1. Introduction
2. The Nature of Conflict in Storytelling
3. The Five Primary Types of Conflict
4. Implementing Conflict Effectively
5. Writing Exercise: The Conflict Transformation Exercise
6. Conclusion
7. Additional Resources

Introduction

Conflict is often thought of as massive battles or one-on-one fights for honor, but really, it’s much more than that. Memorable stories hinge on conflict, and not all stories depend on epic fight scenes to engage their readers. Many romance stories build their conflict in relationships and normal human interaction. Popular fantasy and sci-fi novels often focus on character relationships to engage readers. The goal of the conflict is to drive the story forward.

Before we get started, try to think of how you view conflict. If you want to share, I’d love to hear your perspective in the comments!

Today we’ll go over conflict, the five primary types of conflict, and effectively implementing the conflict in your story.

The Nature of Conflict in Storytelling

Conflict is something that we all deal with every day, try to avoid, and hope doesn’t come into our life unnecessarily. Just like in life, when you have no conflict in a book, it’s honestly quite boring. Narrative conflict can drive the success of your book. Think of how many successful Utopian books there have been? While it’s nice to imagine a perfect world, it’s kind of a lackluster world as there is no contrast between the peace and conflict. The narrative conflict is any struggle between opposing forces that creates tension and drives the plot.

Below, we’ll go over the types of conflict, but right now we’re going to explore its general purpose and usage. In the literary landscape, conflict is a tool to teach, question, and bring to light the issues of our world through fiction. As a teaching tool, conflict provides possible situations people may face and how they might resolve such a conflict. While it may not be the same issue, like Ender at Battle School may never be the same as your life, but it offers one way to deal with being forced into a new group.

When conflict is used to question you challenge your readers to re-consider their beliefs or standards. The Rule of One by Ashley & Leslie Saunders, asks how far we should trust our government, surveillance, and who can you trust in a world with so much control.

Bringing to light the issues of the world is a great way to use conflict in fiction. Characters in your fictional world can reveal hidden aspects of seemingly ordinary challenges. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins brings to light issues like social inequality, media manipulation, and the ethics of entertainment. While it’s not exactly our world, we can see the same issues reflected in our world now.

Narrative conflict is a multifaceted tool that can deepen your story and keep your readers engaged on each page. The types of conflict and how they impact your story will shape your book’s success. With that, let’s look at the five primary types of conflict and how you can implement them in your book.

The Five Primary Types of Conflict

There are five classic forms of conflict that create the foundation of most stories. Each of these categories begins with character and sets them against an opposing force. Your protagonist will face challenges from other characters, themselves, nature, society, or technology/supernatural forces. Each of these types of conflict offer their own opportunities and restrictions. They will shape your character and your book, and the overall story you’re going to tell. So, let’s look at each of these in a little more detail and determine which conflict you want to use.

Character Vs. Character

The character set against character is the classic story of a hero against villain narrative. Often embodying opposite beliefs or two decisions on ways to live live, these characters challenge each other. They may try to fight it out, convince their opponent of their position, or to seduce them with their desires. Character Vs. Character stories give you a chance to challenge your protagonist with a fully embodied opponent. Your readers will know who the villain is in the story. You’ll also be able to make it clear which side the story is supporting through narration and outcomes. However, if you lose that opposing character to death or to them becoming a friend, you lose your conflict.

You can create a new conflict, but it has to be more believable. You may also create cartoonish villains that seem a little too stereotyped and not genuinely human. Sometimes the best conflicts arise when the “villain” isn’t inherently evil but simply has a different worldview that’s deeply compelling in its own right. This can make the conflict feel richer and keep readers questioning what they believe is right.

You can find an example of Character Vs. Character in Soul Scepter by Eric Westergard. The story becomes Will fighting against the head of a militant organization, Voskonov. What’s your favorite character vs. character story?

Character Vs. Self

We are our own greatest critics, and that’s no different for your characters. Your biggest battles might be internal, not external. That’s what the character vs. self conflict embraces and it can connect with many of your readers. The character vs. self conflict sets your character against their internal beliefs, practices, and fears.

You can explore the loss or gaining of internal beliefs of a character and contrast it with where they were before. In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov struggles with guilt after killing someone. This challenges who he saw himself as and how changes from there on out. The struggle with the conscience is one common approach to the character vs. self conflict.

While the character vs. self can create a more universal audience, it can create a separation between readers and the text. Many readers read to escape the world they live in, and if we rely too heavily on the character vs. self, you may lose readers who would otherwise enjoy your story. Internal conflict can also feel boring, whether that’s from lack of action or over-exposition. Both can stagnate the story and lead to DNFs. So make sure you’re using multiple forms of conflict, or taking careful consideration of how you’re using the character vs. self.

Character Vs. Nature

Imagine a character struggling to survive in the mountains with nothing but the contents of their backpack—their only lifeline. Perhaps they’re missing a boot or separated from their travel companions, adding to the desperation of their situation. Character versus nature is a timeless conflict that has resonated with humankind for centuries. These survival stories, often shared to inspire or prepare others, capture the raw essence of endurance and adaptability.

Setting your character against nature creates a gripping narrative because it taps into universal human experiences. Whether readers have faced such challenges themselves or dread the possibility, these stories can prepare them mentally for life’s unpredictable obstacles.

What makes this conflict truly compelling is its vast thematic potential. Nature becomes more than just a backdrop; it serves as a powerful medium to explore profound themes, shape character growth, and present riveting challenges. Through the interplay of weather, terrain, and the character’s resourcefulness, the story gains emotional depth.

However, the challenge lies in crafting a unique tale amidst a sea of familiar ones. From classics like Hatchet to modern favorites like Lost, character versus nature narratives abound. The key to originality lies in creating distinct characters and weaving themes unique to your story that reshapes this time-tested genre.

Character Vs. Society

Books like The Hunger Games demonstrate how a character’s fight against society creates a compelling narrative that questions our own world. The character vs. society conflict is ideal when you want to examine or challenge belief systems with the potential to reshape the world. In these stories, your character’s ideals, values, or core principles will clash with the society they live in, which often serves as the antagonist by opposing the character’s identity.

For example, in The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, Tom represents the last vestige of innocence in a world that seeks to destroy it. His struggle to maintain his morality while uncovering the truth illustrates the emotional depth and high stakes of this conflict.

One of the greatest strengths of this narrative is its capacity for social commentary. For instance, the innocence versus violence theme in Tom’s story highlights how societal systems often justify corrupting the innocent as a survival necessity. Similarly, the cyberpunk genre expands on this idea by transforming society into a monolithic corporation. In these stories, societies fully integrate with corporations, presenting a stark critique of consumerism and conformity. This broader definition reminds us that “society” can represent any construct widely accepted by a population.

However, character vs. society stories come with challenges. They can easily become one-sided or overly didactic. To avoid this, it’s essential to create moments where your character understands the logic behind the society they oppose. After all, there must be some rationale for why so many people subscribed to the belief system in the first place. This complexity not only enriches your narrative but also makes the conflict more authentic and impactful.

Character Vs. Technology

While the character vs. technology conflict often overlaps with character vs. society tales, it holds its own as a unique and powerful form of storytelling. Though it may conjure images of heroes battling evil robots, it’s not limited to those narratives. Technology, in this context, refers to any advancement that pushes the world beyond its current state.

These stories ask: What does embracing this new technology mean for the world as it is? Are ways of life being lost? Are skills becoming obsolete? Does the advancement create separation from the past that your character wants to preserve? Conversely, your protagonist might be the one championing a new technology, struggling against outdated systems that hold society back.

This conflict is incredibly versatile. It can generate a seemingly endless stream of story ideas, as the interplay between personal beliefs and the societal cost vs. benefit of technology acts like a deck of storytelling cards.

However, this form of conflict comes with challenges. Since technology isn’t always embodied in a person, the antagonist can feel abstract, making it harder for readers to emotionally engage. You’ll need to work creatively to give the conflict a compelling face—whether that’s an AI system, a corporate structure, or a personal relationship strained by innovation.

Another hurdle is that technology moves fast. There’s a popular saying in writing circles: “What was once fantasy becomes science fiction. What was once science fiction becomes reality.” Your story may risk feeling outdated if it leans too heavily on specific technologies. To avoid this, focus on the human consequences of change, which stay relevant regardless of how the tools evolve.

Implementing Conflict Effectively

Conflict may drive your story, but how you implement it into the narrative is another factor in its success. You can’t just throw conflict on every page and expect it to make your story work. The when of the conflict is just as important as its presence. Your goal as the writer is to align the conflict with the character, the story, and the themes you’re sharing.

The first goal of implementing conflict effectively is to make the conflict personal or tying it to your character. You’ll want to consider what does your character stands to lose if they embrace the conflict or try to avoid it? Or why does it matter to them, not just the world? The conflict you chose is probably already aligned with your character whether that’s a challenge that naturally occurs in their society, or an external force has brought a new conflict into their midst. Focusing on the connection of the conflict with the character creates an emotional weight that gives your readers some buy-in to the story.

The next goal is to escalate the stakes. If you remember from the rising action post, you’ll know the importance of escalating the stakes to maintain reader engagement. For those unfamiliar, flat conflict is boring, because if the conflict never changes in intensity, cost, or character requirements, then the reader feels like they’re reading the same thing repeatedly. What happens if the protagonist fails early, midway, or near the end of the story? What’s your character’s try-fail cycle, or try-success cycle? Then you can also ask how to make the outcome more uncertain. I know there are plenty of books that have me hitting certain points that I check how many pages are left in the story, because they’ve so successfully raised the stakes. You can escalate in layers, but look at the rising action post to learn more about this.

Not the last goal, but the last one we’ll talk about today, is the consequences of your conflict must be real. Without consequences, your conflicts have no weight. If you’re alone in the middle of the woods, does it matter if you chop down a tree? While in real life there may not be a consequence, but in story, the tree is probably connected to some forest creature or being that loved that tree. Think of the trees in Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. While they may just look like trees, there is so much more to the trees the Pequininos climb. To cut down their trees would cause a war. So, what does the character lose by winning against the conflict? Or what emotional fallout follows each major action?

Writing Exercise: The Conflict Transformation Exercise

This 15-minute exercise will help you practice identifying and transforming different types of narrative conflict to strengthen your storytelling skills.

Step 1: Choose a Character

• Quickly sketch a character with one key trait and one significant desire.
• Example: Maya, a cautious scientist who wants to prove her controversial theory is correct.

Step 2: Conflict Transformation

• Take your character and place them in each of the five conflict types, writing a brief paragraph (2-3 sentences) for each scenario:

1. Character vs. Character: Who would be your character’s perfect opponent? What do they want that directly opposes your character’s desires?
2. Character vs. Self: What internal struggle might your character face? What belief, fear, or flaw holds them back?
3. Character vs. Nature: What environmental challenge would test your character’s limits? How does their trait help or hinder them?
4. Character vs. Society: What social norm, rule, or expectation does your character challenge? What’s at stake if they fail?
5. Character vs. Technology/Supernatural: What advancement or otherworldly element threatens your character’s way of life or beliefs?

Step 3: Reflection

• Review your paragraphs and answer these questions:
  • Which conflict type felt most natural for your character?
  • Which created the highest stakes?
  • Which would be most personal to your character?
  • Which scenario would you most want to develop into a full story?

Conclusion

Conflict is the beating heart of every memorable story, shaping not just the plot but the characters within it. Whether you choose character vs character, self, nature, society, or technology, how you implement these conflicts will determine your story’s emotional impact. Remember to make conflicts deeply personal to your protagonist, consistently raise the stakes as your narrative progresses, and ensure real consequences follow each major decision.

By mastering the art of conflict, you’ll create stories that resonate with readers long after they’ve turned the final page. The most compelling stories aren’t those where everything goes smoothly, they’re the ones where characters face genuine challenges and emerge transformed by their struggles.

Additional Resources

Books

• “Conflict & Suspense” by James Scott Bell – Specifically addresses techniques for maintaining tension throughout a narrative.
• “Writing 21st Century Fiction” by Donald Maass – Contains excellent sections on heightening tension and creating meaningful conflict.
• “Plot & Structure” by James Scott Bell – Offers practical advice on structuring conflict in compelling ways.

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