5 Easy Ways to Create Conflict in a Novel: Writing Tips

Keeping a book consistently interesting can be a challenge!

One of the best ways to keep readers engaged is to create conflict in a novel. This probably isn’t news to you, but that doesn’t mean fresh conflict is always easy to come by.

Here are five failsafe techniques that I always circle back to when to I need to create conflict in a novel:

5 Easy Ways to Create Conflict in a Novel: Writing Tips

1) Make your characters disagree

I know this seems obvious, but it’s so often overlooked!

The easiest way to create conflict in a novel is to make your characters disagree with each other. This applies to your main characters too, not just your protagonist and antagonist/villain.

Traditionally when we create secondary characters, their purpose is to support our protagonist, but that doesn’t mean they have to agree with our protagonists all the time.

Tension between the characters we’re rooting for not only makes the story more interesting but also more realistic.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a crime novel and your core characters are gearing up to go after your bad guy.

It’s nice for your characters if they’re all on the same page about their plan of attack, but isn’t more interesting if they disagree? And doesn’t it add more uncertainty if readers have to wonder if the character(s) who disagreed will stick to the plan going forward?

You can use this technique at any point in your book that feels flat–not just the end. The level of disagreement can be up to you and based on your story’s needs.

2) Secrets and Lies

For the most part, everyone has a reason to keep a secret and everyone has a reason to lie.

No matter how big or how small, secrets and lies are almost always guaranteed to shake up your plot. Once the secrets and lies are revealed, you’ll have characters who are likely to feel betrayed and/or your plot will be thrown into a new direction based on the new information.

This is a good technique to use if you need your characters to learn new information at a specific point in your plot. It also makes the liar/secret keeper a much more interesting character. And by doing so, creates conflict on both a plot and character level.

3) Add Family

There’s an endless pool of conflicts for families/family members. This is true even in families who get along well, and even more for ones who don’t.

Maybe your character is the member of their family that no one likes. Or maybe the family member no one likes has shown up asking for something. Or maybe the family member everyone likes, shows up on the run with a dark secret.

Pull from your real experience or make something up. Script Mag has some tips on creating realistic family conflict.

Side note, I think this conflict is especially fun with a character who’s more private. A family member can reveal a lot about a character just by existing in a scene, which will make your private character uncomfortable and cause conflict from the start.

4) Give your characters exactly what they don’t want

This can be small or large, depending on the size of the conflict you’re looking to create. The principle is the same either way; if there’s something your character desperately wants to avoid, force them to confront it.

For something smaller, it can be a simple as they have to go to a party they don’t want to go to after a bad day. Maybe their bad mood will force a too-honest conversation.

For something larger, maybe some of the party guests include people who tormented your character in high school.

This is another option that’s pretty open, but the cool thing about it is that by taking the time figure out what your characters don’t want, you also add a layer to them and get to know them better.

5) Pull a Tarot card or two

Tarot doesn’t have to be super woo. It isn’t about telling you your future or dictating your fate. It’s about connecting you to your intuition and inner wisdom.

The cards all have a general enough meaning that you can apply them to any situation in your life or your story. It’s about looking at images in the card and the general meanings and letting your intuition tell you how to best apply the card to your book.

The quality of reading you get comes down to the question you ask.

The only thing you have to buy into is the the cards that come out are the ones that have a message for you.

So if you’re looking to create some conflict in your novel, you can ask the cards what kind of conflict your book needs, then pull a card.

For example, if I asked the question then pulled the Queen of Pentacles, there a few different directions I could go with this card. This is a card that’s about balancing work and home life. So if we’re talking about conflict, perhaps I can create a conflict that would completely through off my main characters work/life balance.

Or if my character already lives an unbalanced life, maybe this card is asking me create some consequences to that life style. Then it’s about exploring what type of consequences might pop up and how they would present themselves.

If you want to try this for yourself but don’t have a deck, you can use this random card generator. Just ask it to generate 1 card instead of 5. Then you can use this website to look up your card’s possible meanings and decide what feels right for your story.

I hope this gives you a good idea of how to create conflict in a novel!

I like these conflicts because I think they can be used in any story to shake things up, push your characters, and keep your story interesting. They’re the perfect go-tos when you find a scene or entire section of your book that needs a lift.

Also, in order to make these methods work you have to really understand your characters, which means you get to know them better as you work. You don’t want to make you character act out-of-character to pull one of these off.

And if you’re looking for some guidance in using Tarot to support your book or yourself, I can help! I’m a certified Transformational Tarot coach, and I’m well versed in creating readings to help you get the most out of your project and your writing life. Learn more about readings. Or learn more about coaching.

Now it’s your turn: How do you like to create conflict in a novel? Do you have any go-to conflicts to share? Tell me all about it in the comments below!

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