#writing conflicts

AHHH thank you so much! I'd love to help you out!

This is the first time I've gotten a request for something explicitly fanfiction, so I'm actually very excited, haha! And Jujutsu Kaisen too? Count me in!

I think your idea is really cute! I eat those kinds of stories up too, so don't feel consious about it being perhaps "overused" or "basic!"

The idea of Suguru being overprotective over his sister but Gojo as the exception is so wholesome. However, I do see why conflicts and tension may be hard to include when Geto essentially supports them and therefore, isn't as likely to "get in the way."

With that in consideration, a strong way to establish some kind of conflict between these two characters would be to leverage miscommunication. I think you already hinted at this when Gojo assumed that Suguru would be against him dating his sister after the incident with the basketball player, but if you want to escalate things, I would start by snowballing their misunderstandings.

For example, let's say that Gojo starts to feel more awkward around the reader, fearing his friend's reaction, so he starts to pretty much exclusively hang out with Suguru, finding excuses to never hang out with both siblings because he fears he'll slip up in front of the overprotective brother.

As a result of this, there's more tension between these two characters because Suguru's puzzled (and maybe even upset) over Gojo's actions while Gojo may feel constrained to repress his true emotions.

If this idea is what you would like to employ, here are some "prompt" (they're not really prompts, haha) suggestions!

Reader feels like Gojo has been ignoring her, and when Suguru realizes that, he becomes more hostile towards Gojo.

Suguru feels like Gojo is hiding something from him, but Gojo refuses to clarify the issue at hand, leading to more conflicts.

Gojo sometimes meets with the Reader, but only when they're alone. Reader grows confused and conscious over his hot-and-cold behavior.

Suguru, Gojo, and Reader hang out as normal, but there's always some air of awkwardness that hangs over them no matter what.

Some of these might feel a bit cliche, but I think harnessing Gojo and Geto's miscommunication would be a solid method of approaching their future conflicts!

If this isn't what you're looking for, feel free to let me know and we can work out the details together!

Thank you for your ask!!

Happy writing~

Pls read to the end

Sometimes, when we suddenly get a new idea for a story in our heads, all we truly have a clear image on is what our characters are and who they are; maybe a little insight into their past, and all we can conclude is that things start to go bad.

But how do you, as a writer, come up with and imagine and conclude just how whatever it is is going to go downhill for your characters? What questions do you ask yourselves? What do you relate the upcoming turn of events that lead your characters' lives into turmoil to?

I'm curious. Usually, I try to figure out exactly what their past was first to then curate the future. But of course, that's just how time and events work. They all link to one another. But what about the past events cements the future as it is?

What truly was the key factor of the conflict in the end? Maybe the past doesn't even play that big of a role (of course it has to play some role), and the conflict is a new moment in time that'll soon become history.

For when all you know is who you want your characters to be

The aforementioned was all about how we can come up with a general idea of our characters including their past in order to decide the conflict of the story.

But, what if the only idea that came to us was just who we wanted to our characters to be?

What do you do first to figure out what you want for that character in the future in the book?

Do you figure out their personality first and then their past to then come up with the future? Or do you come up with a past to decide their personality now? Maybe you even plan the future first to then link it back to the past.

I don't know if I'm just trippin in this post and saying a lot of nothing, because I feel like I am, but these thoughts just randomly came to me, so I wanted to share.

Why I wrote this post (pls read)

I wrote it because, one, the thought randomly came to me as said before, and two, I usually always find myself asking questions about what I truly want the conflict of my story to be and how big of a deal the past plays a role in it. Sometimes I have the past all figured out, yet I still struggle to come up with an idea for the main conflict of the story. Side conflicts, fine, but the main one? I usually find it kinda tough. Maybe I'm making my stories too complex? Or maybe I'm just not thinking outside the box. Maybe it's both.

I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on this.

—with love,

Please reblog and share with writer friends. We're trying to get a wide sample of answers

Hi anon!

When I say the possibilities are limitless I literally mean that the possibilities are limitless. I can give you a list to get you started but when you're developing this character/story please remember that your character's internal struggle very often becomes a major part of the tone and theme of the story.

Overcoming - a difficult past (child abuse, bad relationships, accidents, childhood tragedies), a fresh trauma, a toxic personality trait (greed, gluttony, laziness, lying, arrogance, etc), a personal shortcoming (timid, bigotry, untrustworthiness), an injustice (anything from false rumors to false imprisonment)

Embracing - quirkiness, gender, sexuality, socio-economical situation, personalities that aren't mainstream enough to be accepted

Accepting - the consequences of their actions, a drastically altered life situation, mental illness, physical illness, new limitations caused by any number of things, divorce, loss (financial, personal, property, whatever), responsibility for something (like you said)

Fighting - basically anything your plot is doing to this character that causes them to fight back against it. it's a little bit more present and urgent than 'overcoming' but the things are basically the same.

Conflict is a force against your main character. It can be external as well as internal. Conflicts add tension to your story. Also, conflicts are a crucial part of a story so you definitely want to get that right!

There are total six types of conflicts which include internal and external conflicts. Here is a little about each of the six conflicts.

Character vs Self

This is more of an internal conflict. If this is in your story it means that character is having conflicted thoughts. Or having a mental health struggles. There is conflict in the character from within. It could be trauma from their past experiences or the struggling to take the 'right' decision.

Character vs Character

This is obviously an external conflict. This is also an extremely common conflict. This mean the addition of an antagonist and a villain. It can be straight up a fist fight or an argument.

Character vs Nature

Again an external conflict. Also, pretty self explanatory. This means that the character is against the weather, climate, geographic problems. The wilderness and storms and stuff like that come under this category.

Character vs Supernatural

This external conflict is a important one for Fantasy writer. In this case, the character js up against some kind of supernatural force. This can create a major unequal playing field for your character. Ghosts, gods, monsters, wizards, vampires etc. are great as a force against the main character.

Character vs Technology

In this the character is up against some kind of invention. A new, gone wrong or maybe right but dangerous invention. Robots, chemicals, internet etc. may play a huge part in this type of conflict.

Character vs Society

The middle of the story is usually the hardest for most writers, including myself, to write. We know where our characters begin, and where they should end up, but we’re unsure of how they get there. 

The journey your characters go on shouldn’t be easy. They shouldn’t win every battle or solve every problem with ease. Problems should arise, and they should run into obstacles besides the main conflict. Make your characters work to get to the climatic point of your novel. (Think about Muphy’s Law! Anything bad that can happen, will happen). 

Here’s a couple ideas that can help you fill in your empty middle:

Include a subplot: A lot of novels have some kind of subplot that is happening during the main plot. Maybe the protagonist has fallen in love and is trying to begin a relationship, maybe they have a personal goal and want to change something about themselves on their journey, or maybe they have to go on a “mini-quest” of sorts to convince possible allies to join them. 

Create more obstacles: Don’t let your characters rest for too long. Throw a problem at them. Things seeming a little too peaceful? Throw in some chaos, create a new problem the characters have to deal with, have a character make a big mistake. Maybe they get lost. Maybe one of their plans fails. Maybe the “worst-case scenario” did happen. Maybe something happened and a character was killed, and now the rest of the team has to figure out what to do, while mourning their friend.

Use the middle to explore the main plot/let your characters discover important information: Perhaps there’s someone that could help defeat the villain, but the main characters have no idea who this special person is and must look for them if they want help in defeating Villain. Maybe they need to collect evidence of the villain’s misdeeds, or maybe there are just questions that haven’t been answered yet. Write a scene or two that feature your characters trying to solve a problem or discover more information that could help them later on in the story.

Here’s a link to multiple articles about plot development and creating scenarios for a story:

http://www.springhole.net/writing/plots-and-plot-construction.htm

And an article about whether a scene/conflict in a story is good or not

http://www.springhole.net/writing/is-this-a-good-idea-for-my-story-setting-character.htm

Hope this helps!