. If they’re punished unfairly for it, we love them and hate their punishers.
• Micro-obstacles happen most often in the early part of a narrative.
The next episode begins with Gordon and Donna after he’s told her about his brain issue. And what does he say? “This is a complication, that’s it. Lord knows we’ve overcome our fair share of those, right? This cannot derail anything.” And what do we remember? Donna singing to their daughters at the end of the previous episode, and the girls going effortlessly to sleep. A resourceful character heroically overcoming Micro-obstacles to achieve productive Flow.
Micro-obstacles show us instances of characters’ persistence, and that reminds us our own slogging through our lives can pay off. And if it does pay off for us, maybe we can achieve great things and deal with terrible setbacks. However, in the movie, his hopeful statement that it’s only going to be a Micro-obstacle suggests that in fact, he’s being naïve, and though they survive, though their marriage may not. This is not going to be a Micro-obstacle but a major conflict. While she was singing the girls to sleep, he was off tearing their marriage apart by dangerous Flow. Two different kinds of Flow are contrasted here as are Micro-obstacles and major conflict.
The visuals are complicated in Micro-obstacle moments; workers in Gordon’s new home-based computer company crowd around, the camera angles non-symmetrical, the background full of junk. Hours of Micro-obstacles paid off with apparent success. Resulting Flow moments are shot with simple imagery. The Flow scene is shot close up on his overly hopeful face. Predictably, the narrative follows our formula and cycles to scenes in which major conflict is stubbornly negotiated are static, without much activity until the slight movement at the end indicating the winner, with architectural placement mimicking their power dynamics.
Episode 7
During Flow, music sometimes comes in to emphasize that soaring quality. We see this same pattern in Episode 7’s first scene with Joe. He and his boss are excited about ways to aid Cameron’s company. The beginning of the episode continues the hope for Flow from the end of the last one, with hope for unity, acceptance, and cooperation in the subplots.
We’re left with Gordon taking center stage with an inspiring speech to his new company team members. The composition and the lighting of the foreground and background symbolize a company Flowing forward from his shaky vision. However, we know that until the end of a movie, protagonist must make mistakes, so we can’t trust the Flow. If it’s happening, that means something will go wrong, creating irony and suspense. We feel sorry for him and anticipate his fall from delusional grace.
Since the subplot scenes are all ending with Flow in this episode so far, the subplots can be expected to run into obstacles again before too long. The characters desperately want positive, trustworthy, stable lives with continual forward momentum. Because they want to believe in moments of Flow when they shouldn’t, they can create major conflict. Trying to believe in Flow can cause misplaced optimism and mistakes.
About a third of the way in, Donna brings up to her mother the same line about Gordon’s brain issue being, “A complication. And Lord knows we’ve overcome our fair share of those.” She’s trying to keep the hopefulness of that sentence alive, as believing in the Flow is the only way they can move forward with love. Donna’s mother’s delightfully sour look introduces the Micro-obstacles bubbling up in subplots as the characters try to prolong harmony.
But that means everyone else has to get on board with moving forward on the projects such as Joe’s proposed acquisition of Cameron’s company. They all disagree.
Since Gordon’s big Flow moment led to spending an inordinate amount of money, Donna is faced with curtailing the hypo-manic Flow. In the next scene, Donna focuses on his job. When one of his workers enters the kitchen to get a cup, she starts to give him coffee. He says the cup is to put small parts in. The topic of Gordon’s overspending comes up.
Too high dopamine causes Gordon to believe in success spite of the odds. He draws unreasonably on energy reserves from his adrenals. This creates artificial, dangerous Flow.
When Joe, his father, and fiancée Sarah meet at a table at a restaurant, she starts to speak about breaking it off with Joe; her father interrupts her, and Joe interrupts him. Instead of her simply telling the father the problem, Micro-obstacles prevent her. When it’s information we already know, but which must be passed along to a character who doesn’t, we must avoid a boring scene of familiar facts. Difficulty in communication between the characters lends urgency to the transfer of the information. The scene ends with her asking: “Does anyone want to know what I think?” The staccato, short scene is entirely about lack of Flow.
Gordon gets the model of the Pro computer working, which has only taken two days, and everyone drinks and celebrates. He tells the guys, “The hardest thing in life is to get knocked down and then get back up constantly. But we do it because we love it. And we know deep down that if it’s the right idea, it can be bigger than all of us.” He says he’s finally found how he can tell them with confidence that they can follow their dreams no matter how hard it is.
For the writer to give us a generic, simplistic message like, “Follow your dreams and you can get past all the obstacles” would be naive in this realistic show. The implication in the subtext of the show is that it might not really always turn to Flow. Because as he says those words, ironically, he thinks he’s at a different time and place, due to his brain issue.
Characters’ perception of Flow compared to the reality of their obstacles creates irony.
When Cameron asks people about voting on what to do with the company, Ryan doesn’t answer. So, we have the Micro-obstacle to the message. Only in a later scene in the hospital does he tell her that he wants the company and his relationship with Cameron to continue for a long time. Again, the theme of desire for forward momentum, the Flow.
The shot where Ryan and Cameron’s talk is a close-up, the music slow, a single color warm background color and warm lighting on both faces in the frame creates the sense of a Flow moment.
Ryan’s heartfelt conflicted answer involves the truth about his family, in which he concludes that Mutiny is Cameron’s to do with as she wishes. Cameron transforms because of the sudden Flow of intimacy and caring for someone other than herself. She states that “No, the company belongs to all of us. I’ll call Joe.” She’s been the obstacle, and now the dam is ready to break. However, the big twist is: she was right before! Ryan’s Flow was coming from his weakness and damage, fear and wishful thinking.
Joe discovers that his boss would ruin the company if he bought it and keeps her from selling it. He’s going to pull away, so we see his reflection fading as they look at their dying friend in the hospital.
Joe’s warns her off and breaks off association with Mutiny, moving toward the desire for a marriage lasting a long time.
Cameron switches back to saying to the tech guys, including the crushed Ryan, “Let me just one thing clear. This is my company. And I’m not selling it.” Her Flow with Ryan and with Joe is gone, but she’s being true to herself, as Joe suggested.
List
Micro-obstacles – irritations, tiny problems, snags, warnings, complaints, inclement weather, messy environments, complexities to figure out, harsh lighting, interruptions, annoying intrusions, secretiveness, mechanical malfunction, inability to retrieve information, losing things, tripping, sleepiness, stuttering, disagreements, reluctance, poor timing, tardiness, minor illnesses, bumbling, red tape, forgetting, not having enough money on one at the moment, unpleasant expressions, snark, being unable to hear or see something, losing a game, poor communications kills, miscommunication, deadlines, improper dress, lacking supplies, wrong assumptions, embarrassments, social awkwardness, procrastination, having to wait, competition, deal negotiations, difficult accents, bad dreams, strident, aggressive, staccato or music, hair flies in your face, twig hits in the face, smoke blown in eyes, children being insistent, insects, in scenes in between the major Points.
Flow – ease of movement, confidence and over-confidence, liquid, soft lighting, drugs and alcohol, pleasant dreams, smooth stride, gracefulness, warm lighting, expressing mutual physical attraction, relaxation, wealth, fitting in with community, ideas coming together, hypo-mania, organization, intuition, synchronicity, perfect timing, health, hubris, winning, clear communication, silky or euphoric music, being pampered, being on top of one’s game, lucky streaks, being forthcoming, beautiful weather, intuition, dancing, children laughing, playfulness, swimming, romantic moments, the belief one can get away with something, spiritual oneness, promotions, bird songs, fire in fireplace, tasty food, acceptance, co-ordination with others such as a basketball team being “in the zone,” speed, the outcome of the final battle in the Climax.
Example of Micro-obstacles Turning into Flow and into Major Conflict in Fiction
Note, in the scene below, the contraction in the muscles, assistant’s face, chair space. Here we have tight, awkward sentences with choices geared toward hard sounds: i.e., bucks instead of dollars. (Ninety-two rather than a hundred.) That sound morphs into spacious relaxation of the mind, senses, and sentences, making the protagonist vulnerable and gullible, for better or for worse.
(Micro-obstacles) The dental assistant with the pinched face and nasal voice led Cynthia into the long rectangular room. “Pick. Any. Chair,” she said, her words truncated by her aggressive gum chewing, punctuated by a final POP. Must have been that gum that cleans teeth. . . Cynthia hoped she wouldn’t be given the hard sell to buy some, herself. She needed to hold on tight to all of her last ninety-two bucks.
Cynthia had never seen anything like the row of chairs pushed up next to each other at wonky angles spanning the entire length of the room. One dentist couldn’t work on so many patients at once. No one else was waiting in the chairs. Odd, since it was the cheapest dentist clinic in San Francisco. Were they using this room as storage, to sell chairs on the Russian-American black market?
The dental assistant’s expression didn’t change a smidgen when Cynthia squeezed between the chairs with the most promising amount of liminal space. Cynthia turned sideways, and, getting one leg through, lifted the other leg onto the chair, twisted her body, so she lifted up on it and then spun the rest of the way around while lowering herself into the seat. She grinned at the assistant, but she was turned away, watching the flat screen TV high on the wall. The colors garish, the sounds jagged, accented by canned laughter.
The assistant got Cynthia situated while continuing to observe the sitcom on the screen. The metal spike missing the mouth when she began unceremoniously cleaning the teeth, poking the sensitive outer edge of the upper lip. When Cynthia jumped, the sharp point entered a nostril, scraping it. Blood dripped into her mouth while the distracted woman worked, unwiped. Salt. She kind of liked the taste of salt.
She wanted to swallow, but there was no room in her mouth for the movement. Pick pick. Push push. She moaned, darting her eyes toward the spittoon with running water. She drooled. The assistant hadn’t properly adjusted the bib, so Cynthia dripped pink onto her white work-shirt she’d found on sale at Goodwill, the only one she had that wasn’t sweat-stained around the collar. She’d have to find another opening in her tight schedule to go back and pick out another. The blasé assistant didn’t take her eyes off the badly lit people screaming and shaking their hands on the screen. Buzzers and flashing lights. A smarmy talk show host giving them deals deals deals. Should they take it or should they not? A clock is ticking.
When the commercial began, the assistant stuck the suction tube into Cynthia’s tongue, lifting it up into the air for far too long before the assistant decided to disengage it and put the tube where it was actually supposed to go, sucking up excess saliva. A dry mouf is a happy mouf!
(Flow) The sound of nylon: like a scratch and a hiss stretched out together on a bed. Cynthia turned her eyes sideways, straining the surrounding muscles. Something large, blue and soft squeezed through the doorway, the sound so much better than the suction and hectic TV she’d been squeezing her muscles to try to tune out. The sound of the loose, thick material against the doorway continued even longer than she could have hoped, the dentist being surely four hundred generous pounds.
“Hello, I’m Olga. Are you ready for me to take care of you today?”
Cynthia guessed around sixty-five years of age, with hair mostly still brown, pinned in slightly severe but unsymmetrical unnamable style. Skin a little pock-marked on her cheeks but smooth elsewhere.
“MmmmMamm.”
She sat on the chair next to Cynthia, her knees sideways. Smiling as if that position were perfectly normal, she said, in her thick Russian accent, “It will be nice.”
“You win!” said the game show host.
The scent wafting from the reddened moist folds in her arms was almost pleasant if Cynthia smelled it in the right way. Olga nodded, the wrinkles fanning from her eyes benevolently.
The assistant handed Olga something, and Cynthia closed her eyes before she thought too much. She felt Olga-hand pressure against the left side of her head, pulling it into the flesh. The gigantic bosom pressed against the right side of Cynthia’s head — and neck and shoulder. Olga seemed calmly convinced this was what needed to be done. Cynthia went along with it, concentrating on keeping her expression looking unsurprised. Olga worked and worked, pulling Cynthia’s head closer to her now and then to reach different parts of the mouth.
Meanwhile, she asked Cynthia, “What you think sin is, Sinthia?”
The patient opened her eyes and peered up over the rounded expanse of nylon to the extremely relaxed face.
“Do you think it’s what God enjoys quite a lot to judge?”
Cynthia wanted to say she wasn’t an expert. Her name was just a name.
But speaking words seemed irrelevant. The warm nylon was compelling against her ear. So dry. So present, so merging with the nerves that registered sound waves.
“I like meditate instead,” Olga proclaimed.
Instead of sinning? Or judging.
“You like meditating too.”
I do?
“As soon as we put on this.”
The assistant reached over Cynthia for the nitrous tank and mask and strapped her in. Olga pulled her farther into oceanic breasts. Shhhhhhhssssshhhhssss. . .
The world became everywhere. An endless flowing line of golden light linked past and future.
“Boy, do I have a great deal for you!” said the game show host. “This is what you’ve always dreamed of.”
Oh? I don’t remember this part.
Olga was the mother force of all creation manifesting in Cynthia’s mouth. The assistant popped off gum sound waves into eternity that went wawawawah.
“You’ve won the jackpot!”
“You like come back next week for special deal. You pay now, to get in on the low price, non-refundable, a five-year plan. You authorize?”
(Major conflict) Cynthia nodded, and the world nodded too.
Olga called to the woman at the front desk. “Two o’clock next Tuesday. Please charge card.”
Cynthia could hardly wait to enter the next door of Paradise. Liquid possibilities glowed bright.
Note the Stockholm Syndrome created by the multiple Micro-obstacles when even the tiniest hints of Flow begin, such as the saliva being sucked up successfully. This scene happens in under an hour, and the action involves the main characters taking only a few steps and sitting in chairs. The reader experiences the compression of the office. The pressure of the Micro-obstacles needs release for a harmonious visit. The dentist provides that opportunity, taking advantage of that release as well as the hypnotic effect of the TV statements and euphoric painkiller. She uses the moment of Flow to persuade Cynthia to book another visit.
Scene:
The passage contains the elements of a complete scene. It contains a goal: getting her teeth worked on at the cheapest place in the city because she doesn’t have much money. The conflict arises from surprising, maybe subpar work by the dental team. There is the disaster necessary for a scene: Cynthia being maybe suckered out of money. The scene also contains the required flaw she needs to overcome to win the battles ahead: being easy prey to a hard sell. Tension rises. Her encounters with the antagonist, Olga, gives her the chance, through the consequences of that flaw, to improve.
The scene also is obviously organized around our formula. The Micro-obstacles aren’t the core conflict, but symptoms of it. Micro-obstacles demonstrate the tension inherent in Cynthia’s financial situation. How she reacts to the Micro-obstacles reveals her character and creates foreshadowing. Readers know she can be manipulated through Micro-obstacle pressure/Flow release.
Flash:
A scene is a mini-story, but it rarely stands alone as a complete flash fiction piece. The scene above is not flash fiction because it doesn’t change Cynthia’s life in a universally meaningful way. Let’s look at how our formula structures a story. Her flaw could be deepened into an important issue with her mother. She reaches an insight about their relationship because of the dentist’s loving cosmic Flow at the end.
In that case, the Micro-obstacles at the beginning symbolize the problems with her mother. Her mother set up the appointment to provide her daughter with maternal touch she couldn’t give her. Cynthia was traumatized by that lack of touch since birth, and the healing experience brought her some resolution.
In a Literary story, it’s fine to end ambiguously or negatively. However, most narratives end positively. Ending a story with Flow brings readers the dopamine rush they’re looking for in entertainment.
All right, so that’s Lesson 1. I hope you’re getting excited by having this tool in your writer’s toolbox. Do the Assignment, uploading it into the course for my feedback. By Wednesday, you’ll be ready to begin Lesson 2. It will analyze the movie Firewalk with Me, the movie prequel to Twin Peaks, so you don’t need to watch anything to prepare for that one. Lesson 3 analyzes the movie The Shining.
File for Week 1 Lecture
MicroLesson1.docx Links to an external site.
Week 1
Week 1 Assignment
Assignment Week 1
Write a passage beginning with a build-up of Micro-obstacles preventing the quick relay of information. Once you do that, the reader hankers for the information. Put so much pressure on the character that when the information is delivered, it gushes out of her or toward her in a pleasing moment of Flow, so the reader savors it.
Please identify your exercise as a fragment, scene (one time, place, POV with a shift in the + or – charge of the character’s goal) or flash (full story of under 1000 words).
The options and examples each week are only suggestions, so feel free to devise your own.
Discuss: Week 1 Assignment
