How Conflict Creates And Drives Stories

Imagine your all-time favorite movie.

I’ll wait.

Got one? Good. Is it Finding Nemo? Was I close?

For now, let’s say it’s Finding Nemo. Because it is mine.

So I don’t have to tell you this, since it is your favorite movie too, but the basic plot of Finding Nemo is this: Nemo is a pre-teen (in fish years) clown fish, who gets abducted by a human being, and then Nemo’s dad spends the rest of the movie… finding Nemo.

So now, imagine this: what if Nemo, never got abducted? What if, instead of that event that sparks off the movie’s entire plot, nothing out of the ordinary happened?

In that scenario, there would be no ‘finding’ of Nemo because he wouldn’t be lost. So basically, you don’t have a movie.

That trigger, that event, that spark that creates the fire that is the story - that’s conflict.

So what is conflict, really? In a story, conflict is what is created when something that isn’t supposed to happen... happens. But an even simpler way of saying that is this - conflict is when the day doesn’t go as planned.

That’s the thing about stories - every story that you’ve ever liked or found interesting is one where something new happened instead of the usual. The extraordinary instead of the ordinary. The surreal instead of the real.

So, now that we know how to recognize conflict, we’re done with the easy part. Now, let’s get to the fun part… the conflict of this guide, if you will.

How do you create conflict?

Well, let's answer that question with an example. I'll share my most recent story's concept for this part.

Don't worry - you don't have to read it to continue reading this. I'm just going to tell you the basic info without any spoilers (so you can still read it later and have a good experience).

The story is called A Memory That Will Never Be.

And this is what it is about -

Sid, a rockstar, finds Story, a teenager & his ex's daughter, in his green room before a concert.

What you read about is the final version of how I described the story. Makes sense? Does it make you want to read it?

Below is how I described the story to myself when I came up with the idea of writing it. See if you can spot any differences -

A story about a musician. Maybe the lead singer of a band. He’s good, popular, but he’s disillusioned. He’s seen it all. He wonders about a different life. A path not taken. A path he can’t predict. Why? Because he’s seen the extent of this path. He thought there would be more, but he’s not sure anymore.

Can you tell the differences? The first description, the one I wrote after I wrote the story, tells you exactly where the story starts, and the goal of that is to pull you in. The second description, is what I wrote for myself, to start the story itself. When I wrote that one, there was no ’Story’… literally. All I had was an idea, which is what you read.

That’s the first lesson in conflict creation: 

Figure out what you want to explore.

Once I knew what my story was about, I started exploring different ideas for who the other character could be, so that they are able to trigger those feelings / thoughts in my primary character. At first I thought it would be a reporter, and I worked on that for a while. But after a few tangents and dialogues, I realized that the Sid character is too used to reporters, and wouldn’t open up.

This is how the ’Story’ character was born - she was a blast from the past that Sid couldn’t ignore. He was this guy who had seen everything and heard everything - and then he sees the daughter of his ex-girlfriend, i.e. a new person, a new experience, a new conversation.

So yes, ’Story’ was born was a conflict device. 

But let me now tell you lesson number two in conflict creation: 

You can’t make the conflict feel like a plot device.

Why? Because it doesn’t feel real. The reader or viewer of your story will know within minutes that this character has no original thoughts of their own, they’re just there to react to your primary character.

So, how do you avoid the character-is-a-conflict-device trap? Here’s my way - you make them the primary character.

What do I mean by that? Well, let’s take a step back out of the ’story’ and come back to the world we live in.

When you go about your life and interact with other human beings, do you consider them to be a conflict or plot device? Of course not. Because they’re people. Real, alive people who have their own lives and problems and plots and conflicts. No person is two-dimensional or a plot device or a conflict device. So when you create secondary characters in your stories, remember that they too are as real as your primary character. They’re people too - they think, they react, and they also run into situations that they didn’t plan or expect - hence, they too can have conflicts in their stories.

So let’s go to lesson number three in conflict creation: 

Your conflict is either going to be a character decision or a character reaction.

What does that mean? Well, let’s back up. All stories are human experiences. And if all stories have conflict, then the only way to communicate that conflict is through an experience that the characters in the story go through. So whether the conflict is your ex’s daughter showing up, or an earthquake - the only way you can explore that idea and communicate it to your audience is by showing how your primary characters (notice the plural-ness) would react to it.

So now that we’ve covered how conflict creates the ’story’ (and if you read the story I mentioned above, you know how literal that sentence it is), let’s talk about the next thing -

How does conflict drive a story?

Imagine this: you’ve created a story that starts with a pretty good conflict… character X wants something from character Y, and by the middle of the story you’re able to communicate that quite well. And then… you’re stuck at the mid-point, not sure how to write the rest of the story because the conflict was enough to get the characters to talk about things, but not enough to get the story to the conclusion you want or at least envisioned.

Well, that’s where conflict comes in (again).

I’ll share a different story for this part. One where I struggled with the ‘where does the story go from here’ question.

That story is called ‘You Only Die Once’. While the main ‘conflict’ of the story was that they primary character was going to die in 24 hours, the ‘driving conflict’ of the story was that the character was going to going to have to spend those 24 hours with his family… which resulted in several of the story’s key surprising moments.

So, how do you make conflict drive a story? You question your character’s motives. Why is she here? What makes her care about being a part of this? What is stopping her from leaving? Why does she care about the primary character’s conflict?

When you figure out why your secondary character is choosing to stay in your primary character’s story...

When your story has characters that feel like they all could be the primary characters…

When you create a story where the story’s makes even the story’s characters go ’that will make a good story someday…'

… you’ll know that you created a good story.

So there you go! That was this week’s guide on how to create the conflict that creates and drives stories.

What should do you next? Well, I would love it if you would challenge me (if a fun way) and write a story that tests out the ideas I shared here today.

If not, write something anyway. Because why not?

Start writing now.