My favourite line when talking about writing stories is life is about People, Places, and Problems
This week I open up the box marked “Problems”. Problems in stories are one of what I like to refer to as the 3 C’s:
Conflict
Crisis
Change
These are the 3 different types of problems encountered in our daily lives. There are probably more, but these three provide sufficient scope for any writer. Today, I will look at the most popular for writers and that is conflict.
Conflict is all around us. We are surrounded by the stuff. It’s everywhere and we cannot avoid it. Life is filled with conflicts of one kind or another. No matter how hard you try, someone will rope you into a conflict.
A conflict is a dramatic struggle between two forces in a story. Many writers would state that without conflict, there is no plot. This is not always true, but it captures the reader's interest. Why? Because it’s a feature in everyone’s life in today’s modern evolving world.
A conflict is therefore a problem that must be solved. In your story, it is an issue between the protagonist and antagonist. It forms the basis of the plot. But, the plot might always be obvious or clear. That is the beauty of story writing. It is all make-believe and anything goes within reason.
Conflicts can be external or internal. It does have to be a force between two characters. The external conflict is an outside force and can be a person, group, animal, nature, or some other obstacle. The internal conflict takes place in a character’s mind. This can be any character, not necessarily the protagonist nor the antagonist.
Types of External Conflict:
Character vs. Character: The obvious one is where two characters go head-to-head over something or someone. It could be over any issue or a fight to win the attention of another. It can be between siblings, co-workers looking for promotion, ethical or belief differences. Freedom to express oneself is great, but not everyone is prepared to accept your point of view. Conflict is all around us.
Character vs. Nature: This is a very topical area today. Conflicts over the environment have been a source of good story plots for years, but today, this topic has risen to the top of the agenda. Disputes over the removal of rainforests are now raising concerns about a man coming into contact with new, unknown viruses. This is also true of the melting ice releases virus or diseases that trapped for millions of years in the ice.
Character vs. Society: Another popular source of conflict. A classic is a conflict concerning a person who goes against society, governments, the law and so on. For me, a vigilante is a good example. Here, the vigilante decides that justice doesn’t work and takes the law into their own hands. The character takes the route down a very lonely path.
Character vs. Fate: This is a cracking conflict. Lots of scopes to explore because this is life. Life is fate. Good or bad, fate is our destiny. For story writing, this provides lots of different scenarios. We are all born damaged in some way. Our imperfections make us who we are and unique. We all feel, at times, that life has dealt us a crap hand.
Character vs. Self: A great conflict. This is usually an internal conflict!
It is often a character who finds him or herself battling between two competing desires or selves, typically one good and one evil. I often think of this being a three-way split: The good, bad, and the ugly.
Character vs. Technology/Machinery: This can be an interesting one. Probably more a job-related fight. This can be one man's battle to save the jobs of fellow workers. It could one man’s battle to prove he can work faster and more accurately than his digital replacement. It can also be more about Sc-Fi with ordinary fighting against a seemingly unbeatable machine or opponent who is part machine.
Character vs. the Unknown/Extraterrestrial: This where the character is in conflict with an unknown force. A superhero fighting to save the world from an alien invasion. The protagonist is struggling to overcome so paranormal force.
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