Writing Advice

Addressing Conflict

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Conflict is one of the most important elements of any tale. It is what drives the story forward and keeps readers engaged. Without conflict, your book would be nothing more than a series of events happening one after the other. Conflict gives your characters something to overcome, and it makes the story more exciting and suspenseful.

There are many different types of conflict that you can use in your novel. Some common types of conflict include:

  • Internal conflict: This is conflict that happens within a character’s mind. It can be a struggle between a character’s desires, or it can be a conflict between a character’s values.
  • External conflict: This is conflict that happens between characters or between characters and their environment. It can be physical conflict, such as a fight, or it can be emotional conflict, such as a disagreement.
  • Social conflict: This is conflict that happens between groups of people. It can be a conflict between different cultures, or it can be a conflict between different social classes.

When choosing conflict for your novel, it is important to consider the genre of your novel and the age of your target audience. For example, if you are writing a young adult novel, you might want to avoid using too much violence or explicit language.

No matter what type of conflict you choose, it is important to make sure that it is relevant to your story and your characters. The conflict should be something that your characters have to overcome in order to achieve their goals.

Here are some tips for writing effective conflict:

  • Make the conflict believable: The conflict should be something that could realistically happen to real people. If the conflict is too far-fetched, readers will not be able to suspend their disbelief and they will not be invested in the story.
  • Make the conflict personal: The conflict should be something that matters to your characters. If the conflict is not personal, readers will not care about it and they will not be emotionally invested in the story.
  • Make the conflict challenging: The conflict should be something that challenges your characters. If the conflict is too easy, it will not be interesting to read about.
  • Ensure the conflict is resolved: In the end, the conflict should be resolved in a satisfying way. If the conflict is not resolved, readers will feel cheated and they will not be satisfied with the ending of the story.

Conflict is an essential element of any novel. By using it effectively, you can create a story that is exciting, suspenseful, and emotionally engaging.

5 Tips to Renew the Joy of Writing

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Sometimes, writing can feel more like a job or a burden, especially when the creativity won’t flow. Here are some tips to get in the zone to meet those writing goals.

Dabble in Something New

Write from the Point of View of a different character. Stretch your limits and try a new genre. Swap a romantic relationship to a spiteful one and see where it takes you. Do your ‘good guys’ always win? Let the ‘bad guys’ have this one. Create a “what if” alternate ending to a current project. More often than not, these will alleviate any writers’ block you may be experiencing as new ideas bloom.

Change of Scenery

Stir the pot and change your surroundings. If you normally write at home, try relocating to a coffee shop, library, or somewhere with people milling around in the background. You’ll get in some “people watching,” which provides natural inspiration for characters. 

Writing Mashup

What if robots went on a rampage in Victorian England? What if a human wants to be where the mermaids are? Let the creativity flow by using an online generator to give random combinations to write about. Making this a daily habit seems to successfully help many authors stay in the writing flow.

Free Write

Sometimes you just need to get words on paper to feel productive. Set a timer and write whatever thoughts flit into your mind until the end. It can be about what you did today, how you feel about your current work in progress, what you hope to achieve, random bits of dialogue between characters, etc. There doesn’t need to be any rhyme or reason to it nor does the grammar need to be perfect.

Reward System

Is everything going well with your writing, but you’re feeling a bit underappreciated? Set up a reward system for yourself. Say your writing goal for the day is 2,000 words and you’ll get to eat a cookie if you meet it. If you finish your goal for the week, you go to the movies. Be as creative and personalized as you want with choosing rewards.

First Five Pages Checklist

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The first five pages of your book are so important. As aspiring authors, we are well aware of their significance. And we place so much time and emphasis on getting them right. While we probably have a fair idea of what to do and not do in our first five pages, here is a quick recap of things to keep in mind when looking at the start of your novel.

Important questions to ask yourself:

Does the first line engage your reader?

Is your main character properly introduced?

Has the POV and narration style been made clear to the reader?

Does your reader get a good feel for the world – i.e. have you set the status quo?

Have you established your main character’s deepest desire?

Is there an inciting incident?

The most important thing to avoid at the beginning of your novel:

The information dump. 

Your reader is only starting to get to know your main character and within these pages, so you don’t want to overwhelm them with backstory or world building information so early on. Remember, you’ve got a minimum of 80,000 words to work with, you can take your time introducing the important background information. 

To Prologue or Not to Prologue?

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As with many of the topics we have already discussed, the decision of having a prologue or not is entirely up to you. Whether it is necessary for your story or not is sometimes another matter entirely. Let’s look at the definition of prologue before we continue.

Prologue (Noun): a separate introductory section of a literary or musical work.

There you have it. A prologue is an introduction to the story.

So, if your story begins in the middle of action or events set into motion by a previous incident (especially if it is years prior), you definitely should provide a prologue. The equivalent of this is running up and hugging someone without an introduction. You’ll either get shoved away or punched in the face, normally. In terms of your story, this is the reader putting the book down and moving along. They lose interest as soon as confusion sets in. To avoid that confusion altogether, you can have a brief introduction before the reader gets immersed into the story.

For a sequel. I believe all sequels should have a mandatory prologue in the beginning to recap the main events of the previous book. The reason for this is because I’m one of those people to go buy a bunch of books, get them home, and realize I have the second book in a series. Sure, I could spend time hunting down the first book while letting the second book collect dust. Or I can read the prologue provided, have a good idea of what’s happening, and thoroughly enjoy the book I selected regardless.

In these situations, just like in customer service, the reader is always right because they are who you want to read this product. You have to tailor it to their expectations, to a certain extent. Which brings up another topic we will discuss at a later date.

Personally when writing, I always include a prologue and an epilogue to my novels because it allows me to show how much time has passed between books, important events that occurred, and gives the reader clarity about what to expect and what is to come. I wouldn’t recommend prologues for shorter stories because it can appear to be a little silly.

Once again, the decision is entirely up to you. Whether you decide to prologue or not to prologue, get back to writing.

How Many Characters Are Too Many?

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You’ve started writing your book. When writing our stories, we can sometimes get carried away with ourselves. We overcompensate in some areas and completely skimp over others. This is something that can be fixed with lots of practice and constructive criticism.

You have the main character set in your mind, you’ve added in their cohorts, you have a set enemy and their cohorts. Before you know it, you end up having too many people to keep track of. If you look closely, most of them are either hollow shells or the exact replica of another character. These are the characters you need to remove from the story altogether. If they are absolutely necessary, make them a fleetingly passing nobody character and move on without them.

Here are some things to look at when deciding whether you need the character or not.

  1. Do they have a personality? Are they around enough for their personality to shine out to the readers through their actions? Or do you find yourself calling them “noble, vindictive, or cruel” in the text?
  2. Are they the one who always magically comes to save the day for the other characters, but then continues their way out of the story?
  3. Are they truly necessary? Do they have a purpose besides coming in for a one-liner or lurking around a group of important characters?

These are just a few ways to tell if you have too many characters lingering around. If they don’t accelerate the story, your supporting cast doesn’t need them. If you can delete them without feeling like you’re cutting off an arm, you don’t need them. Point blank. Don’t fool yourself into thinking they’ll be extremely important in one more scene in Book Four when Book One isn’t even finished. Trust me, the reader will forget they ever even existed by the time that character appears again.

For those who came to this article perhaps looking for an exact number to abide by like a bible, there is no perfect number of characters to have within your cast. There is no precise limit either. As long as you only keep in the characters necessary to write the story, you’ll not only have an easier time writing it, but your readers will have a better time reading it as well.

Do not restrict yourself or your characters on the fairytale ideals of the perfect amount of characters to have in a story. Sit down at the keyboard and just write.