What is CONFLICT in genre fiction?
Conflict is two parts in drama/fiction
- A clash between opposing forces
- That establishes and drives the narrative thread all the way to the end of the story
So, for example:
NOT-CONFLICT
While walking through the woods, Sally is set on by a bunch of brigands and beaten to unconsciousness.
CONFLICT
While walking through the woods, Sally is set on by a bunch of brigands and beaten to unconsciousness. The brigands steal from her person the ring her grandmother gave her, which she was tasked to deliver to her grandmother’s tribe before the birth of her aunt’s child. Now she must find and deliver the ring before the baby arrives or the baby will die.
WHY IS CONFLICT IMPORTANT
True conflict is the piece of the story that gives the character and story purpose. Without conflict, there is no story, because conflict pushes the character to act, and it holds them back from achieving what they most want. Without conflict, the reader drifts through a series of events that have no beginning, middle, or end point that the reader is reading to resolve.
True conflict establishes stakes the reader is invested in, and thus, drives story tension. In any true conflict situation, the reader is constantly weighing the question, “What happens if they fail?” And (ideally) the character is compelling enough the reader cares for a positive outcome.
True conflict forces the character to constantly test their values, which also drives character development.
Back to the Example:
One could say that being beaten to unconsciousness gives the character purpose. Perhaps. But what it doesn’t do is give the story purpose. While that event might harden a character or instill a character trait, it doesn’t drive the character into action in the example provided.
However, when Sally is forced to now find the lost ring, and still deliver it on time, she is driven to act. Her beating can still establish character traits, and it will impact how she handles / approaches the hurdles that stand in her way as she pursues the trail of the ring. The push-pull is that driving action.
HOW TO CREATE COMPELLING CONFLICT
- Character Goal – what your character wants is critical. Once you know what the character goal is, then put an obstacle in the path of achieving it. This is the push-pull. Some obstacles they will navigate fairly easily. Others will haunt them and perhaps risk their lives. Conflict builds every time they do not achieve what they want or are tested by a hurdle. It isn’t the sequence of events that are important… it’s how they impact the character’s achievement of their goal.
Example 1: Sally must fight off goblins, take a barge across the lake, and battle the witch who hired the thieves. – NOT conflict.
Example 2: Sally must fight off goblins, and in so doing, realizes she’s swarmed. To escape, she is a day’s travel further away from the lake she must cross. Now she has to do something to gain lost time. Sally then encounters the lake, and the ferryman is dead, and she must trust her own ability to ferry the barge across without waking the monster in the water. She wakes the monster and is badly injured. Now she has to limp along, literally, her progress hindered by her injury, heading toward a final battle with a witch that is certain to overpower her in her current state. With no means of healing her injury, she enters into battle, and using her smarts, not powers, overcomes the witch.
In the first example, yes, hurdles are listed. But they are simply events that don’t drive the story. In the second example, every hurdle has an impact on her. She’s forced to weigh her current circumstance against her objective and continue forth despite further limitations.
- Characters In Opposition – the more diverse your opposing characters are, the stronger the conflict, as opposed to a character who is just “good” or just “evil”. Opposing values are intensely useful to furthering conflict. Consider how Sally’s journey might be impacted if she takes in a companion who believes there’s no rush to anything in life – every day should be taken to its fullest. Or if Sally took in someone who didn’t value life itself. Or a character who didn’t understand the bonds of family or family obligations.
- Strong Antagonists – In fiction the antagonist must be powerful – and I don’t necessarily mean in terms of magical ability, strength, etc. They can be powerfully smart. What they can’t be is mediocre. If the antagonist is more powerful than the protagonist, the conflict amps up even more. Your character must work to overcome obstacles, and in so doing the character grows. Let’s consider Sally again. Sally is strong with magic. However, in this off-the-cuff world, physical injury hampers her magic. When she’s seriously injured, her magic will be reduced and may not work at all. She’s going into battle with a witch who is at full strength but has utmost confidence in her magical abilities. Sally, in using her mind and smarts to outthink the witch, grows because she learns she doesn’t need to rely on her magic.
- Raise the Stakes – Escalate the conflict through events. If Sally cannot trust her companion, and can’t ditch the companion, now the reader is questioning whether the companion might turn on her. If Sally’s companion is after the ring for a different objective, now the reader is anticipating some sort of additional confrontation / hurdle that Sally will eventually have to overcome.
- Keep The Stakes Active – This is perhaps the most compelling part to understanding conflict. Remind the reader of the importance or of what will be lost if the character fails – both personally and in terms of external circumstances.
Merely throwing out the statement that Sally needs to get the ring before the baby is born, is the first step. But having the writing reflect the stakes (either in narrative or dialogue) either going into a hurdler, or coming out of a hurdle, continually reminds the reader of the story objective. Many books I’ve edited fall short in this particular area. And as a result of not having the interwoven reminder, the true conflict disappears or gets lost in other circumstances. And now the reader is back to following a series of events.
KEY POINTS BEYOND THE BASICS
Character Goal – The character goal must be singular to the story. Your character may end up with minor goals – such as Sally needing to successfully battle goblins – but her overarching goal never changes: get the ring to her grandmother’s people before her aunt births a baby.
“But I’m writing a series and that goal can’t resolve until the end! How?”
Each story in series has a sub-goal if you will. But it is singular for the purpose of that story. In a series, we have milestones to accomplish before the final book. If we want to expand Sally’s adventure into a series, the goblins could be the goal of the first book, the lake the second book, the witch the third book.
Twisting In the Wind – Nothing should ever come easy to the protagonist. When he/she gains something, something else must come along to push the character away from the goal. Tension between characters on the same mission, or tension between collisions with the antagonist (or his/her minions), or even tension between the character and him/herself, adds to the conflict. It’s difficult to forcibly push your character into bad situations, but we call that “letting them twist in the wind.” Make it rough for them.
Add In Failure – A character who overcomes everything isn’t realistic to readers because humans fail at a heck of a lot before we get it right. It’s okay to let them fail. That only gives them more hurdles to overcome, which in the end, gives them a bigger, stronger growth arc.
Insert Character Fears – Giving your protagonist fears is probably very basic in terms of character creation. In terms of conflict, its what you do with those fears that matters. On a very simple level, Indiana Jones is terrified of snakes. He must get through a snake pit to accomplish his objective – fighting his fears. The fears add in weaknesses. And when a reader knows that to accomplish their goal the character will ultimately have to face their most secret fear, that conflict is extremely compelling. With Sally, if the witch can’t do daylight and lives in darkness, and Sally’s afraid of the dark… entering the witch’s lair takes a great deal of fortitude before we get to that battle. So make your character’s fears real, and show the reader how they deal with those fears.