No Conflict = Boring Story
or perhaps not....

Has anyone here read a story sans conflict that was entertaining and stimulating? I thought about it, and couldn't think of any. I've read vignettes that are stimulating and conflict-free, but they don't constitute a story.

Also, conflict doesn't have to be angst. I've been working on a (mostly) angst-free story, and it seems to be successful in the entertain/stimulate arena.   —Mary

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.   —Tom Clancy

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More on writing conflict:

• Short Stories: 10 Tips for Novice Creative Writers (See #8)
• The top ten plotting problems (See #3)
• A quick secret about writing conflict at Amber Quill Press

From Louisa Burton
I actually don't think there's a lot of gray area here. Conflict is one of those qualities that defines a story. Your protagonist has something to deal with, trivial or huge, subtle or in your face, internal or external, whatever, and by the end of the story, either he or that conflict generally prevails. It's one of the two elements that I don't think any successful story can do without, the other being a protagonist with whom your reader can empathize (not necessarily like or sympathize with, but you want to be able to crawl into his or her skin).

I can't think of a piece of published fiction without conflict, but I've seen such work in my writing workshops. Those pieces weren't really stories, though. They were more like fictional travelogues, character studies, political soapboxes, what have you. But they never felt like stories, because there wasn't anything for the characters to deal with, nothing important to do.

I think what's entertaining and stimulating about fiction is that we can leave our own life with its problems behind for a time and invest in the (hopefully interesting) problems of a fictional character.

From Frances Jones
Well, and what's more, it's usually the reason it's worth telling that story in the first place. You don't write the tale of the day that went 100% right. You write the tale of the day where something big happened and the character learned to cope, or where something seemingly small happened and it turned out to be huge. We write fiction to capture those moments of people (and situations) at their most remarkable, to capture a moment of struggle or transformation. And that by nature is "conflict."

By the same token, newspapers don't typically write "business as usual" stories. They don't write about the fact that nobody was shot yesterday. They don't write about the fact that it was 75 degrees and mildly cloudy. They don't write about the 56-year-old bridge that didn't fall down. What makes a good story is when something unusual happens.

From Brady Sutton
What is a story without conflict?

"I went to the store. I bought milk. I went home."

Introduce a leak in the milk and a cat that follows me home and won't go away, and eventually I adopt it, but it's the most annoying animal on the face of the earth, and I have to get rid of it, but my little sister just loves the damn thing, so I have to tell her I'm taking it to the cat farm where he'll be better off, and I put it in a sack and go to a bridge over our creek and drop it off, and I feel guilty as hell, and I try to rescue the cat, to no avail, and that night I hear a mewling, and I turn over in bed, and there I see the cat, or something like it, and I try to apologize, but the cat jumps on my face and suffocates me. And I tell my story from the other side, from HELL.

That's conflict isn't it?

Dick and Jane had conflicts, as far as I can remember.

And suspense is just another word for conflict, isn't it?

From Dangerous Bill
'Conflict' in writing has a much broader definition than the popular meaning of the term. There's internal conflict, conflicts of values, conflicts with Nature, social conflicts, etc. Conflict, I suppose, is any situation where a decision has to be made, but not all decisions are life-and-death. If that's the case, most of our life is spent resolving conflicts. There don't have to be guns or car chases.

A friend of mine wrote a great romantic story about a couple that has a 'magic moment' while getting ready for work, and choose to spend the day in bed instead. At first, I would have said, 'Where's the conflict?' But of course, there's conflict. They're both driven by the need to go to work, and the risk of what might happen if they don't show, and sex wins, as it should.

From Alicia Night Orchid
Louise, I agree with what's been said about conflict in fiction. But I would add that another way to express this is in terms of motivation. Unless characters are motivated to acheive something, they're not very interesting. Unless they are presented with obstacles to acheiving the goal they are bent on acheiving, the story lacks tension.Unless the character is changed as a result of the effort made to acheive the goal in the face of the obstacles, the story is not very satisfying.

Maybe this is just another way of saying the same thing. Except that I've seen writers in workshops get hung up on the term "conflict," thinking that it means something more akin to combat, than the struggle to overcome difficult odds.

Rust Hills, long time fiction editor at Esquire, defined an anecdote as "something happens to someone." He defined a story as "something happens to someone and as a result the character undergoes change or (more rarely) misses a last opportunity to change."

From Kathleen
I think people get caught on the obvious meaning of conflict as a disagreement. But it also means differences, questions, obstacles. I think more of the change in the leading character's personality than in specific conflict.

If there isn't some change, no matter how subtle, there isn't a real conflict resolution.

From Rowan West
As Virginia Woolf points out with MRS DALLOWAY, any day in a life can be shown to have the conflicts of the entire life within it. Which is an exciting thought 'cause it gives us so much material to work with.

From Rose B. Thorny
Frankly, I can't think of a single story that I've read, or watched, or listened to that doesn't contain some kind of conflict; spiritual, emotional, psychological, or physical, or any combination thereof. Even if I were to tell you a short anecdote about my day today, there is conflict. "I was at work and I was typing at the computer keyboard and I had to move my chair to the other part of the desk so I could focus on some spreadsheets upon which I needed to make some handwritten notes. As I wheeled over, the chair took a little detour all its own and I smashed my kneecap on the edge of the old metal desk." Aside from the conflict within myself between actually dealing with the spreadsheets and deciding to say "fuck it," and quit the job altogether -- a conflict which the reader wouldn't know about unless I had further enlightened them just now -- there was the obvious physical conflict between my knee and the desk.

Whether that conflict defines that story, or not, however is a matter of opinion. If I hadn't struck my knee, and simply told the story of moving my chair over to the desk and nothing happening...what would your reaction be? Would you be interested at all? Would you be saying, and you're telling me this because...?" Or would you be saying, "what a riveting story; I'm glad Rose shared that with us?"

While I have never read a book that was totally devoid of conflict, I have to admit that on occasion, the only conflict is within myself. To wit: Should I finish reading this book and risk dying of boredom, or turf it and not get my $7.99 worth?

Conflict may not define the story, but I believe that without some kind of conflict, there isn't much of a story. I'm not saying it wouldn't read well, or that the words all put together wouldn't sound good, but ultimately it would probably read like my diary when I was between boyfriends, and prompt the question, "What's the point?"

I came across a quotation yesterday that I just loved and it addresses precisely how I feel about stories that have less than what I consider an adequate amount of conflict and a bang-up resolution:  "I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top." —English Professor, Ohio University

From Nick
I think it's possible for short pieces, like flashers, to be less conflict-driven and more vignette-like. I think longer pieces though, particularly novels, would have a hard time sustaining interest if there was no "conflict" whatsoever.

From Nobilis
There's a series of Podiobooks by Nathan Lowell titled Quarter Share, Half Share, and Full Share. The obstacles that the main character, Ishmael Huang, encounters are trivial. They are generally overcome within a chapter or two, though he may think about them or talk to his friends about them for some time after. The books aren't exactly compelling, but they are entertaining to listen to the same way that listening to a friend's happy little stories of life are entertaining. The fact that it happens on a merchant vessel that sails between the stars is a quaint detail that gives the tale a slight exotic tang. If the tale were set in an IT office I'm sure I wouldn't find it nearly as interesting.

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