Without conflict or friction in your story, nothing  interesting will happen. Today we focus on making sure two opposing forces run into each other in your story.

Audio Only

The Prompt

Put your character in a mundane, everyday situation. Then introduce a strong element of conflict. Bonus points: go back and make sure that your opening line contains a hint of the conflict to come.

Tips

• Today’s video opens with a story from my own life that was loaded with conflict!
• Conflict is the stuff that makes the story happen.
• Conflict raises questions in your readers’ brains, which makes them work harder, and makes your story stay in their brains longer.
• It’s easier to write a story if you have two people with opposing needs or a person and a situation with opposing needs.
• The conflict can be external (they’re driving to work and boom! A car crashes sideways into them, setting of a bizarre chain of events that matter because…)
• The conflict might be internal (They’re making coffee and reflecting on how difficult life has been since their mother got sick and because of that…)
• Make sure something happens, and that this story isn’t just your character thinking all the time.
• Keep adding different types of conflict, while trying to deal with the initial problem (e.g. the person whose car was rammed is now teetering on the edge of a cliff and has to climb out, all the while dealing with a crippling fear of heights caused by a childhood incident…)
• Remember: conflict can be something as quiet as deciding to/not to answer the phone.
• Go back and look at the first line of you story. See if you can beef it up to hint at the conflict to come.