Adding Conflict

You're reading a story, but it takes a long time for anything to happen. Or maybe nothing happens. The problem is, there's no conflict.

All good stories have conflict. When you sit down to write, ask yourself: where's the conflict in this story? Where's the conflict in this scene?

Conflict doesn't have to be people punching each other in the face. It can be an argument, a difficult task that must be overcome, or maybe even something your main character is really scared of.

Let's say you're writing a story about someone who wins a race. She crouches down at the starting line, and the gun goes off. Bang! She runs very fast, faster than anyone else, and leans across the finish line. She wins! Things happen in the story, and you can perhaps make it exciting in how you write it. But where is the conflict? What challenges does the main character really face?

Let's add some conflict to that story about the runner. Let's say that she stubbed her toe that morning before she went to school. Her foot is killing her! She has limped around on it all day. That's a physical conflict she's going to have to overcome.

Now let's give the girl an external conflict--something outside herself. Let's say that her worst enemy at school is a girl who is also very fast, and she's in the race with our main character. She's in the lane right next to her. And instead of making our girl just run the race and win, let's say that after the gun goes off, our main character falls behind. Now she has to overcome the lead her worst enemy has already built!

We can add an internal conflict too--something inside our main character. Let's say she has lost her last five races--races she should have won. She has begun to doubt herself. She thinks maybe she's not good enough, not fast enough. That she'll never win another race, and maybe should quit running track all together. She has a stubbed toe, and her worst enemy is in the lane next to her, but the biggest thing she may have to overcome is her own self-doubt.

Now we have conflict. Lots of it! Rewrite that story about the girl in the race, adding all our new conflicts in. Are you more interested? Is it more compelling? I think so.

Every time you sit down to write something, ask yourself: where is the conflict in what I'm writing? Find the conflict in every scene, and you'll end up writing great stories.