Conflict is one of those story elements that readers are intrinsically drawn to. Even in poorly written stories a passage with conflict is more interesting than one without. But before you go off imagining car chases and fist fights, know that for the purposes of fiction writing, conflict is any character or circumstance that presents an obstacle in the way of your character’s plot goal. If you throw obstacles or problems in your characters’ way that are not impacting their plot goal—even if, at first glance, it’s a really shiny and exciting problem—this will make your story feel meandering and will bore the reader. On the other hand, something as mundane as running out of mouthwash can present a riveting story conflict under the right circumstances. 

 

The Purpose of Conflict

    Conflict plays a fundamental role in stories that is rooted in the very reason we humans tell stories. Psychologically, it’s intriguing to us because our brains are always drawn to the question of how to solve problems that are in our way. Conflicts are exactly such problems in the way of the protagonist and we get to learn from that. Structurally, it’s crucial because conflict is the element that primarily illustrates the theme of the story and provides the plot thrust. It shows the reader what you, the writer, believe about what decisions are worth making in life. Plainly speaking, the purpose of conflict is to give your protagonist a really good reason to make a choice and therewith propel the plot, the theme development, and the story as a whole. 

 

The Structure of Conflict

    For conflict in a narrative to be effective and meaningful, it has to fulfill the following three functions:

• Causing the character to make a choice in reaction to the conflict 

• That choice is either immediately illustrative of the theme or it develops one of the other three root elements (character, circumstance, consequence) and serves as setup for a future thematic choice

• That choice has either immediate or future impactful outcomes that are relevant to the plot goal (whether or not characters are aware of them in the moment)

 

    Let’s dig into each one of these to ensure you can recognize and use them in your own writing. 

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Causing Character Choices​

 

    The operative term here is causing. A good story is ultimately a chain of cause and effect and the thrust of those causes is conflict—i.e. something in the way of a plot goal. To illustrate this, let’s keep working with the made up example of Kiara that we’ve been developing throughout this structural framework. 

 

    As a reminder, Kiara’s plot goal is to become the Bothorro’s Manor Valet and to do that she has to make a delivery to them from their summer estate (where she’s located) to their city estate. So, step number one in conflict development is to figure out what character and/or circumstance is in the way of her plot goal. As discussed in the last section, to deliver the package, she has to go through a treacherous forest that could be deadly to her. This means she has to make a choice. Does she risk going alone? Does she ask for help? And therefore the forest fulfills the function of a conflict. 

 

    Just to drive the point home, let’s look at an example of what wouldn’t work as conflict here. Let’s say Kiara’s mother finds out Kiara wants to be the Bothorro’s Manor Valet and they get into an argument about it. The mother chews Kiara out for thinking she’s better than everyone else in the village and how she’s just as useless as her father because she wants to leave. But at no point does the mother try to keep her from going or present a complication to her plan to go. While this scene, depending on how it’s written, could be interesting, it doesn’t present story conflict and does not drive the story forward. It at best would be an expositional scene informing the reader of just how much Kiara doesn’t fit into her current surroundings. I’m not saying such a scene cannot exist, but you should not confuse it for story conflict just because it has two people yelling at each other. If it’s too drawn out and unconnected to the plot goal, you will have your reader going “I don’t really care about these characters” even if they can’t articulate why they are feeling disengaged. 

 

    However, the forest works as a conflict because it’s directly in the way of Kiara’s plot goal. 

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Choice Illustrates Theme or Serves as Setup

 

    When conflict causes your character to make a choice, that choice should either illustrate the theme (i.e. what you’re trying to say about what choices are worth making in life) or should develop the character, circumstance, or consequence and thereby serve as a setup for a future thematic choice. Out of these two, the thematic choices are rarer in stories because they require more development and setup to be brought to fruition. This means that most of the choice points your characters face will act as setup establishing context that’s needed so that the climactic choices can drip with meaning and rend hearts. 

 

    Let’s look at Kiara for an example such a setup choice point. Given Kiara’s plot goal and her conflict, she chooses not to brave the forest solo and instead to go to her one and only best friend Lavan. She asks him to escort her through the forest. He is a half-human, half fire-giant and would indeed be capable of keeping them both safe from the range of dangers the forest presents. 

 

    As far as conflicts and choices go, this is pretty low key, but it does some okay setup. It shows us that she has one and only one friend, (so an illustration of circumstances) and that he’s descendant from fire giants (another illustration of the story circumstances that introduce or further the fantasy elements), and it shows us that she’s not a rash hothead willing to risk her neck without precaution (an illustration of her character). This is a classic setup move and if I were actually writing this book, I would be okay starting here at least on my first draft. 

 

    As a reminder: the theme question of this hypothetical story is How do you find somewhere to belong? and Kiara is a positive change arc character with the thematic choice framework of: It is better to choose integrity over success even if it means losing social status. So you can see this choice point does not directly illustrate the theme, but it’s a necessary step to get there. 

 

    For an example of a choice that illustrates the theme of a story, think of the finale of The Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta are the only survivors standing and the choices as presented to them by the game organizers are to kill or be killed. If I had to articulate the theme of the story I’d say it’s How do you survive in a monstrous world without becoming a monster yourself? So the thematic choice they make is to risk both of their deaths rather than kill one another. It is a gut-wrenching, memorable, and triumphant payoff choice that answers the theme question, resolves the plot question of the first book, and sets up the next book. This isn’t the only thematic choice of the book, but it certainly is the biggest. Every prior choice in response to all the conflicts Katniss encounters throughout the story was a structural setup to this one. 

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Choice Has Plot Goal Relevant Outcomes

 

    Finally, the choice the conflict causes has to have a plot-relevant outcome. I go more in depth about the important role of outcomes in the consequences section, but for our purposes here, there are two key points I’d like to drive home:

 

• A character’s choice in response to a conflict has to have a plot outcome—positive or negative

• That outcome either resolves the character’s scene goal or creates the next conflict

 

    Let’s jump back to our Kiara example to illustrate what this looks like. She just asked her friend Lavan to escort her through the forest. As a reminder, this is her choice in response to the forest being a conflict—i.e. the obstacle in the way of her plot goal. One outcome of this could be that he just agrees. That would resolve Kiara’s scene goal, but given that this was a setup scene such a clean resolution at this point would be very boring. Instead the outcome I will choose is that Lavan says no. He likes the village. People here know him and aren’t scared of him even though he’s half fire-giant. He feels he belongs and doesn’t want to go on this adventure. This meets the structural requirements of outcomes: it is plot-relevant because it directly impacts Kiara’s plot goal, and it creates the next conflict. Now Lavan is also an obstacle in Kiara’s way and she has to make a choice about how to deal with this development. I hope it’s clear how this is giving a sense of movement to the story. 

 

Watching Out For Weak Conflict

    I also want to point out a couple of common conflict mistakes I see often.

 

    Conflict in fiction is not like conflict in real life. In real life you might be out grocery shopping and minding your own business and some random stranger walks by saying under their breath how ugly your shoes are. They keep on walking and before you can even retort anything you can’t pick them out from other shoppers. To many people I know such an encounter feels like conflict because its outcome is that you feel badly about your shoes for a moment (or a while longer depending on your personality). You might even go home and vent about the rude stranger and seek reassurance that your shoes are awesome. While this is a completely understandable and valid conflict reaction in real life, it does not translate to fiction. Yet many writers make the mistake of having the outcome of fictional conflict be hurt feelings and characters seeking comfort to resolve the hurt. If your character does get their feelings hurt, make sure not to stop there. They have to then do something plot goal relevant with those hurt feelings. 

 

    And the second pitfall to watch out for concerns what to show versus what to summarize. Character choices drive your narrative so it can be tempting to dramatize all choice points in scene. However, that quickly becomes very tedious if not literally every choice point carries dramatic tension (which is not the case in most stories). As I said above, if Lavan had just agreed to go with Kiara, even if I’d inserted some great banter and awesome setting descriptions to immerse the reader into the world, that would have made for a structurally boring scene. If I did want him to agree, a better narrative choice would have been to just start the story with both of them either getting ready to brave the forest or already traveling. So, as a rule of thumb, if the scene outcome would be a resolving of the scene goal without any plot goal relevant complications or consequences, you don’t need to dramatize that scene. It can either be a scene summary or sometimes, depending on content and where it is in the story, it can be skipped altogether. 

 

    Now that we’ve covered the purpose and structure of conflict, let’s ensure your story has solid stakes with the narrative element of consequences.