Conflict is the engine of “story.”
Without forces of antagonism to oppose him/her, a story’s protagonist (main character) has no reason whatsoever to populate the pages we read and more importantly the ones we write.
If the life of your main character is even and balanced the whole way through the story you’re writing, then you’ve done something wrong because there is no worthwhile quest for him or her to participate in. If I crack open a book and the character just sort of floats through the tale unhindered in any way I begin to wonder why I bothered opening the book in the first place.
There are a number of reasons for this, so I’ll share a few of them here.
1.) A character that faces no conflict will display no depth. If we only know what the character is like at rest and cannot see what he/she is like under pressure we intuitively know that we haven’t gotten to know that character. We don’t understand them, haven’t become close to them, and consequently we can’t care about them. I have nothing invested in a character I haven’t gotten to know and therefore why would I bother to hang around and see what happens to them at the end of the story? Conflict is what will make your character multi-dimensional and fully realized on the page and in the reader’s heart and mind.
2.) Nothing moves forward in a story except through conflict. Things may happen but they are not proper story events without negatively charged forces behind them.
Frank went out and bought an ice cream cone from the corner store. He ate it. Then he walked home. The End.
Things happened in that story. Frank did things. There was a beginning, a middle, and an end. But nobody cares about this story because it doesn’t matter. Why? There’s no conflict. Nothing opposes him from getting what he wants, he obtains the object of his desire, and then he goes back to where he started leaving the reader to say, “So what?”
Now, imagine reading a book that has a lot of this kind of thing going on in it. How long are you going to stick with that book before getting fed up with it and dropping it off at the Goodwill? Not long.
The events of your story need to alternate between positive and negative charges. The only way to accomplish this is through the introduction of conflict. Conflict (negative) gives your character something to overcome it (positive).
3.) Conflict is the only way to bring about “absolute, irreversible change,” which, according to Robert McKee (“Story” seminar & book) and countless others is an essential aspect of the end of every story. If things are exactly the same at the beginning as at the end then the reader isn’t going to say, “Wow, what a great story.” They’re going to say, “Eh, whatever.” Restoring balance to life is one thing; making life better at the end than it is at the beginning is another.
Both “Good” and “Bad” things need to be lost along the way and replaced by better things. Both “Good” and “Bad” are the enemies of the “Great.” These thing which need to be lost over the course of the story can be anything (friends, lives, beliefs, objects, etc.) but they need to be lost as part of the story’s conflict.
The principle is this: Put your character(s) through hell. Take them through to the other side of it. Show us how they are better for having done so.
Hope that’s helpful.
