Question of the Month

Is conflict needed in every scene of the novel?

As writers, we learn that conflict is crucial throughout a novel. In literature and film, conflict is a clash between two opposing forces that creates the narrative thread for a story. It occurs when the main character struggles with either an external conflict or an internal conflict.

This week on Twitter, I posted the question that all writers have come across at some point or the other: Is conflict needed in every scene? Although writers agree that conflict is necessary throughout a novel, some replied that it would make for a very busy book; others asked what the characters were even doing without them.

Author of The Dimensional Alliance book series, Bonnie K.T. Dillabough’s take was “Absolutely not. You have to give your readers breathing room. Comic relief or a moment of contemplation or some kind of a deep breath before the plunge. Ups and downs intensify the powerful scenes; otherwise even tension can be boring or worse than uncomfortable.”

Sarah Aronson, author of Just Like Rube Goldberg, The Wish List and more, explained that “the characters need to be in the scene for a reason! If a character creates NO tension/conflict in your story (and they are not tertiary), dig a little deeper into their motivation!”

When challenged that scenes are exposition that do not really require conflict as much as examination of the situation thus far, David Brown, senior editor at the Darling Axe and award-winning short-fiction writer replied “transitional scenes are one thing, but I would argue that each scene should contribute to the story's causality or chain of consequence. The chain of consequence is complex—'and then’ transitions create much less emotional draw than ‘but’ or ‘therefore’. Relevance IS causality”.

So, while conflict is key to dramatic writing, the question still remains to what degree.

Where do you stand on this conflict about conflict?

Visit @reshamkarfa for more of your fellow writers’ feedback.