What is Story Conflict?

Story = conflict → crisis → resolution.

And now that your character and setting are in place, it’s time to ignite the tension.

Start small.

Open Your Story Conflict:

What does my character want right now?

Who or what’s stopping them?

That’s your opening conflict.

It should be personal, even trivial, but it hints at something deeper.

Look at the picture at the top. It’s a fairy who wants to take a walk, but suddenly there’s a lightning storm.

Use Conflict to Foreshadow:

Perhaps that foreshadows conflict to come – weather is great at creating tone and foreshadowing. But for now, she just wants to take a walk, but it’s lightning out.

What will she do? Give in? Get an umbrella and risk it?

That’s where tension can already build, with a simple storm. But that simple storm does a whole lot more: it creates anticipation in the reader for what’s to come.

Think of it like a spark:

• The reader sees the desire.
• They feel the resistance.
• They anticipate the fire.

Your character’s flaw ensures they won’t handle it well.

Their surroundings (your setting) might enable or escalate it.

And the tone lets us know how seriously to take it.

This first conflict grows.

It sharpens.

It starts to cost.

Emotionally, this is the reader’s entry point. They connect to frustration, misunderstanding, ambition, and fear.

Don’t skip the spark. Don’t start with the explosion. Let the tension breathe.

Conflict sets your story in motion. But only if the reader feels what’s at stake, even if it’s small.

Happy Writing!

~ M.C. Convery