Sometimes as you write your story, you will find that your scenes and chapters are pretty… boring and conflict-less.
It’s just two people talking about something, then going of somewhere. To make your book a page-turner, and a gripping experience, there is a secret ingredient. And the more you often this ingredient appears in your pages, scenes, and chapters, the more gripping your story will be.
This ingredient is called conflict. How do you write conflict?
To write conflict, you must write a situation where the character wishes to attain something, but there is an obstacle on their path. The first thing here is to give characters something that they want. This can be physical, or abstract. Then, you need to place an obstacle in their way of attaining that thing.
Again, this obstacle can be physical, such as nature or another character (antagonist) or it can be spiritual and abstract. Then, you need to write out the scene, chapter, or indeed book, using a structure that extends the tension into the story and accentuates the conflict.
Again, word vomit. I’m so sorry, and you know I love you. That’s why, I am just about to explain exactly what I mean with each step of this salad, fair?
Fair. Now tug yourself in, and allow me to get into:
What Is Conflict In A Story And Examples?
Conflict in a story is when a character wants one thing, but there is an obstacle standing in their way, so they have to get what they want through dealing with the obstacle first.
Though conflict is such a crucial step in writing, and many people often failure to write it properly, it is a very simple thing for humans to understand.
After all, we have all been in conflicts in our lives.
Maybe you are your sister fought for the remote, and your mother came around, now you have to do everything in your power to avoid a whooping, so you tell your mother pretty much anything.
The point here is that conflict is supposed to be easy to understand, but people still struggle to write it. This is because conflict in writing tends to look different from real life conflict.
In writing, the conflict may not necessarily feature two different people fighting for one thing. Sometimes it is a person, fighting with nature for something intangible. Like a knight who is dying at sea, and must decide whether to kill the child they are with or let them die painfully.
Honor is the goal here, and the problem to this honor is the miles between land, and our honorable knight.
Other examples of conflict could include;
- Goal– He wants to be a good person; Obstacle– To kill this person to save millions
- Goal– She wants the treasure; Obstacle– Miles of Saharan Desert keeping her from the caves of Timbuktu.
- Goal– He wants a family; Obstacle- He just found out that the kids are not his.
- Goal– She wants to please her family; Obstacle– She is barren.
The dimensions can change. Sometimes it is dramatic, and realistic.
Sometimes it is fantastical, and action packed. Yet other times still, it can be minor, such as a in a minor scene where one character wants to go smoke outside, but another is standing in their way, and trying to get them to agree to go to an annoying party.
But the structure remains the same.
There is a goal, there is an obstacle to the goal, and the conflict is the character’s attempts to resolve this dilemma.
How Do You Write Conflict In A Story?
1. Give Them A Goal To Attain for Conflict to Appear
You Need To Write a Goal For Your Character.
The first step is to make sure that it fits the scale of the situation.
If it is a scene, the goal can me minor like wanting to go to sleep, or get fresh air outside. It can also be massive if the scene is a climactic scene of the chapter, such as the character wishing to persuade the soldiers to live in their farm house longer even though they have no money, because they are scared of the bandits returning when the knights leave.
There should be a goal in full chapter/act too. Here the goals tend to be bigger, such as defeating this guy, or getting this girl to come kiss you.
Also, the goals can be physical, or emotional. If the goals are things like objects, money, or something like getting a husband.
Emotional goals are things that are usually behavior dependent. Maybe they want to feel appreciated, or honorable, so they want people, to see them as such, and behave as if they are.
Also, it could be ideological based. Maybe the character has a set of beliefs they do not want to infringe and this behavior will infringe them,
I suggest you write physical, and emotional goals simultaneously.
2. Give Them The Problem Standing In The Way Of Attaining This
You need to write an obstacle standing in the way of their goal.
Again, the obstacle can be physical, or in nature.
Physical obstacles tend to be other characters. However this does not always mean the villain. Sometimes the character’s own allies can be an obstacle to their goal.
Maybe the character’s allies wish to protect the character from a dangerous adventure, so they try to stop them from going. Or maybe the character has to watch over a frail family member, so they cannot afford to travel to Paris to try and court their lover there.
Stereotypically though, the obstacle is the villain.
Someone who maliciously tries to obstruct the hero. The problem with this though is that the villain is not by the character’s side throughout the whole book.
There are scenes where the villain isn’t there, and it is in those scenes that you need to find a way to make obstacles out of allies, and other figures.
Sometimes the obstacles can be natural.
This means something like weather. Maybe it is raining so our hero can’t go out and practice how to beat their foe. In some instances it can be things like disease, or animals. Maybe even a mountain.
Then there are the emotional obstacles.
These are obstacles of ideology, and personality type. Maybe the character is being forced to compromise their morals here so they can attain their goal.
Understandably, these are the ones that are most engaging, as they allow us to get a taste of the character’s personality type, and a bit of story arc progression. Which leads to the question, how do you decide which obstacle to choose?
You should choose the obstacle that ties to the character’s flaw, and allows their natural character progression.
3. Make it formidable Physically Or Untangible
You need to make your obstacle formidable, or at least, untangible.
If there is one thing that you will learn in life, its that not all obstacles are cut from the same cloth.
When I went to visit my family at the countryside, I got to spend time with my baby cousin-brother. He is about 2 years old, meaning just around the age where he starts to copy every male figure that comes into his view.
So when I left the house, and jumped the fence, then ran off to my friends at the fields, I made a horrible mistake by not turning to see who was watching.
Luckily for me, I remembered something I forgot and turned back. And who else do I find but this tiny human, barely capable of reaching the top of small wooden fence that’s not even 3 feet high.
The point here is not all conflict is challenging.
Something that is a mountain to one character, is a literally one hop from another. Don’t make your problems hops. Instead, add weight to each obstacle that you can find.
You do this different depending on the type of conflict, but there are 3 main techniques you could try. If you are dealing with the physical obstacle, then you can add weight to it by bringing it closer to the hero.
This means if the obstacle is an ally, make it a close family member, or dearly loved person whom the main character can’t just ignore.
If it is a villain, make it a villain whose skills are greater or equal to the hero’s. If it is a natural situation, than make it massive. Don’t say your character can’t go to their child’s choir practice because it is drizzling, so the child must go live with their ex-spouse.
Say that it was a massive storm and flood, and the character only failed to go after they drove their car through a river, and it was washed up on the bank. If it is an adventure story, don’t say that there is a rather mild heat in the desert between our hero, and the goal.
Say it is literal lava!
The second technique is to accentuate the heroes emotional problem. Show why the hero believes their ideology, and how far they’ve gone to stay true to it. This one is fairly easy, but very efficient.
Just show how much it means to the hero.
The last technique is the most rewarding; unite physical, and emotional obstacles.
Show a physical obstacle, and then add an emotional obstacle on top of it. This way you won’t have to worry about intensity. Give your hero a goal like performing at the opening night.
Put a physical obstacle like a light rain. Then an emotional obstacle like the character has to take care of the baby at home. Show home much the character loves and is protective of the baby. But now, they must travel through the rain with their baby to the show in order to make the performance.
How will they resolve this?
4. Give Them A Countdown
You need to Force Your Character To make A Choice
If someone were to kidnap your mother, and put a gun to her head, then tell you he will kill her if you don’t start twerking, then you’d be having a rather rough time.
Now, imagine if they say they will kill her if you don’t start twerking within the next 90 years. Well then, that is not so bad. The time is so long that it seems you do not even have to make any hard choices.
But if they give you 10 seconds, things just went sideways.
A conflict is an unpleasant scenario which we would all rather avoid, and if there is one thing that allows people to avoid stuff more than any other, it is time. You need to make sure that you take this demon away from your characters so that they will be able to suffer properly.
Give your main character’s a countdown.
This can be a literal countdown, or a metaphoric one, such as when the character’s time is running out due to a disease. Or maybe, they are going to get caught soon if they do not finish quickly. Countdowns are awesome for giving your story more weight, and adding suspense to your scenes.
So use it.
5. Give Each Scene A Story Beat
You need to Write Every Conflict like its own mini story.
Now that you know what your conflict should look like, it is important you learn how to write your conflict in a way that won’t hurt your story’s conflict. The best way to do this is to structure the conflict like this; status quo, inciting incident, negotiations, realizations, and resolutions.
Status Quo: Here you introduce your characters. Show who they are, and specifically, what goal they want, and why they want it. Maybe they were working all day, and they really want some fresh air. That’s enough. You could go deeper with the harsher goals, such as characters wanting to save a loved one from a tower or something.
Inciting Incident: Show the obstacles appearance. The best inciting incident is one where the characters don’t even have to say this is an obstacle for the readers to know they are in it now. For our hero we could say that their sister just jumped in front of them and asked to help with homework. For more serious ones, you could do more creative means of introducing the problem.
Negotiations: The hero attempts to find a peaceful resolution. In our case, the hero tries to tell his sister he will be back later, but he has to go wash the car now. Or in your story, maybe the hero tries to negotiate. They could even try to run around the problem or something.
Realizations: The hero starts realizing that conflict is inevitable. In our story, the little sister says the car was washed, and asks if the guy does not want to spend time with her. In your story it should be more tense. The hero and the villain start to sense that conflict is inevitable, so their hands slowly go to their weapons, while the smiles stay on their faces.
Resolutions: The hero tries to resolve this conflict. In our story case, the hero says yes, the little sister is a massive b****. In your case, this is where the conflict erupts into physical violence. Or at least verbal violence. Now, it is all weapons barred.
Once you have mastered what conflict is, and how to write it, you will have definitely taken a massive leap to mastering mastery.