I Have a Conflict—And That’s a Good Thing
Have you ever found yourself struggling to engage in a story or book? Or maybe the book or story has some merit and you think “it took a long time to get going.” I’ve been there, as an instructor, a teacher, and a writer.
(Building and Maintaining Tension in a Thriller Novel.)
I don’t have many hard rules for writing fiction, but I’ve often observed that the missing element of reader engagement is a lack of conflict. Here are five thoughts to masticate on, in a purely literary sense.
1. Establish a conflict right away
In my new novel, The Monosexual, we meet Vincent Cappalini in a hospital bed, unable to recall how he got there. He doesn’t even know how serious his condition is. He can see and hear. The IV bottle drip and rhythm reminds him of a Sinatra song. Some memories begin to return. And then he takes inventory. He starts with with his fingers and limbs. Soon he’s wondering if his genitals are intact. This scenario sets up one big conflict; i.e., what happened to Vincent?
And the story is bolstered by a series of sub-conflicts—does he have the use of his fingers, legs, genitals? And so on. And why should we care? With the return of memory, new conflicts come up—missing his girlfriend. She took a flight to California and left him, but why? Conflicts accrue as the novel moves forward and they escalate in intensity.
The reader needs to keep reading and keep turning the pages to find out how this will be resolved. And that’s our job as writers, isn’t it, to keep readers turning the pages? Or maybe it’s something else?
2. Wow, I just transitioned to a new point
See what I did there, and not so subtly? At the end of that first point, I raised another question. It was a facetious and mostly rhetorical question, no doubt, but maybe it prompted you to see what No. 2 was about in this article.
That’s what you should be doing—in a much more artful manner—at the end of all your chapters. Guiding and propelling your readers to a new scene and chapter. Don’t ever let readers feel they are at an end point. If the reader feels your story is resolved, you’re giving the reader a reason to stop reading. Compel your reader to read on by leaving the future uncertain at the end of your chapters. The exception may be the last section or chapter, of course, although it’s okay to resolve some things and leave others open-ended.
By the end of The Monosexual and in my first published novel The Sweep of the Second Hand, conflicts and uncertainties about the future of the protagonist still loom large at the end of the book, but in a more hopeful light, perhaps. I guess you’d need to read it to decide that for yourself. Just sayin’. The point is, a chapter that ends with an emerging, unresolved conflict will keep people reading.
Check out Dean Monti’s The Monosexual here:
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3. Conflict can be big or small
In The Monosexual, I started with a major conflict (man in hospital with temporary amnesia), but a smaller conflict can be just as effective, and it’s usually two conflicts or concepts juxtaposed. In my novel The Sweep of the Second Hand, I started with a man losing a minute of sleep each night and fretting about the consequences (the most dire of which might be pulling off his own nose in the night). The protagonist also had yellow jackets living in his wall—another conflict that exacerbated his sleep and mental health.
But conflict can begin as simply as “I have a Zoom meeting in five minutes and my camera is not working.” Or “I have a Zoom meeting in five minutes and my camera is working, but I gained five pounds since the last call.” Conflict is a flat tire, a head cold, a broken pencil, a snapped shoelace, a stopped watch, a mysteriously missing favorite blue shirt. It’s a cobra in your clothes hamper. Okay, that last one is probably a bigger conflict. But conflict is anything that causes anxiety. Like writing this essay. Which leads me to:
4. Conflict is everywhere and it’s relatable
I can get anxious and some of my best friends are anxious people. Some of them struggle with the same problems I do, and some have different worries. But worry and anxiety are experienced universally. And people who worry usually care, deeply, about things. Use our collective anxiety to your benefit.
All readers can relate to feeling anxious, and they also care about people who care about things, so it can often develop empathy for your protagonist. Always keep what the protagonist(s) wants and needs just out of reach. If you do your job well, readers will root for your characters to get what they want and need, but particularly after you put them through hell to get it.
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5. This just got awkward
Consciously or otherwise—I tend to put my characters in awkward situations, and then raise that to the level of absurdity while still grounding it in reality.
In The Monosexual, the protagonist Vincent arrives at a hotel he’s never been to before, hoping for a nice room—something we might all agree is a universal situation we’ve all experienced. It’s a themed hotel (these are becoming increasingly popular) and he is at first elated to learn from the front desk clerk that his room will be on the Presidential Floor. Excellent. Unfortunately, Vincent has been booked into the James Madison room, and James Madison was the smallest American president (an unimposing 5’ 4” to be exact, if you like trivia), so Vincent ends up in a ridiculously tiny hotel room because James Madison was a small president. Play with disparate elements such as these.
Mix up things awkwardly, including situations and emotions, and particularly in dialogue. Create misunderstandings. As Gordon Gekko said in Wall Street, “Awkward is good.” No, he didn’t say that, but I’m choosing to end this awkwardly.