Adding conflict into your novel: list post
Posted: October 3, 2016 Filed under: Miscellaneous, Planning, Writing and Editing your Novel, Tips and Tricks | Tags: conflict, novel writing, plot, writing 1 Comment
As we all know, introducing varying levels of conflict throughout your novel is important, and to help you all out, I’ve written a quick list post detailing ways to add it into your novel. Although not all of the below will be relevant to your own writing, hopefully the list will help to highlight the many ways you can ramp up the tension in your novel, and will help you to come up with your own.
As you can see, conflict doesn’t have to come from a catastrophic event, and can be as seemingly insignificant as a stomach virus – perhaps your protagonist passed the virus onto her crush, who in turn, missed the prom.
A secret kiss
A fight
A lost object
An argument
An enemy
A death
A natural disaster
Self doubt
A specific rule or regulation
An injury
A rivalry
Rallying against those in charge
Head vs Heart
An illness
A fire
A bad omen
A breakdown (physical or mental)
A breakdown in communication
An animal attack
An obstacle
A revenge attack
A trip or a fall
A car accident
A robbery
A marriage
A divorce
A parent enforcing the rules
Morality vs desire
A secret
A gunshot
A power cut
A broken down vehicle
An ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/friend
A broken object
A missed train or bus
Feel free to add your own ideas into the comments!
