Understanding Conflict in Fiction: Key to Emotion

Readers love how conflict surfaces characters’ emotions in romance, mystery, and thriller novels. Let’s look at the differences between conflict, tension, and suspense.

Conflict, Tension, & Suspense Essentials

Conflict brings characters’ emotions to the surface, creating the opportunity to heighten the sense of tension and suspense.

Conflict results from opposing forces. For example, character versus:
1. Character
2. Nature
3. Self
4. Society
5. Supernatural
6. Technology.

Tension occurs as readers expect more conflict.

Suspense grows as the conflict remains unresolved, and readers wonder, What happens next to the lead character?

Without conflict in a scene, you can’t have tension and suspense.

Conflict’s Functions

External Conflict

The external conflict focuses on the problem the character wants to solve, often highlighting some internal conflict. This opens a question in the readers’ minds: how will the character resolve the problem.

Internal Conflict

The internal conflict is the wrestling match within the character’s mind. Because of this inner turmoil, the character struggles with thoughts, choices, speech, and actions. Emotions resonate with readers, conveying the story’s theme through realistic behavior.

Change Catalyst

Conflict increasingly frustrates the character’s efforts to achieve a goal. As a result, that frustration increases the lead character’s awareness of the need to change.

Reader Engagement

Readers engage at the intersection of conflict, stakes, want, and need:

A conflict blocks a character’s achievement of a goal.
Stakes spur hero to pursue goal despite conflict.
A character’s false beliefs (i.e., the “lie”) drive want and behaviors.
A character’s behavior blocks the need to change.

Your Thoughts?

How do you use conflict as the key to unlock the emotions readers crave?

8 responses to “Understanding Conflict in Fiction: Key to Emotion”

Dana at Regular Girl Devos

Thank you, Grant, for clarifying these key points.

Reply
wordsfromanneli

It’s always good to be reminded to keep the inner conflict going as much as the external conflict. Often it’s a main character flaw that is the source of the inner conflict and exacerbates the external conflict, and that all cries for needed change, which then can lead to a character “growing and changing for the better.”

Reply
1. Grant at Tame Your Book
  
  Absolutely, Anneli. We can fuel our creative engines with details from reference books, such as the thesaurus series by Ackerman and Puglisi, covering conflicts, emotions, emotional wounds, and traits.
  
  Reply
  1. wordsfromanneli
    
    It all helps the character building (and plot development) come together.
    
    Reply
Priscilla Bettis

I am working on a novella right now that has internal conflict (his false belief is SO false, haha), external conflict, and another character with a conflicting goal. So fun!

Reply
1. Grant at Tame Your Book
  
  This recipe has stood the test of time and, freshened up with the writer’s style, proves unbeatable.
  
  Reply
Jacqui Murray

Conflict is so important in a book. You can tell when an author didn’t pay it enough attention.

Reply
1. Grant at Tame Your Book
  
  So true, Jacqui. The consistency as well as the balance of intensity.
  
  Reply