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Conflict and choice - what every novel needs.

You've maybe looked back at your own stories and wondered why no-one else likes them quite as much as you do. The first thing to test is whether there's conflict on the page - not the next page and not the one before. This one - and all of them. In great books, even the descriptions have conflict.

It's easy to say that, but remember you're human and most of us have an in-built aversion to conflict. In fact the typical novel writer type is probably happiest when they're nicely protected and contained and can write happily with no chance at all of being chivvied and harassed. I mean you don't set your bedroom up so it makes you feel conflicted, do you?

So your natural feeling is to work away from conflict and to establish peace. You naturally push for endings and equalibrium, and as we can see in another post or two, nothing should look like it's ended.

Conflict in novels

Test on every page, then, where the conflict is. There are different kinds - it doesn't have to be a raging argument:
  • Conflict with self: torn over a difficult decision, tempted towards the forbidden, refusing a burning desire... 
  • Conflict with an object: plenty of comedy around cumbersome objects preventing an important goal, but obstacles of all kinds mean the route to success can only be overcome through taking a challenge...
  • Conflict with another:  two people who each want something different - could be small, could be large - they could be enemies or they may deep down want the best for each other but disagree how to do that...
  • The classic triangle: when two becomes three then the balance can swing - two against one or all against all... that's a conflict that can keep running the whole novel long, and often does...
  • Conflict with society: it could be a loner or a group but the conflict isn't close and physical, it's out there in the way that others expect something of you - bring on the rebels and revolutionaries.

How do you make conflict in stories without just loads of arguments?

Here's the most important thing you can ask yourself about your character if you want them to be interesting on the page

  • First - make sure your character wants something. Badly. Badly enough to act on that hankering.
  • Second - what is stopping them from getting it.

At every paragraph you write, ask yourself those two questions. Will my reader be aware of what the character wants? Will the reader be aware of what's preventing the character getting it? 

And when you've got that you're getting choice or even the wonderful great bigness of choice - dilemma...



Image by Manuel Alvarez from Pixabay 
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The Virgin Paige

My novel, how I got into writing and how writing got into me: Find out more about the first book on Amazon:

The Virgin Paige: My 12 Months a Troll



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