A little conflict goes a long way

[John Dean]

I have just written a chapter for my latest Blizzard novel in which my detectives fall out with witnesses then with each other, all of which allows me to come back to one of my familiar themes for my blogs – conflict.

I find that writing becomes easier if there is conflict in the air. Why? Because stories need things to happen and conflicts drives those events.

It is through seeing characters in conflict that we see them at their truest, when their guard is down, when they are fighting for something, when their true emotions are laid bare. As a writer, conflict allows you to develop characters and their relationships with those around them.

Conflict can also provide the framework to take the story on because you have to follow the disagreements through to their conclusion-  and that aids plotting.

Finally, conflict allows the writer to evoke strong feelings in the reader, prompting them to take sides, to root for the ‘good guys’ and turn against the ‘bad guys’. In the chapter I have just written, some readers will side with the witnesses, some with my detectives, and then they’ll side with the detectives they like most when the officers fall out with each other.

For a writer, a bit of conflict goes a long way!