I mean only that the plot must be your sole consideration while you are constructing it.
Therefore, when I talk here about the author’s purpose, I mean the plot purpose.
First I will discuss the nature of conflict.
Anything that a man desires and acts to achieve is a value, at least to him. (Whether the value is rational is a different question.) Therefore, a “conflict of values” does not necessarily mean some vast philosophical abstraction. Do not think that it means at least “communism versus capitalism,” and that nothing less will do.
If you look at a menu in a restaurant and have to decide whether to order ice cream or cake for dessert, that is a conflict of values. If you do not like cake, only ice cream, there is no conflict. But if you like both and are unable to eat both, you must decide which to choose—and there is a momentary conflict until you do.
This is not the kind of conflict on which you can build a story. Since the values involved in a story should be important enough to interest the characters, the author, and the reader, a conflict over a choice of dessert obviously will not do. But the point is that, even in such a small issue, there is a clash of values.
Now observe that stories about criminals usually form good plot structures. Crime stories are the most primitive, and most common, form of suspense dramas. (Today, unfortunately, we have nothing but crime stories if we want to read a plot story.)
The reason is that a criminal by definition has a conflict of values. He wants, let us say, to rob a bank for the loot. At the same time, he does not want to be arrested. He wants both his safety and the product of an action which endangers his safety. Therefore, the moment you introduce a crime into a story, you have a rudimentary, but proper, conflict of serious values.
Project a story in which the lead character is a bank robber who does not care whether he is arrested. He has decided that he will have security in jail, so he does not attempt to hide or escape. The story would be totally static. Or let us say that he robs a bank in a city where there are no policemen, so that nobody intends to do anything about it. No plot would be possible.
To appreciate what makes a good plot situation, you must identify not only a character’s specific purpose, but also all the conflicts that this purpose necessarily engenders. If you say of a criminal, “His purpose is to rob,” that is not yet a conflict. You must remember that his purpose is also to escape.
Consider my short story “Good Copy” [see The Early Ayn Rand]. Laury, the main character, is a small-town reporter. He wants to stir up excitement in order to further his career, so he stages a kidnapping. By doing so, he risks arrest, disgrace, and the loss of his career. This is already a simple conflict.
Next, he falls in love with the girl whom he has kidnapped, and she falls in love with him. This introduces a new clash of values. Laury has done something evil to the girl he loves (or at least he himself would identify it as evil). And the girl has fallen in love with her own kidnapper, which is not the same as falling in love with a man whom she immediately recognizes as a real hero. If a girl falls in love with an apparent criminal and then discovers that in fact he justifies her love, that is a happily resolved conflict, but still a conflict.
Next, when a real criminal enters the scene and steals the girl from Laury, Laury is placed in his top conflict; to save the girl, he must surrender to the police, go to jail, and perhaps ruin his career. His career is now in conflict with his love.
That is a plot-theme.
Consider what would happen to this story if some of its elements were omitted. Suppose Laury kidnapped an adult man—say, a nasty villain. The conflict would be much simpler and less serious. Since Laury does not care about his prisoner, he is in an easier position from the start; and if a real criminal then steals the prisoner from him, he might or might not decide to go to the police. Perhaps he might send in an anonymous tip, but not risk his own arrest. Not too much