How To Create Conflict In Your Novel
Transcript:
Today we’re talking about the key to a good story: conflict.
You can have great characters and a perfect world, but without conflict, aka the problem (or most likely problems, plural) that your character must tackle or face during your plot, you won't have much of a story at all.
When I was younger, I really liked a TV show called the Vampire Diaries.
One of my favorite things about it wasn't the magical elements or characters themselves, as fun as they were, but the way the plot built upon itself.
After the first six introductory episodes, the plot of the show progressed in such a way that you couldn't miss a single episode without getting hopelessly lost.
It didn't really have filler episodes, a term that means something similar to a placeholder, which means a story that doesn't really help or further the plot.
Keeping a viewer on a constant edge of suspense is crucial for TV because they need to maintain interest over the breaks between episodes.
But maintaining interest between chapters, or even between scenes, is important for novelists, too. The Vampire Diaries succeeded in maintaining interest by always escalating their plot. They did this by escalating conflict.
It's easy to think of conflict in bigger picture terms, the biggest or final obstacle your character will face, but it can be a lot more subtle.
There are typically multiple types of conflict in a novel.
There's internal conflict, aka the feelings, worries, and inner motivations your character is working through along their journey. There's your overarching conflict, which is that big, looming problem that feeds most of your plot. There also can and should be conflict among the relationships your main characters have with other people.
A good way to start brainstorming conflict is figuring out what your character values. Start pulling these apart. Do any of their values conflict with each other? Do they contradict themselves? An easy way to start fleshing out a villain is to give them opposite values to your main character. This works for more than just your arch nemesis.
You can find conflict in anything’s values, not just people.
Most characters should have something about them that brings a spark to their interactions with each other. If characters start off with a happy and calm relationship, you need to find something to pry them apart if you want an interesting storyline. This is why stories very rarely start out with future love interests already together.
Watching characters struggle along and do all the hard work to find their happily ever after is what makes us root for them, what makes it worth all the chaos in the end.
This is also why stories that typically start with someone already happy soon find their lives irreparably broken as a catalyst to start their journey. And in that way, you can create larger conflict by pitting characters with conflicting values against each other like the villain mentioned earlier.
You can do this not only by making sure important characters have opposing values, but by forcing these characters together. Maybe they have to work together to save someone or something. Maybe each has something the other wants. Conflict naturally occurs when very different people must somehow figure out how to work together.
“Okay,” you say. “So characters need to have problems with each other. Got it. What else? There’s more to a story than just relationships.”
You’re right!
Conflict can also come from within a character and almost always should, even and especially if you have other types of conflict in your story.
The root of what makes a person tick always feeds into the decisions they make. Are any of your character’s values directly challenged by their environment? By the obstacles they face? If your character is loyal, find a way to test their commitment. If they are wholesome, lead them to temptation. If they are naive, challenge the worldview they’ve come to know.
For all the importance in subtle or smaller conflict, your story is dead in the water without an overarching problem.
In Conflict and Suspense by James Scott Bell, your main plot problem is defined as either physical, professional, or psychological. This is the conflict that’s Life or Death to your character, whether or not they’ll actually die if they don’t succeed.
Physical death means a true life or death ultimatum facing your main character. High physical stakes like a fight to the death or racing a ticking clock.
Professional death is the death of your character’s career. Examples could be a lawyer fighting to win one last case, a doctor trying to cure a rare disease, a soldier trying to prove their loyalty—something that if they fail means the end of the career.
Psychological death is similar to professional in that’s the threat of losing everything that makes them who they are. This sort of threat would attack a character’s moral convictions, if they fail in this they can no longer pretend to be who they say they are.
Both psychological and professional death could also tie in with a threat of physical death, but it's important to know which one you focus on. You can only really prioritize one as the main conflict line of your story.
Then, once you’ve figured out what your main issues are…
Raise the stakes!
Escalate that tension and get readers hooked. I may be dramatic, but my favorite plot points are moments when you can’t go back. An important factor to consider when building conflict in your plot is pacing. You can have great scenes of action and growth, but if that's followed by pages of exposition or chapters where nothing happens your suspense will quickly dry out.
It doesn't matter how your book starts, if you don't keep the line of tension tight all your efforts will fall away. But how do you keep raising the stakes? How do you keep the tension?
Start out small.
Conflict can start from something as simple as feeling uneasy, suspicious, concerned. You can build momentum from awkward first impressions, mistrust, disbelief. The smaller you start, the more room you have to grow.
It’s important to consider the order in which your plot moves forward. If you have a character rescue hostages in one scene and then have them doing paperwork in the next, don’t be surprised if readers complain.The papers they’re going through might be a crucial clue, but you must always be reaching higher until you hit the climax of your novel. Once you’ve hit the climax, things naturally start to simmer down a bit.
You can also take advantage of conflict by drawing it out.
If, for example, the only way to save the trapped hostages is to find an important document without raising suspicion, paperwork suddenly becomes a nail biting experience. Be careful not to drag things out too long, or tension will start to slip again.
But if you can find a way to make the mundane exciting, you’ll have a better time getting readers past less action packed pieces of information.
Keep an eye out for repetition.
Some tactics are better than others for igniting tension and suspense, but readers have sharp eyes. They’ll notice if you use the same situations over and over again.
Some familiar tropes can’t be avoided, but they can be inverted. If you need a certain type of scene or experience in your novel, try to brainstorm ways you can make it new or unique. A new perspective can definitely make old ideas exciting again.
What’s your favorite ways to add conflict to your novel? Let me know in the comments.
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Thank you so much for watching! I’ll see you soon. Bye.
