This chapter balances the previous one. Both are about ways in which we think with narrative. But where in the last chapter we focussed on the chemistry of narratives in combination, here we are looking at a chemistry taking place within narratives (or, more accurately, in our interaction with them). Where in the last chapter we looked at the ways in which narratives are used as armament in a larger contest of narratives like a trial or a political race or an intellectual controversy, here we are looking at narratives as structures made up of contests, the claims of which they may or may not negotiate successfully. In part, this chapter brings us back to the agon – the contest or conflict, which is so often the life of narrative. More broadly it brings us back to the observation I made in Chapter Five that larger cultural, psychological, and moral conflicts are at play in narrative, some but not all of them represented by the opponents in the agon.

Narrative without conflict