Do all of my scenes need conflict?
Yes.
ALL of them?
All of them.
But what if my genre isn’t really conflict-heavy? What if I’m writing something for younger readers, or my story is really simple, like The Very Hungry Caterpillar?
The Very Hungry Caterpillar has conflict. The conflict is that the caterpillar is very hungry. The conflict is that, no matter how much he eats, he’s still hungry. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine eating through a piece of fruit larger than you are, only to find that you’re still hungry? You keep eating and eating, gorging yourself on every speck and morsel you can find, but you’re still hungry. You still need more. That’s conflict.
What if I’m writing a happy scene, though? Like a scene where two friends meet for the first time in years?
That’s full of conflict. Imagine you’re the one in the story, sitting at a café table, waiting for your friend to show up. How much are they going to have changed in all those years? Will they be the same person you knew before? Will things still be the same between you? Will they notice how much you’ve changed?
And, when they do show up, what are you going to talk about? If you haven’t seen each other in years, is there a reason for that? Is it something you’d be prepared to discuss? Or are you going to just smile and laugh and chat about easy things, and leave all that unsaid?
Conflict doesn’t have to be flashy, life-threatening drama. Sometimes it’s as simple as feeling like your friend isn’t telling you everything.
What if it’s just a scene where I’m delivering information to my reader?
If this doesn’t have conflict, then it’s a textbook. But it’s easy to add conflict. One way is to deliver the information through dialogue. It creates some call-and-response between the characters, and gives you a chance to show off their personalities. If you want to explain how your quantum-folding hyperspace drive works, have the captain accost the chief scientist about why it didn’t work just now when they were trying to escape from that horde of ravenous cyberspiders. The chief scientist’s going to have to explain pretty quick-smart, though, because the captain’s not the patient type.
Another way is to give us less information than we need. Perhaps the Mage-gardeners of Skyre refuse to drink water that hasn’t come from the Flowering Well. Why? And why has no one ever seen them remove their masks? Unanswered questions are always a good source of conflict. Just don’t forget to answer them, eventually.
Is it okay for the conflict to be a really minor thing, like a character worrying about not having done her homework, or trying to work out what that weird smell in her room is?
Yes, but keep in mind that the conflict should always be framed in terms of the character’s goals. So if the character wants to go shopping with her friends, and her goal is to have a good time, then an unfinished assignment is going to be an obstacle to that. She might still go shopping, but she’ll be worrying about her homework, and so she won’t be able to enjoy herself as much as she wants to. And her friends might notice, and call her out on it. Conflict.
The conflict should also drive the story forward in some way. If the weird smell turns out to be some milk the character left under her bed, then she takes the glass downstairs and washes it out. Story over. But, if the smell turns out to be the decaying body of the goldfish that she promised she’d take care of over the weekend, then she now has a new problem to deal with, and the conflict has escalated.
So what you’re saying is that all of my scenes should present conflict in some form, since writing about a character who’s perfectly content in their life and completely satisfied with everything that’s going on is akin to replacing a Fast and Furious car chase with shaky-cam footage of an ant being pursued by a glacier?
I’m not sure if that analogy works. And actually the ant thing sounds like it could be interesting to watch. Like, does the ant make it out? I sort of want to know.
Anyway, it sounds like you understand. Scenes without conflict are dull, since there’s nothing for the reader to get invested in. Conflicts can range from physical obstacles to emotional blocks to social misunderstandings, but each scene needs at least one.
Melancholy Whale 