Conflict Generator

What conflict is, and what it is not

Conflict is two things that cannot both happen. It is not an argument, a villain or bad weather. Two characters can shout for ten pages with no conflict if either could end it by saying one true sentence. The results here are built so that this cannot happen: each one gives the characters something they both need, a reason they cannot simply ask, and a place where it must be settled.

Check any conflict you write against one test. If a character gives up, what does it cost them? If the answer is nothing, you have a disagreement, not a conflict. Raise the cost until stepping back hurts more than pushing on.

Three kinds, three jobs

Conflict between people drives scenes. It is the kind you can put in a room with a door and a table and let play out in dialogue. Inner conflict drives character. It is the choice between two goods, or two harms, that shows the reader who someone is. Conflict between groups drives plot and setting. It creates a world with factions, and any character who belongs to one side is already in trouble.

Strong stories layer the three. A feud between two families is a group conflict. The daughter who loves someone on the other side has an inner one. The scene in which she tells her mother is a conflict between two people. If you are stuck on a draft, ask which of the three is missing.

Writing the scene

Each result ends with a tip. They are all versions of the same advice: start late, say less and let the reader feel what is not said. The best conflict scenes are quiet on the surface. The characters talk about the house, the boat or the money, and the reader hears what the argument is really about.

Give both sides a good reason. If you can see only one side of the conflict, the reader will too, and the scene will read as a lecture. Find the moment where the character you disagree with is right, and write that moment with the same care as the rest.

Ten example conflicts

• Between people Two sisters both need the same house, but only one of them can have it, and neither knows the other wants it. It happens at the reading of a will. Let neither of them say what they actually want.
• Between people Conflict: a mother and her grown son. What they want: one person's forgiveness. What stands between them: they would have shared it, if either had spoken first. Put them in a place where neither can leave.
• Between people A detective and the suspect who reminds them of themselves meet in a car that will not start. Each needs the truth about what happened that night, but the cost falls on someone who is not in the room.
• Between people A captain and a stowaway both need the last seat on the boat, but time is running out, and talking has never been their strength. It happens on a ferry in a storm. End the scene before it is resolved.
• Inside a person A pilot who has found a fault the company wants hidden is torn between the safety of strangers and the job they have worked for all their life, and an hour from now, the choice will be made for them.
• Inside a person Inner conflict: a teacher who has caught their favourite student cheating. One side: the rules of their profession. The other: mercy. The pressure: nobody else knows there is a choice to be made. Show the choice through what the character does with their hands.
• Inside a person A spy who has begun to love the country they are betraying is torn between duty to their country and a chance to start again, and every option has someone's name on it.
• Between groups The families on the hill and the families in the valley both claim the only well, and a young couple from both sides have just announced a wedding. Let a rumour do most of the damage.
• Between groups Conflict: the miners against the owners of the mine, over the blame for last winter. The spark: the leaders are friends and the followers are not. Give each side a leader who is more reasonable than the crowd.
• Between groups The crew of the first ship and the crew that came later both claim the one working lift, and the old treaty has run out and nobody has renewed it. Show what each side believes the other side said.