No Conflict, No Story

People say there are no rules for writing, and that's true to an extent, but, in reality, there are a few standard rules one should follow when writing a story.

One rule that everyone should absolutely follow is you must have conflict! If you don't have conflict, you don't have a story.

Think about it.

You have a character who is trying to reach a goal. Let's say you have a guy, John, who has the goal to own a big company. His friends and family are entirely supportive. He gets hired and quickly moves up the corporate ladder until he's given the company. Well, that's great for John, but boring for the reader. No one wants to read a story like that. Take that same scenario, though, and add a few complications. John has rivals at the company who also want the job. There are some co-workers he doesn't get along with. He is so focused on achieving his goal and so work oriented, that he alienates some friends and family in the process. His father threatens to write him out of the will if he doesn't take over the family business. His girlfriend/wife announces she's pregnant but he's not the father. His parents are divorcing.

See how much better that makes it already? Now, all that conflict might be a bit much, but you can see what I'm talking about, right? If your protagonist doesn't have obstacles to overcome, then your story is hardly a story.

I cannot emphasize enough how crucial conflict is. It makes your story a story. No one will read your story if there's nothing to read about. I saw firsthand how conflict makes a story once. I was reading a story someone on the internet had written and there was no conflict. Not one. Everyone got along so extremely perfectly. It was unreal. The siblings never argued, everything was perfect all the time. BORING! I couldn't finish it.

You have to be careful, though, when creating conflict because if it's not good conflict, it will bore your readers as well.

So, how do you keep readers from giving up on the book? Well, there are different types of conflict to consider when you are planning out your story. Here are some of the more common ones.

Man vs. Man
This type of conflict is a person against a person. It involves a protagonist and a villain. Two people getting in the way of each other's goals. But it doesn't have to be just one person. Your protagonist may be up against a group of people. This type of conflict often involves a physical confrontation between the opposing parties, but that's not required. It may be a battle of different ideas. Examples of books using this type of conflict are The Count of Monte Cristo, Harry Potter, and The Wizard of Oz

Man vs. Nature
In this case, your protagonist is up against his surroundings. Nature could mean the weather, animals, or the land, to give you a few examples. This type of conflict can make for a really good story because nature isn't something you can reason with or defeat. It's just something you have to survive. Man vs. Nature is a conflict that creates a story showing your character's strength. Examples of this in literature are The old Man and The Sea, Jaws, Moby Dick, Into the Wild, Lord of the Flies and Robinson Crusoe

Man vs. Society
Going against the laws of the land, rejecting traditions, institutions and fighting against your own culture, falls into this category. When your protagonist sees that they are living in a corrupt society and fight to change it or get out of it, the antagonist is their own culture, their way of life. Some books you may have read with man vs. society are 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Giver, The Hunger Games, Crime and Punishment, and Brave New World

Man vs. Self
If you haven't already figured it out, this type of conflict occurs when a character is at war with their own mind. They are fighting a battle with themselves. They may struggle with self-doubt, low self esteem, maybe an inferiority or superiority complex. They have to fight off their own prejudices. They may have a mental disease or are struggling with external vices such as drugs or alcohol. I typically find stories based around internal conflict intriguing. It is an interesting story when your main character is both the protagonist and antagonist. Stories that use this conflict are Hamlet, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Requiem for a Dream

Man vs. God
Some people don't count this type of conflict as it can be similar to most other types. When done in certain ways, it can be seen as Man vs. Man or Man vs. Self, Society and even nature, so this conflict type is often left out of the list. But it's also included many times, occasionally under a different heading such as Man vs. Supernatural or Man vs. Fate. I like to include it, though, because even though it can fall into the other categories, there are some things about it that I see as unique. If there is God, a god or any supernatural power or being in your story that your protagonist is fighting against, it would fit better into this category than it would into Man vs. Man or Man vs. Society because even though those might cover it, there are some elements to the supernatural powers that don't quite fit into those categories. This conflict can also include a character attempting to change their predetermined destiny. Books like this are The Odyssey, Slaughterhouse Five, Oedipus Rex and Seventh Seal

These are the main type of conflicts in literature, although some lists may add some or leave one off. Be aware, though, when creating your conflict, most books have more than one type of conflict. The books I mentioned all have more than one type of conflict. A lot of them could also go under other categories. So don't limit yourself to one type of conflict. The best books have more than one problem for the protagonist to face.

What I do when I'm creating the conflict for my story, I don't think about the categories or the rules, I just decide what the conflict is going to be and then later see what category it fits into. Don't fit your story to the category, fit the category to your story.

Whatever you do, make sure your story has a conflict at the center of it. Conflict does more than create your story, it makes the reader connect with your character. If John, our character from the beginning of this post, never has problems and gets what he wants right away, the reader isn't going to like him or care about him. They will be annoyed by him and hate him. But not in the way we want readers to hate our characters. If John doesn't have problems, if his family isn't dysfunctional or his boss doesn't hate him or he doesn't get fired, no one can relate to him. If his life is free of conflict, then there's nothing real about him for real readers to connect with. Readers are happy for the character when they get what they want, reach their goal or have good things happen to them only if they've faced hardships along the way.