How to write: conflict

Conflict is what drives a great story, makes the reader keep turning the pages. It may even make the reader go straight to the last page of the story to find out what happens.

But how do you write a story that has lots of conflict?

In romance novels, the reader knows that the hero and heroine are going to end up in each other's arms. But the reader doesn't want it to be all plain sailing.

So if you're a writer, dream up lots of obstacles and put them in your lovers' way. Obstacles could be:

* an ex, or even a current partner who doesn't want to give up the relationship
* a child belonging to one of the lovers who doesn't like the object of their parent's affections and has to be won over
* a cranky friend or family member who is jealous or sceptical about the new lover
major financial worries for one of the lovers
* the lovers' strong conflicting desires (one could be a passionate conservationist and the other a property developer who wants to clear a forest to build a housing estate).

In my novel A Hard Man to Love, the conflict arises out of  the governess, Pansy Summers', love for Anna, the child she has come to Australia to tutor, and Anna's father's determination to be over-strict with her. There's also Prudence de Brett, who's in love with Anna's dad, Rex Falkland and isn't going to let Pansy win him. And there's the awkward fact that Pansy looks uncannily like Rex's dead wife, who made him utterly miserable with her wild ways.


My garden, a tranquil place where I write stories full of conflict!