• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Writers' Treasure

Effective writing advice for aspiring writers

  • About
  • Contact
  • Services
    • Editing and proofreading services
    • Critiquing services
    • Create a website services
  • Creative Writing 101
    • Opening Chapters
  • Writing Tips
You are here: Home / Creative Writing Tips / Fiction Writing / Conflict is Necessary to Make it Spicy

By Idrees Patel

Conflict is Necessary to Make it Spicy

Get ready for some more writing advice. Today’s post is an important one — for me at least! — and I hope it will be interesting for you.

When you are writing a novel, what is the important thing to consider? Of course there are many important things. I wrote the wrong words. To correct it, I’ll write it again: What is ONE of the most important things to consider when you are writing a novel?

And the answer is… Conflict. Yes. Without conflict there is no excitement. Nothing gets the reader to continue from where he left off. More likely he/she’ll close the book snap. Not a very good prospect to consider, is it? You don’t want them to do that! You want them to read all the way to the last word, sigh deliciously, and say “What a great book that was. I wish I could have written it.” That’s a far, far better reaction.

But for the reader to do that we need to have some conflict in the book! Conflict adds flavour to a story. There are two main types of conflict: Internal Conflict and External conflict. And in any type of novel, you have to include them both. They cannot exist without each other.

There is an excellent page on adding conflict in a novel here. The author is a full-time pro novelist (although I haven’t read any of her books).

Conflict is what drives the story, other than characters. Writing a conflict between two characters is most amusing. Conflict means, in a simple way, disagreement, argument, etc. And if you have all the characters in your book friends with each other with no problems at all, you aren’t going to find a lot of readers. The dreaded reaction of the reader will take place.

So what should we do to prevent that? Well add conflict as I said! And I don’t think I will cover that aspect of the topic too much: it has been adequately covered elsewhere and the one thing I don’t want to do is to duplicate a well-written article. If you are in need of a good article on the subject, visit the link above.

Subscribe to Writers Treasure for free today.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Print
  • Pocket
  • Email

Further Reading:

  1. The Best Way of Writing a Compelling Opening Chapter
  2. Fiction Writing 101: The Elements of Stories
  3. Writing Tip: Finding the Balance of Narrative and Dialogue
  4. What Should Be Told and Shown in the Opening Chapter?
  5. Compelling Opening Chapters Written — Then What?

Filed Under: Fiction Writing

Idrees Patel

Idrees Patel is a Bachelor of Management Studies graduate, and is located in India. His goal for Writers’ Treasure to make it a resource which provides in-depth and effective writing advice for writers.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Treasure Trove – the Writers’ Treasure Newsletter

Subscribe for free and get all future articles + exclusive content delivered straight to your email inbox.

Popular articles

  • Common Mistakes Made by Creative Writers
  • How to Master Clarity in Writing
  • Why Hunting for Plots is Worthless
  • Writing Tip: Experiment with Free-writing
  • 1 Year Later: How I Improved My Writing
  • Pen and Paper vs. Computer: Which Do You Use?
  • Web writing 101: how to write effectively for web readers
  • Blog topics

    • Academic Writing
    • Creative Writing Tips
      • Fiction Writing
      • Poetry Writing
    • Editing and Proof Reading
    • Magnetic Writing
    • Reviews
    • Site News
    • Sponsored Articles
    • Technical Writing
    • Web Writing

    Recent articles

    • How to deal with burnout as a freelance writer
    • Six ways the digital age has transformed the freelancing world
    • Three benefits of becoming a full-time freelance writer
    • How to market yourself as a freelance writer
    • How to survive as a writer in the digital age

    About Idrees Patel

    Idrees Patel is a Bachelor of Management Studies graduate, and is located in India. His goal for Writers’ Treasure to make it a resource which provides in-depth and effective writing advice for writers.

    Learn more about him & this blog →

    Sign up for Treasure Trove

    Email updates

    Receive all articles straight to your email inbox.


    Footer

    Sign up for Treasure Trove

    Write for us

    Do you want to write for Writers' Treasure? I accept guest articles for potential publication, but I will only publish the best of the best, the ones that are extremely high quality. You receive a link back to your website and exposure on a growing writing community. Sounds like a deal? Read the guest article guidelines »

    Topics

    • Academic Writing
    • Creative Writing Tips
    • Editing and Proof Reading
    • Fiction Writing
    • Magnetic Writing
    • Poetry Writing
    • Reviews
    • Site News
    • Sponsored Articles
    • Technical Writing
    • Web Writing

    Copyright © 2023 Writers' Treasure - All Rights Reserved.

    • About
    • Contact
    • Services
    • Archives
    • Creative Writing 101
    • Writing Compelling Opening Chapters
    • Writing Tips
    • Free Updates
    • Privacy Policy