by Angela Ackerman, @onestop4writers
Conflict is a powerful tool for storytellers, permitting us to place roadblocks, challenges, adversaries and increasingly in a character’s way so the road to their goal is much increasingly difficult. Deployed well, mismatch creates tension and intensity for reader, capturing their sustentation for the length of the book.
So what does deployed well mean?
For mismatch to have a strong foundation, we need to focus on three things. First, readers need to finger unfluctuating to a weft for them to superintendency when something bad happens to them. For example, if a car hits a dog-kicking, old-lady-scamming protagonist and breaks both his legs, will your regulars be upset? Not at all…in fact they may unquestionably cheer. But if the protagonist is a single mother of three who scraped and saved to go to night school and create a largest life for her family, seeing such a terrible event happen to them will really rip your readers up. So, towers flesh-and-blood characters readers will connect to is crucial for scoring a strong mismatch hit.
The second thing mismatch must do is present a weft with a problem that’s not easy to resolve. A danger or threat that can be avoided if the weft simply does one thing will finger like a cop-out to readers (unless you’re purposefully luring the weft into a trap so it leads to spectacular, unexpected fallout).
The third component of well-written mismatch is that it will be original in some way, giving readers something they’ve not seen before. And this is where some writers trip, expressly if they’re working with a mismatch scenario found in many stories, or it’s worldwide within a genre. Romance readers will have experienced plenty of stories where a romantic competitor enters the scene, Fantasy readers know that at some point, an wanderer will get injured, and anyone who reads superhero stories has seen increasingly than a few notation discovering they have unwanted powers.
The thing is, readers expect to see these conflicts, so we need to include them. But we shouldn’t reprinting what others have done. Instead, we should find a way to make the situations fresh…and hopefully increasingly difficult. Here are some ideas:
Make the Outcome Uncertain
To alimony readers from hands predicting the result of a mismatch scenario, sow some doubt—a.k.a., don’t go easy on your protagonist. Put them at a disadvantage—or, if you’re feeling evil, requite them an easy win that isn't a true victory. Maybe a weft with friends in upper places gets a big promotion, only she doesn’t realize her “friends” are setting her up as a scapegoat for their criminal behavior. Winning can moreover trigger unforeseen consequences. If your weft doesn’t pay now, make her pay later.
Withhold Something the Weft Needs
When a weft has everything—information, financial backing, a mentor, the support of others—it’s an easier skate to the finish line, and what’s the fun in that? Think well-nigh what your weft needs most to succeed, and take it from her. If she needs medicine, put it in a glass vial that, at a hair-trigger point, will shatter. When she needs a map to navigate, let it be ruined by a dunk in the river. Knowledge, a way to communicate, a weapon…characters who are forced to act when they don’t have what they need often screw up, leading to increasingly conflict.
Make the Stakes Personal
Every story should have upper stakes, where something is at risk if the weft fails. But when the stakes are personal, winning becomes increasingly crucial considering of what they could lose. Get to know your weft and the people, places, and things they hold dear. Then endanger them: a child’s life, the character’s job, their reputation, or their marriage. Most notation will walk through fire to protect the people and things they cherish.
Consider a No-Win Situation
The most heart-wrenching times for your weft are when they have to make a visualization in which someone will pay regardless of their choice. These story moments take valiance considering the weft must decide between two equally bad outcomes. Do they save their daughter if doing so ways withdrawing their son? Do they stay and risk capture, or run and risk death by exposure? No-win scenarios create obvious tension for notation but moreover for readers, who recognize an untellable situation when they see it and wonder what nomination will be made.
Keep Your Weft Moving
Did you know that if sharks stop swimming, they’ll die? This is a lesson we can wield to storytelling considering when a weft settles lanugo for too long, the tension flatlines. So, alimony them moving. If they find a haven, fill it with subconscious dangers that hogtie them to leave. If a romantic relationship is rhadamanthine routine, introduce a disruptor—a secret stuff exposed, a hopeful ex-lover showing up, or a multiplicity that forces a physical separation.
This goes for inner movement, too. If the weft isn’t moving forward and resolving their internal conflict, create a slipperiness that jeopardizes everything they've worked for. Remind them that they need to alimony evolving to get what they want, plane if this ways facing nonflexible truths or examining old wounds.
Shake Up the Team
If your weft is relying on others, find a way to introduce dysfunction and friction. Disagreements, misunderstandings, egos, rivalries, or a sense of entitlement can shake the foundation of a relationship, create a power struggle, and leave your weft without their much-needed backup.
Tighten the Timeline
There’s nothing like a ticking clock to pile on the pressure, so think well-nigh how you can shorten a window of opportunity, move up a deadline, gravity the weft to wait, or requite them an ultimatum. Notation who rush can get sloppy and make mistakes, compounding the conflict.
Pull the Trigger
All notation siphon some valise from the past. If they're navigating a transpiration arc, they'll have an unresolved wound, and chances are, they’ve veiled it deep. The problem is, for them to move forward, they need to deal with whatever is holding them back. A well-placed trigger can rationalization that wound to resurface.
Maybe your weft Tamara has been lamister her cousin who captained the wend the day her sister drowned. But now she must work side by side with him to save their family’s business. Or your weft must perform a wellness trammels on someone who lives in the towers where her wiseacre parents raised her. Exposing your weft to fears and painful memories can awaken them to the realization that the past is holding them prisoner.
Include a Sacrifice
A weft facing a rencontre that's vastitude her must make some nonflexible choices if she wants to stave losing everything. Maybe she must welsh one goal to put increasingly energy into another, or requite up on a passion to stand by a friend. Sacrifices are meaningful and will rationalization readers to care, so don't be wrung to use them.
Turn to Your Genre
Every genre will have specific opportunities to ramp up conflict. Does your weft live in a historical time when unrepealable illnesses were prevalent, or their rights were restricted considering of their race, gender, or religion? Is there a specific technology that is hampering your character’s worthiness to move undetected in a future world? Pull organic mismatch from the very thrump-cap of your genre by considering the character’s reality and the challenges they might face.
Don’t Make Violence Your Go-To
As you seek ways to power up conflict, it can be tempting to use violence to hammer home a threat. Sometimes this is warranted and fits the scenario, but other times it’s used as an easy way out. Surpassing going to this extreme, pause to see what’s weightier for the story. If you decide to use it, don’t make it the only tool in your bag of tricks. Writers should moreover think twice well-nigh using gratuitous violence to characterize, expressly in situations that directly target women or children.
Need increasingly ideas for story conflict? Trammels out the 225 scenarios covered in the GOLD and SILVER editions of The Mismatch Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Conflict.
Angela Ackerman is a writing coach, international speaker, and co-author of the bestselling book, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Weft Expression, and its many sequels. Available in ten languages, her guides are sourced by universities, recommended by teachers and editors, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, and psychologists virtually the world.  Angela is moreover the co-founder of the popular site Writers Helping Writers, as well as One Stop for Writers, a portal to game-changing tools and resources that enable writers to craft powerful fiction
How to Amp Up Your Mismatch ( from @onestop4writers ):
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