It is the essence of drama, the primary ingredient that blends together all the elements of a story.  Without it, you have no story.

Conflict is opposing desires, mismatches, uncertainty, deadlines, pressures, incompatible goals, uneasiness, or tension.  Every novel has a multitude of conflicts, layered and connected.

There are two types of conflict:

1)      Internal – internal conflict arises when your character(s) has a vulnerability, something that has scarred them, affected their psyche.  They must confront their vulnerability as a direct result of what happens to them in the novel.  The resolution is achieved when they have faced it and changed (grown) as a result.

2)      External – most novels employ an antagonist to make choices, to take the difficult path.  The antagonist need not be a villain; it can be a storm, a new job, society, or even a worm (Dune).  But the antagonist forces the hero to make a choice and their goal is usually the opposite of the hero’s.  The conflict within each of your characters causes them to act/react in complex ways.

By combining and interweaving conflicts on many levels, internal and external, you create a rich story—messy, vibrant, and real.

Conflict disrupts the status quo, you introduce an inciting incident that changes the protagonist’s environment.

External conflict has three principals:

A)    Between the protagonist and opponent(s)

B)    Between the protagonist and obstacle(s)

C)    Between the protagonist and a disaster he faces

The basic conflict cannot be developed or sustained unless the author exaggerates the reaction of the protagonist to the obstacle.  (In real life, when we face conflict we usually complain, but do nothing about it.)  Your protagonist’s response must result in a determination to do something about the chief motivating force in order to achieve a tangible objective, i.e. win the girl’s heart, find the treasure, survive to live another day.

The depth or severity of the conflict a character must face will provide emotional depth for your story.

How to Build Conflict:

There are a few ways to put pressure on a scene.

1)      Conflict occurs when you put two different people with opposing goals or views in the same space.

2)      Set a ticking clock – a deadline.  In twenty-four hours another one dies, or your true love is marrying another in three days.

Note: Conflict doesn’t have to be complete opposition – it can be as simple as distrust or a minor disagreement (think about the urban kid who hates cops and has information about who killed his buddy – he has an internal conflict and your cop protagonist will have to overcome his distrust—perfect scene conflict.

But if your cop walked in, asked for information, and it was freely given without any obstacle—boring!  Good storytelling is about the interaction of characters and their goals.

JUST SAY NO!

Throughout the novel someone or something is saying no to the characters.  In almost every scene throughout the book, obstacles large and small exist to be overcome in order to maintain the reader’s interest.  By the end of each conflict scene your protagonist should have turned the no into a yes in a believable way.

FURTHER NOTES ON CONFLICT

1)      Make sure your characters all have individual goals that will clash and conflict.  Drama is about the fight for dominance among a group of characters.

2)      Don’t intensify your conflict too quickly.  Build it slowly.  Pressure-cook it.  Let it grow for the BIG SCENE!

Conflict MUST always be present in a big scene.  A big scene has the following elements:

A)    A meeting between opposing forces

B)    An exploitation of the conflict inherent in the meeting – (the clash)

C)    A suggestion as to the result (win-lose-or draw)

D)    The result transitions to the next scene or a scene later in the novel.

The reason to bring two opposing forces together in a ‘big scene’ is to create conflict – as a result, somebody wins, loses, concedes, is forced to make a decision, or realizes something about himself or another he did not know.

In a big scene conflict your antagonist should always be at least somewhat equal to your protagonist.  In your story, whomever or whatever is trying to stop your character from reaching his/her goal must be so formidable that the reader wonders who is going to win.

Another element to consider is your character’s ability to make a choice.  If the reader has no doubt at all as to how a character will proceed over each obstacle, they you really have no conflict or suspense.  A character’s decision must proceed from powerfully conflicting alternatives if the reader is to develop any empathy for the character, i.e. a mother—afraid of the water sees a young child fall off a bridge into deep water.  Her fear of the child’s death supercedes her fear of the water, but if the reader is aware that she was tortured by her stepfather as a child by being dunked, we care and feel her fear.

3)      One good source of internal conflict is the guilt of a character who doesn’t have the strength to do what they must – such as quit drinking, drugging, or gambling.

 

Exercise:

Go through two or three scenes you have written and look for who or what is saying no and what he/she or it is saying no to.  If you can’t find a person, event, or force saying no—you’re going to have to rewrite the scene because there is no conflict.