Do you struggle to provide enough conflict in your stories? Do your scenes sometimes seem a little boring? In this post, I’m going to share a simple tip to help make your scenes more interesting.

Personally, I love conflict in a story. Whether it’s between supporting characters, antagonists, or contagonists, or whether it’s internal or external, conflict makes a story interesting. After all, if your characters are just all getting along, that isn’t really much of a story. And it’s not very realistic, either.

I think we can all agree that conflict is very important in a story. Without it, the plot and the character arcs don’t go anywhere. But… how exactly do you write conflict?

Think about real life. Why do certain people clash? Why is there often family and work drama? The answer is simple… everyone has their own agenda.

Whether we realize it or not, we’ve all got things we’re trying to accomplish. And when someone else gets in the way of that, there just might be some conflict… especially when your goals happen to be very near and dear to you.

Now take that, and apply it to your story. Every character you’ve written should have a goal. It could be a very evil goal, or it could be an honorable one, but they will have some kind of mission to achieve.

Like real life, they will also each have their own set of beliefs that back this goal. Again, these beliefs could be false or true, but they will be the foundation for the actions of your characters.

When you give each of your characters their own agenda, they will end up disagreeing with each other on issues they believe are important. And there are endless combinations of goals and beliefs that can result in various conflicts.

So the next time you need more conflict in a scene, all you have to do is make sure your characters are in the same room with each other. If their goals and beliefs clash, the conflict will happen naturally… you only have to sit back and watch it happen.

Comment below your favorite way to write conflict!