WRITE BETTER CONFLICT THAT DRIVES THE PLOT AND TESTS YOUR CHARACTERS
Conflict drives stories, but how do you come up with enough story conflict that escalates over time while also testing your characters and their values? Without compelling conflict, your story will sag, and if that conflict doesn’t test your characters internally, then your readers aren’t going to care much about what happens in your story.
In this blog post, I’ll discuss three different elements you can explore to help you create conflict that not only pushes your plot forward but that also puts your characters through difficult situations that tests their values, worldview, and way of life.
Let’s hop to it!
PROTAGONIST-ANTAGONIST RELATIONSHIP
One of the best tools to help you create conflict is building a complex relationship between your protagonist (also known as main character, hero, or heroine) and antagonist (also known as opponent or Big Bad or villain).
The antagonist wants to prevent the protagonist from achieving their story goal. The flip side is true in many stories: the protagonist wants to prevent the antagonist from achieving their desire, too.
However, we want to be careful that the two goals in question are closely related, if not the same goal. This allows you to bring the protagonist and antagonist into situations where they truly do create angst for each other, where they get under each other’s skin, where they make their journeys even more difficult to pursue.
If the two goals in question have nothing at all to do with the other, then you risk writing a story that lacks cohesiveness, not to mention conflict.
In a murder mystery, the detective (protagonist) wants to catch the murderer, and the murderer (antagonist) wants to avoid being caught. This may feel like the two characters’ goals are opposite from each other, but in actuality, they’re both fighting over who gets to control the version of the truth in the end. The detective needs to nab the killer (“I know who did it” - his version of the truth), and the killer needs to avoid being nabbed (“I didn’t do it” - his version of the truth).
Even though the detective and the murderer want opposite things, only one of them can get what they want in the end, which shows that, in essence, they’re fighting over the same thing.
Knowing that only one of your characters can “win” at the end can help you see a path of conflict on which you can put both your characters. Your job as the author is to put your protagonist and antagonist into each other’s way from one chapter to the next, making sure that their journeys become more and more complicated as they one-up each other.
Most stories will feature multiple antagonists, and some of those antagonists can be well-meaning but still throw obstacles in your protagonist’s way. Using the example of the detective and the killer, the detective’s husband could be fearful for his wife’s safety as the killer begins to close in and make things personal. He may stop her from following up on a lead, and this disruption gives the killer momentum or even an opportunity to kill again.
As you work on the conflict in your story, ask yourself if the protagonist and antagonist are fighting over the same thing. Remember, if only one of them can “win,” then they are fighting over the same thing even if they define that thing differently.
If their goals are different, try to connect them so that when one of the two characters makes a push for the thing they want, it will complicate the attempts the other character is making for the thing they want.
Connecting the two goals will help you bring your protagonist and antagonist closer and closer together so that they are TRULY in each other’s way. This amplifies the conflict in your story.
HOW AND WHY – the mechanics of conflict
Another aspect to creating interesting conflict is to ask yourself how and why your characters are fighting the antagonist or antagonistic force.
For example, say your protagonist is struggling to thrive in a racist community. What can he do about it? Sure, one option is for him to move out of the town and find a better place to live, but that kills the conflict and it won’t take your story anywhere.
He’s gotta fight, and you can frame it so that he’s fighting against racism or that he’s fighting for a better way of life. Either way you frame it, ask yourself, “How or in what way does my character fight XYZ, and why?”
That two-pronged question helps you develop the conflict on the scene level. Not only are you now compelled to put this fight into action that readers can see, hear, and feel, but also, you’re compelled to get into character motivation. The assorted questions that follow can help to hammer out the character’s motivation:
-Why does my character choose to stay and fight the racism?
-Why does this matter to him?
-Why doesn’t he simply move out of the town and start over somewhere else? (We know why he can’t, from an author’s standpoint, because the story would fizzle out. So, make sure you’re answering this from the character’s perspective—this will help with plausibility.)
-What is he hoping to change?
-What is he hoping to avoid?
-What is he hoping to accomplish?
-What does your character believe in, and how does his choice to fight racism support this value?
The answers you come up with will give you forward momentum in the plot but also lend themselves to character development. Not only can answers to questions like these help raise conflict, but they help you create a flawed character who must face a fear or challenge in order to overcome their flaw. This in turn helps your character undergo transformation as a result of his choice to fight for something he believes in.
What is at Stake?
Conflict can be somewhat two-dimensional if there isn’t something at stake with your character’s situation. What is on the line for your character if he chooses to fight racism in his town? What is on the line for your character if he chooses to ignore the problems in his community?
This element adds a level of complexity and danger. While you might be able to write some tense action scenes showing your character in face-to-face confrontations with the antagonist(s), the conflict will feel flat and lack momentum if there aren’t consequences to these face-offs.
Think about giving your character an impossible choice. If the character stays in the unsafe community, this terrible thing will happen. If the character tries to escape, this other terrible thing will happen.
Another way to frame this is to ask yourself “What is at stake for my character if they FAIL in their fight against racism?” By dissecting the various consequences, you will be able to see how the conflict can escalate as your character moves toward their story goal. Escalating conflict will keep your story from feeling redundant and flat.
Overall, conflict is more than just a bunch o’ problems happening to your character, protagonist and antagonist alike. Conflict is more than random obstacles being thrown into your characters’ paths. Conflict should be meaningful situations that challenge your characters and their beliefs, values, relationships, understanding of self, and worldviews. When you can come up with conflict that has the power to test your characters and their way of life, then you’re on your way to writing a story that matters, one that your readers will invest in because they care about what’s happening from one page to the next.