Every young writer is taught that the essence of story is conflict. But “conflict” is a loaded word. Most people see it as negative, confrontational and even violent. But it isn’t, inherently. Even if you’re writing about a world that’s all unicorns and rainbows, with nary a resistant thought in the mind, conflict is still an essential part of your story. Here’s why.
Defining Conflict
In and amongst all the violent-sounding definitions of conflict—which, yes, include battles and confrontations—are these:
- “discord of action, feeling, or effect; antagonism or opposition, as of interests or principles.”
- “incompatibility or interference, as of one idea, desire, event, or activity with another”
- “a mental struggle arising from opposing demands or impulses.”
(Via Dictionary.com)
(If you’re a therapist, this concept may be easier to accept. Nobody shows up in therapy because their lives are peachy.)
Conflict simply means a person wants something other than what is. You can substitute desire if you’d like, but without it, there is no story. You’ve just got a bunch of words that don’t go anywhere. (Maybe you have a koan, and that’s fine, but that’s not a story). The desire for inner peace, or global peace, or social change, is a desire. Even if the desire is to be rid of all desire, it’s still conflict, for the purposes of story.
A story without conflict is like…
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