How to Create Conflict for Fun and Profit

What would life be without conflict? Wonderful. But what would a book be without it? Boring. We need conflict in our stories because conflict is what retains readers’ interest. Conflict is what keeps the plot going. Conflict is also how our characters grow. By giving them conflict, we give our readers a reason to stay invested in their story and to root for them.

(How to Keep Your Story Moving.)

Characters need to grapple with both inner and outer conflict. Their inner conflict brings them to life and makes them real and the outer conflict they must grapple with gives them a story. You can’t have one without the other.

Inner conflict is what often lays a hesitating hand on a character, trying to hold that character back from whatever triumph or happy ending is waiting or keep that character from making a mistake. Beliefs challenged equal conflict. Conflict is often fear based. (What will happen if I move forward with this idea? What do I stand to lose?) A character may worry about putting an important relationship in jeopardy or losing a job, a powerful position, or someone’s respect. A character may wind up struggling with a battle between conscience and ambition or conscience and duty. Or desire and prejudice, which was what kept Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy so tightly wound in Pride and Prejudice.

Lack of confidence can cause inner conflict and provide great opportunity for growth. A character may struggle with doing the right thing when the wrong thing is looking so tempting. Whatever your character is struggling with, allowing readers to see and feel it will create a bond and make them want to go on that journey with your character.

One thing that will set your character up for inner conflict is that character’s past experiences. For all of us, how we’re raised and what we’ve been taught to believe plays a big part in how we look at life and affects the choices we make. It’s the same with our characters. A character raised to believe he will never succeed will struggle to prove to both himself and others that he deserves success. A character who has never seen herself as pretty will have a hard time seeing herself as loveable. A character who has experienced loss may be afraid to form any new attachments.

In my holiday rom-com The Merry Matchmaker, my heroine was afraid to commit to a relationship with her longtime friend because she’d been widowed young and was afraid to risk her heart again. She had to overcome her doubts and fears before she could admit she loved the man and be with him.

As you’re pulling together your story, ask yourself what experiences have molded your main characters. Knowing that will help you come up with the obstacles they need to overcome.

Because so much of a story’s plot is driven by the actions of the characters, it’s important to know both what your main character wants and what past wounds, insecurities and fears are going to ride along in that person’s mind throughout the story. Those are what will give the scenes depth and excitement.

Outer conflict deals with the struggle between the protagonist, your hero, and the antagonist, the baddie we readers don’t like. It’s the visual battle between hero and villain that proves your main character’s worth by the end of the story.

The antagonist in your story might be an individual or an entity such as a government or a corporation or a force of nature. In Kristin Hannah’s novel, The Women, she uses more than one antagonist, starting with the Vietnam war which tests the women’s emotional strength and physical endurance. Later in the novel, when the nurses return, they face yet another antagonist in the form of a nation that disrespects the veterans and then refuses to even acknowledge the women’s service.

Not all antagonists are created equal. The size of yours will depend on what you’re writing. Antagonists are roadblocks between your main characters and their goals. Yours can be anything from a serial killer to a mean girl or a romantic rival.

And, speaking of romance, you need a realistic conflict to keep your lovers apart. A simple misunderstanding that could be cleared up with one conversation will not be enough to keep two people apart for the length of a novel.

One of the best ways I’ve ever heard conflict defined was as goals in opposition. Goals, by the way, are always driven by beliefs. So what preconceived notions, and/or opposing goals do your main characters bring to the table? What will they need to sacrifice or overcome in order to be together? Remember what Shakespeare reminded us in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “The course of true love never did run smooth.” Smooth is boring. Don’t be boring.

Every scene in your novel should hold some sort of conflict for your character. Each decision that character makes will either create forward progress or a setback which will bring about new conflict. All that struggle is what will lead to your story arc where your character will overcome that final challenge and find resolution.

Conflict is what keeps readers sticking around for the ride and encouraging friends to buy that book and go on the ride, too. It will make the lessons our characters learn feel more real and their ultimate triumph sweeter. Our fictional world is the one place we can be mean and get away with it. So go ahead, have fun making your character struggle. In the end it will be worth it for both of you.

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