Conflict is one of the central engines of story. We’ve all heard it: no conflict, no story. On the surface, that makes total sense. But I find there can be a lot of confusion around the word “conflict.” What is conflict in fiction really? What is its purpose? What does it look like in a scene? And how can you use it in all types of stories?
Years ago, I remember reading an interview with a famous author, in which he explained that one of his secrets to writing a successful story was to double check that he had included conflict on every page. I dutifully underlined the sentence, but it always confused me a little bit. What about pages that described the characters’ travels? Or what about pages where the dialogue was mostly relational? What about love scenes?
For that matter, what about whole stories in which, practically speaking, not much happens? Two high-altitude examples off the top of my head: David Guterson’s East of the Mountains and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. These two acclaimed novels are both literary-style stories that are mostly existential in nature. Stuff happens; there is a plot; but with a few exceptions, there really isn’t much in the way of what we generally consider to be conflict.
So how can these stories work? For that matter, how can they, by the classical definition, be stories at all?
The answer is all in how you define “conflict.”
What Is Plot Conflict?
What comes to mind when you hear the word “conflict”? You might think of physical altercations or even outright violence. At the least, whatever you’re currently picturing very likely involves confrontation.
It’s natural enough for our modern, western minds to conflate conflict and confrontation when we consider fiction. This is because in most stories and most scenes, conflict does manifest in some sort of confrontation, whether it’s subtextual, verbal, or physical. Everything from passive-aggressive staring contests on up to intergalactic wars. That’s conflict.
But to limit our understanding of plot conflict to merely confrontation is problematic on a number of levels. For starters, it is just too simplistic. As noted, many wonderful stories from many traditions will prove this thesis wrong at a glance. More than that, it’s worth considering that this overemphasis of confrontation (especially in its almost ubiquitous pairing with violence) equally reflects and generates a cultural emphasis on the same.
There’s nothing wrong or incorrect in using confrontation to create plot conflict. But to understand conflict as confrontation is much too narrow a definition.
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