How Conflict is the Core of Your Story

Conflict. I know that I’ve been beating a drum on conflict (here, and here), and I’m here to do it again. It’s important. Alright? 

Conflict is the je ne sais quoi that keeps your reader turning the pages. You need to build conflict into every scene. What’s more, that conflict needs to move the plot forward. 

You can’t just have Johnny and Aunt Janice arguing about what salt and pepper shakers to use (unless you’re writing a cozy mystery about who is stealing pepper shakers). The conflict should build character, reveal backstory (just a little), or add to the plot that you’re building.

Arguments are just the tip of the conflict iceberg. A character’s internal struggle can build conflict. So can an external struggle against another character, or a machine, or the weather, or anything.

Say that Johnny needs to get to Aunt Janice’s house fast. He has information that the pepper shaker thief is going to strike her house next. Why did he insist that she use those fancy Santa Claus salt and pepper shakers at her Christmas party? He was practically leading the thief to her door. Johnny puts the key in the engine. The car won’t start. He goes through a whole bunch of stuff to get the car started, and then the street floods, or a tree falls in his path, or his daughter starts screaming inside his house. 

You get the idea.

This example is simple and a bit melodramatic, but the point is that conflict can be built from anything that keeps your character from achieving the story goal, or even the scene goal. You need to cause problems for your characters. Bad problems. Conflict.

Conflict is the Lifeblood of Any Story

Each scene should involve one or more characters and one or more oppositional forces and the scene should show how your character(s) come against the opposition. Notice that I said ‘come against’ and not overcome? Your characters may not win this one. Sometimes it’s good that they don’t. Sometimes it’s great that they don’t.

Please do not open your story with happy characters on a sunshiny day. Children are happily munching on cereal, hubby just got a raise, and the whole family is going to Disney World next week. No. NO! Boring. Please don’t.

Start with hubby storming in because he just got fired, and now they have to cancel Disney World. Make the children cry and fight and throw the damn cereal. 

Yes, I know you love your characters and want to keep them safe. But don’t. If you love them, set them free to wreak havoc on themselves and others. Do terrible things to them.

Think about George R.R. Martin and the Game of Thrones series. He killed off a main character at the end of book one. And his readers leaned forward. He then went ahead and killed multiple main characters at the climax in another book. His readers leaned further still. Everybody in that series is dead, about to be dead, trying to get somebody else dead, or is in some other peril. 

Conflict is engaging, moves the story forward, and readers need it to stay engaged with the story.

Glorious days with happy characters only drag the story down. 

In Conflict and Suspense, James Scott Bell wrote, “Alfred Hitchcock said it this way: ‘A great story is life, with the dull parts taken out.’ A scene without trouble is a dull part.”

So confront your characters and do your worst. 

Happy Writing!

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