HOW TO INTRODUCE CONFLICT IN YOUR NOVEL

Here's a story:

Jess was a very pretty baby. Everyone admired her. As she grew, she made many friends. At school she was always top of the class. She left university with an excellent degree. She got a well-paid and interesting job and rose to become a director of the company. She married her childhood sweetheart who loved her to bits and they had two beautiful perfect children, who also did well at school and were perfectly sweet and well-behaved. They had a perfect house which never needed repairs, a car that never broke down. Nobody had a moment's illness. The story ends with Jess and her husband celebrating their silver wedding, surrounded by loving family and friends.

A good story? Interesting? NO!

All the way through such a story you're waiting (hoping!) for the Big Foot Up There to stamp down on them and disrupt their perfect life.

You can't sustain interest in a story or novel without introducing some form of CONFLICT, something to upset the status quo. It can take any number of forms. Here are some of them:

Another character, or characters, who is jealous, envious, hostile, more ambitious, unfaithful, dishonest.

A health problem, a crippling accident - to your main character or a loved one.

Loss of wealth, loss of job, loss of home, loss of a loved one.

External events - a terrorist attack, a murderer on the loose, floods, storms, war.

These are just a few suggestions.

Whichever you choose (one or several) your story will then show how your main character struggles with, and hopefully overcomes, the problem(s), becomes stronger and regains that perfect life.

A much more interesting story.

It doesn't have to be melodramatic. Here's a very simple and homely example:

Two newly-weds move into their first home, a ramshackle cottage on the outskirts of a village. They renovate it and live happily ever after. Where's the conflict?

a) Husband falls through the bedroom floor and breaks a leg

b) They find the cottage has dry rot and they have to move back in with Mum and Dad while it's being sorted - and while husband's leg is in plaster.

c) There's Japanese knotweed in the garden

d) Their planning application is turned down and they have to rejig it.

e) The work goes on and on and they become so exhausted they begin to squabble.

And so on, and so on.

This can be a warm and funny story, and the reader expects and knows there'll be a happy ending, but it's how your character(s) struggle with and overcome conflict and problems that will hold their interest to the end.