Writing Advice

Writing Advice:
Your Story is Your Starship; Conflict is Its Fuel

In teaching college communication for 25 years, when it came to addressing negotiation, it amazed me how many students seemed to think that conflict was bad, that it should be avoided at all costs, that it was evil, that it was anathema, blah blah blah.

Not only is all of this untrue, it’s counter-productive. If there was no conflict there, would be no progress. If there was no dissatisfaction (which is a conflict), then there would never be any need (or reason) to develop something better.

The question is not about whether conflict is good or bad, because it cannot be avoided. It is part of the human condition and it’s impossible to remove it from our lives. If you’re hungry, you’re having a conflict. The question is how you deal with conflict. I took a class in the Honors Program in college that focused on this question alone. The class was called Specific Topics in Social Science: Conflict, Violence, and Aggression. I loved this class. The whole thrust of the course was to study how societies dealt with conflict throughout history. So when inevitable and essential conflict arises, how do you deal with it? Do you allow it to escalate to aggression? Do you then allow that aggression to escalate to violence? That was the focus of that class specifically, as well as a topic of discussion in every philosophy course I took (I majored in it, so there were quite a few).

So why bring this up? Because conflict is not only essential to life, it is essential to your story. If you want readers to climb aboard your Starship Storytell, then you need conflict or it will never go vroom-vroom. It will sit in one place and it might be super high-tech and beautiful and in a wonderful place with amazing technology and super-advanced people who are really smart and evolved and developed beyond the normal human coil to the point that they are super bland and so boring that your readers will either stop reading or die from boredom.

There are six main types of literary conflicts and each serves a different purpose in a story:

Character vs. Character
Character vs. Self
Character vs. Nature
Character vs. Society
Character vs. Technology
Character vs. Supernatural

Character vs. Character is where two (or more) characters are in conflict. Character vs. Self is where a character faces an internal struggle. Character vs. Nature is where the conflict is rooted in a natural phenomenon. Character vs. Society is where the conflict comes from an unjust social climate. Character vs. Technology is where the conflict is rooted in science. Character vs. Supernatural is where a character faces supernatural forces.

Let’s look at each of these in a little more depth.

Character vs. Character

A common type of conflict found in literature is to have two (or more) characters opposed to one another. This typically occurs between a story’s protagonist (hero) and antagonist (villain), although this is not always the case.

This conflict can be illustrated in many ways and in varied degrees of intensity. Some examples include a physical fight, stealing the other’s homework, making the other late for work, stuffing someone else’s underwear into the character’s briefcase, leaking secret information to the media, etc. The key in each instance is that the characters have conflicting goals, giving the hero a challenge to overcome and/or a villain to vanquish, even if it requires eating a can of spinach to do so.

A great example is Star Wars. The conflict that drives the story is between Luke Skywalker (hero) and the rebels on one side, and Darth Vader (villain) and the empire on the other.

Another example is Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe is marooned on an island after a shipwreck that is inhabited by cannibals. If that’s not character vs. character, I don’t know what is.

Character vs. Self

Another common type of conflict involves a character’s internal struggle: emotions, personal shortcomings, or moral dilemmas. This is great for developing a hero’s complexity as a character, which also allows that character to grow and develop over the course of the story as he or she overcomes these struggles.

Look back at Star Wars. Luke Skywalker struggles to gain control over his abilities to manipulate the Force.

In Robinson Crusoe, he immediately wants to kill the cannibals, because what they are doing is wrong, but then he questions this decision, because they do not have and do not share the same background and beliefs.

Internal conflict can be more complicated. In Hamlet, there are many internal struggles. Prince Hamlet vows to avenge his father by killing his uncle, Claudius. His sense of duty to his father then conflicts with his moral sense of right and wrong (killing is wrong), so he struggles with self-doubt and indecision.

Character vs. Nature

A slightly different type of conflict is where the character is plopped down in opposition to the natural world. This might involve surviving in dangerous weather or a post-apocalyptic landscape, or surviving against hostile wildlife, or outlasting natural disasters.

The Old Man and the Sea is largely one man against nature. Santiago (hero) must struggle against both the sea and the giant marlin he is trying to catch and (spoiler alert) barely survives the ordeal.

In Lucifer’s Hammer, the characters have to survive a meteor hitting Earth, then endure the changes it forces them to live through.

Character vs. Society

Another flavor or conflict is characters struggling against society. In one extreme, this might be a society that is notably unjust, prejudiced, or oppressive. In another, it could simply be a struggle to break away from social norms.

Characters in this type of story are typically motivated to challenge their society based on their morals or their desire for happiness, freedom, justice, or love.

One example is To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch, a lawyer, takes on the case of a black man who is wrongly accused of a crime, sticking true to his principles regardless of how those around him judge or criticize his actions in a racially-charged climate.

Another example is The Breakfast Club. A group of teenagers from different cliques are thrown together for detention on a Saturday. They are forced to interact, get past the facades of their social groupings, and learn that they are just people underneath, going against social norms on several levels.

Character vs. Technology

These stories focus on characters coming into conflict with technology that has become too powerful or that is being used irresponsibly. This is common ground for science fiction and horror stories. These stories often use a technological conflict to explore what it means to be human and what sets humans apart from technology and machines.

In Frankenstein, the story revolves around the potential risks and costs of technological progress.

In Terminator, the story revolves around the potential risks of artificial intelligence becoming too powerful and taking over.

Character vs. Supernatural

This is where a character faces the unexplained. It might be a supernatural entity like a ghost or a monster, or something abstract, such as fighting against fate itself. Supernatural sources of conflict can create an uneven playing field, setting ordinary characters against a force they cannot understand to build tension or threat. Of course, then it can become exciting, by balancing the field and giving powers to the other side ....

In Stephen King’s It, the protagonists are haunted by a supernatural being that preys on their fears. The story, therefore, hinges on the characters first trying to survive this threat, then eventually learning how to overcome it.

Poltergeist revolves around supernatural events because of where a home was built and the characters having to learn why it’s happening (the desecration of a Native American burial ground) in order to escape it.

I hope this gives an idea of how essential conflict is to storytelling and gives some ideas of different ways to implement it in your writing.

W.D. Kilpack III: Official Web Site