altering challenges keeps conflict fresh
Some more writing advice this week, and once again in keeping with my upcoming lecture regarding conflict in novels. In this case, I’d like to discuss what I call the Five Challenges. In my mind, there are five basic types of challenges a character can encounter (I’ll list them below.) As an author, consider changing up what types of challenges a character faces, and how they can be overcome. Here they are.
Fights: Any situation in which the character must use physical prowess to overcome a challenge. For example, fight a bad guy, escape a burning building, or persevere through extreme fatigue.
Puzzles: Any situation in which the character must primarily use wits, intellect, or education to overcome a challenge. For example, piece together several clues taken from a crime scene, answer a powerful creature’s riddle, or decipher the controls of a crashing jetliner which are all written in a foreign language.
Talks: Any situation in which the character must use charm, deception, persuasion, or similar methods to overcome a challenge. For example, convince a former rival to join forces, trick a dogged investigator into believing the character’s innocence, or making a cogent legal argument in front of a hostile jury.
Crisis: These represent any time a character is faced with a good and a bad choice, and is sorely tempted to take the bad choice. These moments often involve the character facing his or her greatest fear or weakness. For example, imagine a character who has long flirted with dark powers and is given the opportunity to sell his soul for power. These situations offer plenty of tension. Character in these situations may rise above their flaws, or succumb to them.
Dilemma. Similar to a crisis, but with one major difference. A Crisis is a choice between a clearly good and bad option. A Dilemma is a choice between to equally good or bad choices. Forcing a character to choose between the two things they love best is a fantastic way to drive tension, especially if you let it hang for a bit (be sure to foreshadow such moments). Likewise, presenting a character with a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation then forcing them to choose will likewise create plenty of tension.
These moments define a character. For example, consider a character who is a dedicated and honest police detective and also has a troubled younger brother who is always landing himself in trouble. Now imagine said detective learns that his brother was involved in a major drug deal, the kind that left multiple men dead. He now has to choose between maintaining his professional integrity, and sweeping his brother’s crimes under the rug. However he chooses, this moment will alter the course of the character’s career. Don’t allow these kinds of scenes to slip away from you.
As you can well imagine, there are a thousand variations on each of these themes. However, consider tossing a mix of each of these challenges at your character. Forcing characters to use different resources and tactics helps keep the conflict fresh, and prevents your scenes from feeling like “more of the same.”