How and Why to Get Every Scene Brimming with Conflict

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Welcome to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast, the weekly discussion of craft and technique for writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. And now here's your host, writer and educator, Brad Reed. Episode 34, Today we tackle the single most important element that a story must have, conflict. What is it? Why is it so important? And how can we get our stories brimming with it?

And welcome back to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast. My name is Brad Reed, and I am thrilled that you're spending some time with me today here in the podcast. It is good to be back with you after our guest hosted show last week. I have to say, though, I really loved hearing from Jessie Hawley. And I think he set a great benchmark for the kind of segments that we're hoping for here on the show. The thing I really love is how much it helps the show feel kind of like an intimate little writers group.

Everybody in the room, so to speak, can have the opportunity to add to the discussion and share their own insights and discoveries for the benefit of all of us, regardless of our years of experience or whether or not we've been published or whatever. If you've had the chance to listen to last week's show with Jessie, I'd love to get some feedback about it, both about Jessie's episode in particular, but also about the idea, the concept of the occasional guest host. Is it something that you'd like to see more of on the show? Or better yet, is it something that you'd like to actually do yourself? You can find out how to submit a segment by visiting Bradreedwrites. com and clicking on the Be a guest host link.

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Okay, so enough of all that. I hope that didn't sound too heavy-handed. I certainly didn't mean it that way if it did.

Understanding Conflict in Stories

But let's go ahead and get into today's topic. Today we are talking conflict. So I've noticed an odd thing in the stories of new writers. Often they will write two characters that end up going through the story together. Maybe it's kind of like a buddy story, or maybe it's the story of a couple in love who go on an adventure together, or maybe it's a father and a son surviving in the wilderness or something like that.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that at all. Some of my favorite stories focus on the relationship between just two people. But what happens in these, I hate to say it, amateurish stories, is that the two characters are almost indistinguishable from one another.

So they're such good friends that they talk the same. They feel the same way about things. They act the same. Or maybe they're such a loving couple that they want the exact same things out of life, or they have the same fears and the same hopes in life. I've read stories where you could literally swap the names of these two characters at any point, and the story would hold up just fine. And sometimes they're two names that appear literally side by side throughout the entire story.

So like Bob and Jim did this, or Bob and Jim did that, right? These writers haven't written a story with two characters at all. They've actually written a story with a single character named Bob and Jim, or Harry and Sally, right?

The Importance of Tension

So what's going on in these stories is a fundamental lack of conflict. And to a certain extent, a similar lack of conflict might be sneaking its way into our stories as well. Now maybe it's not as obvious as the kinds of stories I was just talking about, but it just might be there in a more subtle form. I think we all kind of get conflict on a major scale, right? We understand the arguments that we put in our stories, maybe the chase scenes or the battle royale, right? We get the big conflicts.

But I think we all too often miss the subtle conflict that should permeate every scene and every relationship in your story. So I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Story is conflict. I ask my class this all the time to the point where they can kind of parrot it back. I'll say, what is story? And they'll shout back, conflict, because story is conflict.

And conflict only exists when there is tension. And there should be tension or conflict in every single scene of our story, even the quiet scenes that don't feel initially like there's conflict there. Now, sometimes this is big, life-threatening conflict, but other times it's subtle, under-the-surface conflict.

But it absolutely has to be there. Any scene without tension, without conflict, is a scene that has no place in the story. It needs to be cut. That scene is, by definition, telling rather than showing. And for that reason, it's absolutely vital to go through your manuscript and amp up the tension wherever possible. Watch for those moments when you have characters in agreement with each other, especially if they're in agreement on a deeper level than just making a similar decision.

Now, I get it. That's a little ambiguous, right? A little abstract.

So let's get specific to see how it works on a scene level. So let's start, for example, let's say we've got two people that are going on an adventure. So they both might be excited. They both might be eager to go. On the surface, they might seem perfectly in sync and ready for whatever comes to them.

Creating Conflict Through Motivation

So if this agreement goes deeper, though, to the level of their motivation for going on the adventure, then you have a boring pair of characters, right? They're too similar. But now if you give your characters differing or even better, conflicting motivations and watch the tension and the opportunities for conflict rise dramatically. Perhaps the best example of this is the epic adventure of Frodo Baggins and his traveling companion, Samwise Gamgee. Hopefully, you've all either read these books or seen the films. If so, you'll remember that there is some initial disagreement about whether or not Sam should accompany Frodo on the journey, and that provides some initial kind of surface level tension.

But that tension quickly is resolved as the decision is made for Sam to accompany Frodo on that journey. But think about how their differing motivations for going provides an ongoing tension between them in the story. So Frodo's motivation is out of responsibility, right? He's responsible to destroy the ring, and he's also made this commitment to his mentor, Gandalf.

But Samwise, on the other hand, he goes because he loves and he cares for Frodo, his friend. So for most of the story, Samwise really couldn't care less about the ring. He just wants his friend to be safe, right? Even this seemingly innocuous difference creates compelling moments of tension and conflict within the story.

So when problems arise, their differing motivations bring about conflict because Samwise would rather have Frodo give up the journey entirely and just go home to the Shire where he thinks they'll be safe, right? And now this flies directly in the face of Frodo's motivation. He's not concerned about his own safety, or at least that's not his primary motivation. And that causes conflict in the way that the two of them handle obstacles thrown their way. And here's the kicker about conflict, the reason it's so important. It's by seeing how characters deal with conflict that we discover who they really are.

People are not what they say they are. They are what they do. And seeing characters learn to react differently in the face of conflict is how our reader sees that a character has truly changed over the course of our story.

So now I want you to think about your story. Do you maybe have characters that are in love? Now this is an invitation to storytelling disaster. It's been done wrong so many times.

So if you have two characters that are in love and their motivation to be with each other is simply love, then you've got a recipe for bored readers. So both of your characters desire each other, well, kind of just because they desire each other, right? But if we complicate it a little bit, then you've got the makings of some great tension. And this is why so many lovers in literature are from different worlds, either culturally, socially, socioeconomically.

So you've got the rich young bachelor and the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. So yes, they're in love, primarily There's this bubbling difference, this bubbling difference in motivation. Now you have two people who may genuinely love each other, but they're also tempted to use each other in some subtle and pernicious ways.

Internal vs. External Conflict

So in other words, now you have the opportunity for conflict. It works on a much more basic level as well. So let's say you have a character who's simply walking along the beach and they're kind of pondering, thinking over a major life decision. Not a lot of opportunity for conflict there.

So how could you ramp up the conflict, the tension in a scene like that? So I mean, there's no other characters. There's no outside interaction. There's no obvious sources of conflict to have a run in with. Even here, you have a couple of options.

So first off, the tension could be internal, right? As he's going through this inner dialogue, have the character pull up a memory that flies in the face of the decision they're trying to make. Or maybe let an imagined conversation play out in their head with someone who is in conflict with them. Or you can move that conflict to something external.

So let's say his plan is to go to the beach and walk and kind of think through this decision, but he gets there and he finds that the beach is closed, right? Now he's forced to walk along a crowded street clogged with tourists and chaos, right? And the conflict abounds. Or, you know, maybe he does get on the beach and there are some little sand mites that begin to chomp down on his legs and arms and they distract him from his thoughts.

So even these really small moments of tension are enough to keep a reader interested and a scene moving. And why is that? Why is conflict so important? It's because even these little tiny moments of conflict are opportunities for your reader to learn about your character and see how they react to conflict, whether big or small.

So the reader is kind of watching, does this character persevere while getting their ankles bitten? Or does this character fly off the handle and really react in some unexpected or violent way, right? Depending on that reaction, that's how your readers get to know your character. And also, maybe even more importantly, that's how they bring themselves into your story. Subconsciously, they're kind of asking themselves, well, how would I react in a similar circumstance? And as soon as they've put themselves in the shoes of your character, you've got them, right?

And conflict is the way to do that. So for every scene in your story, ask yourself not, can I increase the tension, but how can I increase the tension? There is always an opportunity for more tension and more conflict, whether that's major, big, life-threatening stuff, or the tiny little inconveniences that just jump in and cause a problem.

Mapping Character Conflicts

Now in this episode, I focused on stories and examples that use just two people, but the technique actually applies to stories with any number of characters. Your story could be a massive epic that involves dozens of characters spread out over generations, but the same rule applies. It just gets a lot more complicated to sort out.

So even in these cases, when you have a huge cast of characters, no two characters should be without conflict of some sort with every single other character in the story world. I've seen people have success planning this kind of conflict by literally charting it out on a huge piece of paper or maybe on a big whiteboard. And what they'll do is they'll put up a bubble for or a circle for each of their characters, and then they'll begin to connect those characters with lines to every single other character. And those lines will represent a source of a specific conflict, right? Somewhere where their motivations or their goals differ. I really like this technique because it forces you to confront the fact that you may have created characters who are basically different versions of the same person.

They've got matching goals, matching morals, matching desires and matching traits. And once you get this up on a big sheet of paper, that becomes clear when you suddenly can't draw a line of conflict between them. And this is actually a great way to develop characters too, to make them stand out from each other. Often while doing this kind of work, I end up discovering an aspect of a character that ends up defining who that character is. And it often suggests an entire backstory for that character that I hadn't considered before. Let me give you an example.

So in the book I'm working on now, I have a protagonist who starts out very religious. And in one scene, she's talking with her parson about the importance of faith. And what I realized while writing the scene is that they were both in exactly the same place on the issue of the importance of faith. Both were wholehearted believers and neither of them questioned their faith even in the slightest. And I realized that the scene was not working at all because it was basically just two people sitting around agreeing with each other, right? That is boring, boring, boring.

So I asked myself what I could change. How could I give this scene some element of tension? And I knew that I couldn't really change my protagonist's position because it was a key part of her character arc in the story to start out ultra-religious and then change.

So in other words, she had to start the story all in with her religion, but it occurred to me that the parson didn't necessarily. And that's when things got interesting for me. That's when I started opening up that scene and understanding who this parson could be other than kind of the stereotypical religious leader.

So I had to ask myself, what would it look like for my protagonist to be talking with a parson who was struggling with his faith? Then the wheels started turning, right? Now I'm still fleshing this out a little bit, but I began to brainstorm reasons that religious leaders might doubt their own faith. And the one I've settled on, at least for now, is that this parson's wife has just left him for another man.

So instead of my protagonist talking to a parson who believes exactly as she does, he's actually playing the role of the person who is struggling with doubt, right? And I think that's an interesting turn on that scene. And it's one I never would have thought of if I hadn't been thinking intentionally about adding conflict between these two characters.

So he's basically asking himself, right, how could God allow such a thing to happen? So now he's not coming right out and saying, he's not coming right out and telling her that he's struggling with his own faith during their interaction, but it becomes clear that he is from the subtext of their conversation, that he's not on the same page as she is. And he's trying actually to tamp down her complete reliance on her faith.

So it's subtle. Yes, you wouldn't walk away from that scene being able to say, to point to this as the source of tension in the scene, but it's there. It's subtle. It's working underneath the surface. And it's a hell of a lot better than two people sitting around just nodding their heads at each other.

Authenticity in Conflict

So one word of warning before we wrap up today, and that's to say that not all conflict is good conflict for your story. Don't just throw in conflict for the sake of conflict. Make sure that it stays consistent with your story and with your characters. It's absolutely vital that you keep the tension and conflict realistic to the world and the characters that you've created.

So in other words, to use an overly dramatic example, don't introduce a dragon in a work of realistic fiction just to spice things up, right? You're going to break your story if you do that. Now that's something you'd probably never think of doing because it would be obvious how it would harm your story rather than improve it.

But watch for the subtle ways that introducing inappropriate conflict can have a similar impact on the believability of your story. Conflict should arise naturally from the story idea, from the setting, from the relationships, not come externally to simply kind of drop a bomb into an otherwise boring scene. So make sure your characters' reactions to the conflict remain consistent with who they are too.

So in other words, don't have your puritanic main character suddenly explode with foul language at something that is annoying him, right? It'll feel forced and it'll pull your reader out of the story rather than ramp up the conflict. So look at every moment of tension as really a learning opportunity for your reader. Each moment of tension provides a glimpse into who that character really is because none of us, when you think about it, are as real as we are in moments of conflict. In every other aspect of life, we can kind of put up our masks and try to get the world to see us the way we want them to.

But in moments of conflict, our true selves cut through that facade and they reveal the real person inside. Now, if that thought makes you a little uncomfortable, it probably should, right? I don't want to admit that the person I really am is the one who rises to the surface when I'm cut off in traffic or when somebody is talking really loud behind me in the movie theater.

But like it or not, these are the moments that reveal who we really are when we don't have a chance to filter ourselves. And the same is true of our characters. If our use of conflict misfires and we have a character react in a way that isn't authentic to them, we undo all the work we've done to help our readers get to know our characters on that intimate level.

So use these moments of transparency wisely in your fiction and your characters will literally jump to life in all their positive and negative complexity. Now, characters can certainly act out of character sometimes. I mean, Lord knows real people do it all the time, but make sure you're doing it to build that character and show a new wrinkle to their personality that may have been hidden up to that point rather than end up creating an unrealistic moment of tension or conflict just for the sake of tension or conflict. Conflict should always grow organically from your story characters, your story world Built by struggle. Hopefully after our exploration today, we can see how that's true for the characters in our books. Hopefully we've filled our pages with the kind of struggle that can both reveal the qualities our characters lack as well as provide opportunities for them to build up their character qualities.

Writer's Growth Through Conflict

But I also love that this statement is true for us, as writers, as well. It's through the struggle and conflict of writing a book, a massive undertaking, that builds up character in us, as well. There's a kind of power in finishing a huge project like a book. It not only gives you the confidence and wherewithal to write another book, a second or a third or a fourth, but that confidence that comes from finishing a book bleeds into the rest of your life as well. Any project looks small and achievable when stacked up against the mountain of work and effort and struggle that your book represents. It's just another way that writing is power.

While you're writing a story in which your character makes massive changes, you, the author, are changing as well. And I love that. Our weekly challenge this week is, of course, also related to conflict. Like last week, there's a bit of danger in this week's challenge, although it's kind of of a different sort than last week's challenge. This week, I want you to think of you and your best friend.

Now, maybe that's that lifelong friend you've known since high school. Maybe it's a spouse, or maybe it's even a parent or a child. So who is the person that is most on your side of anyone in your life? Who is it that you go to when you're needing advice or validation about the direction of your life?

In other words, who's the person in your life that you would say you have the least conflict with, the person who is most in line with you? Okay, so now, and this isn't something you should probably share with this person by any means, what I want you to do is brainstorm a list of the conflicts that you have with this person. In what ways do you see the world differently? What are those things that you know kind of not to touch, not to approach, because it could set off an argument? And try to get the detail into the details here, right?

So in writing, it's all about the specific details. So we want to look for details here as well. Now, once you've done that, once you've kind of brainstormed this list of conflicts that you have with your best friend, I want you to look at the two characters in your current work in progress that you would consider to be the closest in the same way.

So find that close friendship, the closest one that you have with the main character. And then look at that relationship and see if it has some of the same sources of possible conflict as your real relationship does. Now, not necessarily the exact same ones, of course, but similar kinds of conflict.

Now, going through this can often help you discover when you have two characters that are too similar in your story. If there isn't enough that divides them, then there's not enough to separate them in your reader's minds and certainly not enough to provide the kind of tension and conflict that needs to exist between all the characters in your book. Even the best of friends have conflict, both in real life and in fiction.

Weekly Writing Challenge

So that's going to wrap it up for this week. I'd love to hear your experience with our weekly challenges, what's working for you, what's not, what you're learning about writing through doing them. And actually, I'd love to hear from you about any aspect of the show. You can get in touch with us by going to BradReadWrites. com and clicking the Talk to Us link. You can shoot us an email there.

You can connect with us on Twitter. You can even leave a message on our voicemail line and maybe even hear your voice on a future episode of the show. So, until next week, remember the best way to improve your craft is by writing. That's what I'm off to go do, and I hope you're off to do the same.

Let's get some words on paper this week, and we'll meet up again next week for another episode of the Inside Creative Writing podcast. Thanks for listening to the Inside Creative Writing podcast with your host, writer and educator Brad Reed. We'll be back next week.