All Things Solo

There is a fantasy writer by the name Ian Irvine. He has a website that has full of EXCELLENT writing methods. Since one of his topics is related to mine, I will only list these ways and link his site here for further info on HOWs: https://www.ian-irvine.com/for-write...eate-conflict/ And if you want more than Bad Guy vs. PC conflict, here's more conflict types.

## General Ways to Create Conflict

1. Create inherently conflicting characters.
2. Create inherently conflicting groups.
3. Give characters conflicting goals.
4. Force opposing characters together.
5. Raise the stakes.
6. Create a power struggle.
7. Use competition to heighten conflict.
8. Create time conflicts.
9. Family problems.
10. Love and romance.
11. Work Problems.
12. Differing Perspectives.
13. Inner conflict.
14. Use micro-tension.
15. Use the three categories of conflict: global, local, and inner (Vorhaus).
16. Heighten and prolong conflict.
17. Anticipation and expectation.
18. Structure your story to heighten conflict.
19. Use conflict to heighten suspense.

## Specific Ways to Create Conflict

20. Make your antagonist strong, well-crafted and believable.
21. Give your hero something to fear.
22. Give your hero a significant flaw.
23. Put your hero at a disadvantage from the start.
24. Increase the pressure in unpredictable ways
25. Create conflict with everyone and everything, including the hero himself
26. Make the odds impossible.
27. Put your hero to impossible choices
28. Use dramatic irony
29. Use the unknown to create anxiety and conflict
30. Put your hero in a perilous place
31. Show and heighten conflict via subtext
32. Give your hero a terrible secret
33. Use your hero’s strengths against her
34. Use your hero’s prior wound against her
35. Use your hero’s need or yearning against her.
36. Give all your characters an attitude – then put them in conflict.
37. Block success at every turn.
38. Turn his successes into poisoned chalices.
39. Give your hero pre-existing difficult relationships with many other characters.
40. Give your characters blind spots about themselves.
41. Make your hero hopeless at something.
42. Make your hero obsessed about something.
43. What outcomes are your hero most afraid of?
44. Take away the things your hero most cares about.
45. Hurt your hero, again and again.
46. Betray your hero.
47. Smash his life to pieces.
48. Undermine everything he believes in.
49. Sew confusion, doubt and self-doubt.
50. Use lies and deception.
51. Create (escalating) misunderstandings.
52. Give your hero conflicting goals.
53. Disastrous decisions.
54. Make it personal, and visceral.
55. Exploit your hero’s minor weaknesses.
56. Let all her chickens come home to roost.
57. Establish a deadline – then cut it in half.
58. Give your characters handicaps.
59. Give your hero a destiny.
60. Make it worse – and even worse.

-by Ian Irvine