Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict

Good writers ask, "What if?" Great writers ask, "Why?" Characters in your story world walk around and do what you, the writer, program them to do. They may not know why, but you should. Effectively manipulating your characters' actions, reactions, and motives makes great fiction. Faulty logic and missing motive are plot holes that cause reader disconnect. Within these pages, we meet, warp, and torture 16 characters. We take them from cradle to the grave. We explore how their temperaments create and resolve believable obstacles at the overall story and scene level. We explore what makes your protagonist, antagonist, friends, and foes tick. We find out who they love and hate. We find out what kind of friend, parent, and lover they are. We learn how their strengths and weaknesses lead them to success and failure. Planners can use the information to assign each character a mannequin type and plan the obstacles and reponses before they begin. Pantsers can channel the information presented and reference the information when they get stuck. Either way, understanding why characters behave and misbehave helps you craft believable conflict. Life is too short for bad fiction!