If you’ve been writing for any time at all, you probably know that if there’s no conflict in your story, you don’t have much of one. Some writers relish creating the conflict in their stories. They’re excited to kill characters, to ramp up misunderstandings, to falsely accuse their main character of a crime, and so on.

But there is another portion of the writing population who thinks, “But I love my main character! I don’t want bad stuff to happen to them!” Or even, “I don’t know how to create conflict for my characters. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding conflict.”

That first type of writer is often guilty of throwing conflict-for-the-sake-of-conflict at their characters, whereas the second type of writer tends to let their characters off a little too easy.

Whichever type you tend to be, here are 8 tips for creating meaningful conflict in your stories:

Use your main character’s goal as a guide

A lot of my early story ideas were strong on set-up but weak on actual story. This is why I often did great for a few chapters, but then had no idea where to go next. Or if I did get through most of the story, I struggled to land the ending.

The first time I sat in a writing class where the teacher talked about your main character having a goal, it was a major light bulb moment for me. Oh! If they have a goal, then you know if their journey is a success or not!

Knowing the character goal is also critical to knowing how to create meaningful conflict. Then instead of just making your character’s life hard in general, you know how to plant barriers that make achieving their goal more difficult.

In The Lost Girl of Astor Street, Piper’s goal is to figure out what happened to her missing best friend, Lydia. All the resistance Piper meets in the story is a direct result of her trying to achieve her goal.

In Cars, Lightning McQueen wants to get out of Radiator Springs and get to Los Angeles. The conflict throughout the story (getting the road fixed right, etc.) works against Lightning meeting his goal.

To create friction, something has to be in motion. Giving your main character a goal they’re striving for will help create that motion (and, consequently, conflict!)

Use other characters’ goals

This is where you can organically build in relational conflict, by giving other characters goals in the story that conflict with that of your main character.

Sometimes character goals conflict directly, especially if we’re talking about the goals of the antagonist. Lightning McQueen wants to get out of Radiator Springs as fast as he can, and Doc Hudson wants Lightning to pay for wrecking his town before he leaves. Their goals directly conflict.

Our amateur sleuth wants to solve the whodunit, and our villain wants our amateur to not solve it. Our hero wants to marry the heroine, but the crazy ex-girlfriend wants him to marry her instead. You get the idea.

But mostly the goals of the other characters aren’t in direct conflict, and still friction arises. Going back to The Lost Girl of Astor Street, Piper wants to find out what happened to Lydia. Her friend, Walter, wants to be a starter for his minor league baseball team. On the surface, these look like they have nothing to do with each other, but it bothers Piper that Walter can’t understand the urgency she feels to find Lydia, and it bothers Walter that Piper has become dismissive of his struggles. At times in the story, this creates fighting between them as well as conflict.

Use Their Surroundings

Sometimes conflict is born out of the nature of a character’s surroundings. Say your characters are on a quest and they have to go through a slot canyon in the desert. Having a flash flood foil their plans and carry away their supplies could be a really good option to build in a natural obstacle.

Or say your character lives in a neighborhood with lots of crime. Getting held up or getting a car stolen at the worst possible time can make for some excellent conflict.

The timing on conflict like this can feel a bit too convenient, so just make sure you build in some foreshadowing.

Use Their Limitations

What’s one big thing that stands in our way of achieving goals? Limitations.

We’re limited by time, intelligence, resources, health, social status, gender, any number of things.

What limitations have you put in place to keep your character from achieving their goal, and how can you ramp those up? Maybe your character suffers from an oppressive government, like in The Hunger Games. Maybe your character is held back by race and gender, like in Hidden Figures. Or maybe it’s knowledge, like in The Bourne Identity where Jason Bourne is trying to stay alive, but he can’t remember who he is and he doesn’t understand who is chasing him.

Use Unexpected But Natural Consequences

One of the most interesting ways to build conflict into a story is for the character to make a decision, and then for that decision to naturally lead to conflict the character didn’t expect.

The first example that comes to mind is in Tangled when Flynn takes Rapunzel to a rough pub, expecting her to be so freaked out that she asks to be taken home. Instead, he’s recognized and the thugs plan to turn him in for the reward money. It’s a natural consequence of his decision, and it leads to conflict as Rapunzel works to achieve her goal.

A few, “Yes, but….” Techniques

Misunderstandings

Misunderstandings can be a good way to build in conflict, but you want to be careful that these don’t feel too convenient.

Just “not talking about it.”

I think this is about the weakest of character conflict, when a character has a problem with another character but they just don’t say anything. I know it does happen in real life, but I find stories where people “just don’t talk” for years and years and years to be kinda weak.

Disagreement about specific plans

I like character disagreement. It’s way more interesting than characters who agree with each other all the time, and it creates a richer story because character decisions don’t feel so one-dimensional.

Early in my writing journey, I often confused characters disagreeing with each other as story conflict, which isn’t true. Unless a character’s disagreement is putting up a road block for your character, then it’s not necessarily an obstacle or story conflict.

Here’s an example to illustrate my point: Your main character, Joe, wants to date this girl, Jennifer, and his best friend doesn’t like her. That causes some tension on the page, sure, but it’s not story conflict by itself because the best friend doesn’t need to like Jennifer for Joe to achieve his goal. But if Joe’s parents disagree with Joe’s judgment about Jennifer, and because of that they make all these rules keeping the two of them apart, that is story conflict.

Have you used one of these techniques in your story? Please share!

Also, it’s day 22 of the 100-for-100 writing challenge. How’s it going?