Free Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense by James Scott Bell Page B

with him. For Rick possesses two letters of transit that mean escape from Casablanca.
    Now Rick has the woman of his dreams, but inside a battle begins. Would it be the right thing to do?
    And outside there is a battle, too. Rick and the Nazi Major, Strasser, have been playing cat and mouse over the presence of Lazlo. One false move and Rick could lose this battle and his life.
Sacrifice
    A powerful ending trope revolves around sacrifice.
    Think back through the cultural memes of civilization.
    Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son. He offers him up but is stopped at the last moment, and rewarded with the promises of God.
    Go to the Athenian democracy and a playwright named Euripides. He offers a play called
Alcestis.
In this play a king named Admetus is given a gift. He does not have to die if he can find someone to die in his place.
    He cannot, except for his wife, Alcestis, who takes his place out of love.
    Off she goes with Death.
    But Heracles (the Greek name for Hercules) hears of this and vows to battle Death and bring Alcestis back from the dead.
    Which he does.
    Alcestis has given the ultimate sacrifice but now has been resurrected.
    This theme remains powerful.
    In Hammett’s
The Maltese Falcon
, Sam Spade has within his reach the woman he’s fallen for, Brigid O’Shaughnessy. They belong together. Spade knows he’s in love with her. She’s a liar and manipulator, but maybe he can knock that out of her. Maybe he can believe in her and find rest with her.
    But Spade has to sacrifice this, because someone has to “take the fall” for the murder of his partner.
    “I don’t care who loves who I’m not going to play the sap for you …. When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it.”
    After Spade justifies his position to Brigid he says,
    “Now on the other side we’ve got what? All we’ve got is the fact that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.”
    “You know,” she whispered, “whether or not you do.”
    “I don’t. It’s easy enough to be nuts about you.” He looked hungrily from her hair to her feet and up to her eyes again. “But I don’t know what that amounts to. Does anybody ever?”
    In this sacrifice, Spade “wins” because he has upheld the moral order of his universe. When a partner’s killed, the other partner has to “do something about it.” And he’s not going to play the sap.
    In Mel Gibson’s film
Braveheart
, William Wallace dies at the end. And not in a pretty way. He can end his torture just by confessing to treason. But he does not. And in his death he “wins” by inspiring his followers, and most notably Robert the Bruce, to fight on like free men.
    Remember Rick, the saloon owner we left back in Casablanca? He’s now at the airport with Ilsa, his great love, and she’s ready to go with him. But then he stops and tells her no, this is wrong. We’ll regret this, maybe not now but soon and for the rest of our lives.
    But we’ll always have Paris.
    Rick sacrifices the thing he wants most. He has become human again. He has won the inner battle, and also the outer. For though he has killed the Nazi major, his new best friend, the little French captain, Louis, lets him go.
    In return for his sacrifice, Rick is resurrected. He’s no longer a dead man walking (or drinking). He and Louis go off to join the war effort.
    Sacrifice is powerful because it cannot exist without high conflict. It’s no sacrifice to give up your seat on a bus. But to give your life for a cause, or another person, that’s conflict of the highest kind.
    Or to give up a cherished dream. Scarlett O’Hara finally realizes her dreams of Old South respectability, and love for Ashley Wilkes who embodied those dreams, has to be sacrificed (though it may be too late for her to get Rhett back).
Avoid the Expected
    When you get to thinking about the