Conflict and tension are two of those craft terms that get thrown around without much actual advice on what they are or how to create them.

“Don’t forget to build conflict!”

“You need lots of tension to keep readers hooked!”

Cue me looking like this: 🤪🥴😤

This advice wasn’t wrong, but it was always lacking. It was so incredibly frustrating to be told I needed to do something, but without knowing how.

I obviously knew what those words meant, but I didn’t have any clue what they meant in the creation of astory.

Once I learned the difference between conflict and tension, and how to weave them through my pages, my books became enthralling.

In fact, one of my readers for my newest book Only Fools Rush In (which released December 2nd) messaged me and said “you must put crack in your books or something.”

Not true, but what I do put in them is tons of tension and tons of conflict. Readers can’t help but turn page after page to find out what happens—and that is completely by design.

So what is conflict? What is tension?

Tension = the rising tide, the stress, the pressure.

Tension is feeling that a Thing is coming, something is about to happen. It’s the anticipation we build for the reader, where they can tell they’re about to experience something “bad.” You can also think of it like building suspense–our hearts start pumping, we’re on edge, we feel the stress of knowing that things are about to go wrong.

Conflict = when things explode, confront, cause friction.

Conflict is when the Thing happens. It’s when the tension comes to a head, and problems are created. When the “bad” thing happens, it interrupts a character’s pursuit of their goal, and it creates problems for your characters. Those problems and struggles are the conflict, the clash.

Sometimes, writers build tension, yet forget to actually bring it to a meaningful, character-driven conflict. In that case, we string along the reader without ever rewarding them with a real problem our characters must overcome. It’s a tease, without following through, and nobody likes that.

Alternatively, sometimes writers give readers conflict after conflict after conflict without giving them space. Without including space, and the build up of tension, we create unbalanced pacing which leaves readers off-tilt and unable to take a breath.

But if we’re lacking both tension and conflict, readers are left wondering, “why?” Why does this story matter? What’s going on? Why should I keep reading? If tension and conflict are missing (even if they’re small!), there’s nothing to keep readers locked in.

The truth is readers love to see things go wrong. If things don’t build toward a problem, and result in a struggle, both our readers and our characters become bored. Our characters aren’t challenged along their arc of change, and our readers easily close the book.

Let’s use The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as an easy example of how we can break down conflict and tension.

In the first chapter of the book, we’re told that it’s the day of the Reaping—the big event where two kids from Katniss’s district will be chosen to fight to the death during The Hunger Games event.

In the whole first scene, Katniss goes through her day knowing the Reaping is coming. We see how she works extremely hard to find food for her family. We see how she’s basically the sole caregiver of her sister because her mom has been struggling with depression since Katniss’s father died. We also see how the Reaping has affected District 12, where she lives.

Tons of tension is built through these scenes with reminders of this big looming event, and also because we’ve now seen what it would mean to Katniss if she were picked. It’s not JUST that the Reaping is happening (big looming thing), it’s that she could be chosen for it. It’s personal. It’s emotional.

By now we’re hooked into the first scene because we have to see how this tension comes to a head. And it does.

The conflict happens when Katniss’s sister Prim is selected for the Reaping.

There is now A Problem in front of Katniss. Her sister is essentially facing a death sentence. She has to do something about it.

The emotions of this scene ratchet up to a thousand. We must see what Katniss does in the face of this conflict. We have to know.

Then, Katniss volunteers for the Reaping in Prim’s place. She’s now looped into the plot of the novel: surviving The Hunger Games. And that choice to volunteer sets us on an entirely new loop of tension → conflict.

Here is the key: tension and conflict are a cycle.

To keep readers hooked into every scene, every page, we need to essentially string them through this cycle.

Our goal is to build tension that makes readers wonder: What is going to happen now?

We build a sense of foreboding by showing our character pursue what they want, but hit little disruptions along the way. Alternatively, we give them a “ticking clock.” Like in The Hunger Games, we know The Reaping is coming, and every sentence that passes is getting us closer and closer to the event.

Then we answer the “what is going to happen?” question by smacking our reader in the face with the conflict—the problem, the big Thing. Conflict comes to a head, and our characters are forced to react to the problem.

When this happens, our readers have to see how our characters are going to deal with the conflict. Our characters react to the conflict by making a flawed choice, which has consequences that ripple out into the story.

Those consequences link us right back to the start of the cycle. A new scene begins, and we’re back to building tension by making a character’s pursuit of their goal go wrong. The more you bring your readers through this cycle, the more you ensure they’re hooked in the action and emotion of your scenes!

But how do we start weaving that cycle of tension and conflict into our pages? With scene structure.
When you build goals, tension, and conflict into the structure of each and every scene, you make sure that you’re continually tugging on a reader’s heartstrings.

This is where tension and conflict really started to take shape for me.

By learning scene structure, I also learned how to create this cycle. Now, it’s so woven into my process that I rarely even have to think about tension and conflict anymore. They just exist in each and every one of my pages. (Thus why my books feel like crack! Lol.)

When you do the same, and when you learn how to harness the power of scene structure to build conflict and tension, your readers will never want to put your books down.

xo,