Conflict is at the heart of every story. It’s what drives the plot, highlights the stakes, and increases tension. It’s the main reason readers crave stories. In her latest post on conflict, Becca Puglisi returns home to Writers Helping Writers to suggest a variety of types of conflict that can sweeten your story.
“It’s crucial that we employ this storytelling element thoughtfully and purposefully, but with conflict in every scene—very often, multiple conflicts per scene—that’s a lot of drama,” Puglisi writes. “How do we keep those scenarios from becoming redundant, flat, or melodramatic? The key is to use different kinds.”
Variety is a strength and that includes conflict in your story, Puglisi says. “The best stories don’t stick to the same type of conflict over and over,” she writes. “They pull from multiple forms that work naturally with the story’s main premise to hit the character from all sides.”
Some varieties of conflict you might consider for your story include: relationship friction; a choice between two different responsibilities; failures and mistakes; moral dilemmas and temptations; deadlines; and no-win situations. “Conflict is what we use to poke at a character’s soft spots, raise the stakes, and maybe encourage a specific path to self-growth,” Puglisi explains. “So when you’re choosing conflict options for your character, vary the forms. This ensures that the problems they’re facing will spread like cracked glass, threatening multiple areas of their life and making things exponentially more complicated and difficult for them.”
