By Janice Hardy

You can have conflict without tension, and tension without conflict. But you probably don’t want to.

I made pretty much all the writing mistakes when I first started writing, and one of them was mixing up conflict and tension. I foolishly thought they were one and the same, because everyone talked about them that way.

• “You need conflict and tension.” 
• “Make sure your scenes have conflict and tension.” 
• “There’s not enough conflict and tension in this story.”

It was rarely just conflict, or just tension. 

Close But Not the Same

Confusing conflict with tension has caused a lot of frustration, because they’re so closely linked, they seem like the same thing—except they aren’t. 

Wanting to go to prom and struggling over which invitation to accept is a conflict, since a choice has to be made, and there’s something in the way of “going to prom.” Someone will likely get hurt, or mad, and getting the goal requires resolving a problem (even if that problem is minor in the grand scheme of things). 

But if there’s no sense of anticipation about that choice, then there’s no tension. If readers don’t care about the choice, or the choice is obvious, or it doesn’t actually make any difference in who’s picked, the conflict is just something that has to be done, not a situation that engages readers in the story.

Conflict is all about choices and the fear of making the wrong one.

Tension is all about the reader’s need to know what happens next.

A conflict can pique your interest, but the tension keeps you reading. The combination gives a wonderful sense that there’s more going on than meets the eye, and creates the anticipation of something about to happen, good and bad. 

“There’s a problem and I have no idea what the protagonist is going to do about it, but I need to find out.” 

For example:

• A fantasy protagonist sneaks through the dark, scary graveyard and jumps at every sound, sure she’s being followed. (There’s tension as readers wonder and worry about what’s following her, but “being nervous” isn’t a conflict since there’s nothing opposing the protagonist or her goal.)
• A romance protagonist banters with the love interest, but never acts on her attraction and leaves without doing anything. (Readers eagerly read on to see where that banter might go, creating tension, but playful bantering isn’t preventing these two from achieving their goal. In fact, it’s helping them achieve it.)
• A mystery protagonist eavesdrops on a suspect. (The fear she might be discovered can create tension, and there’s anticipation over what she might learn, but there’s no conflict in this action.)

While these examples can create tension and draw readers into the story, there’s no opposition to any goal, no struggle to overcome a challenge, and no choice to be made to resolve any problem. Simply put, there’s no conflict in these scenes, even if there is tension, so they may or may not work.

Let’s look a little closer.

Say a girl is eagerly waiting for the next summer blockbuster to come out. That situation might have tension, but no conflict since nothing is keeping her from seeing that movie by the release date. 

However…

What if she wins tickets to the opening night show, but her best friend can’t go and she promised to see it with her? That’s conflict, because it forces the protagonist to make a choice about her goal—does she see the movie opening night and hurt her friend, or wait until her friend is free like she promised?

This situation has it all now—tension (What will she choose? What will happen?), conflict (Should she go or not?), and stakes (If she goes, will that hurt her friend or even ruin their friendship?). That hardworking trio is working as intended to hook readers and make them care what happens and what this girl decides to do.

If you’re unsure if you’re confusing conflict and tension, look at your scene and ask:

Is there opposition to your protagonist’s goal? 

Conflict exists when something or someone is preventing the protagonist from getting what they want. If there’s no opposition, there’s no conflict. If the whole point of the scene is to overcome or achieve something, that opposition is critical to keeping readers engaged.

Tension is when the reader worries the protagonist will fail. If there’s no change of failure, there’s nothing to worry about, and hence, no tension. 

Is this opposition creating a challenge to overcome, or just an obstacle to get past? 

It’s not uncommon to see an obstacle in the way of the protagonist’s goal and think the scene does indeed have conflict. But “obstacles in the way” aren’t usually good conflicts. If the result of the scene is the same even if the protagonist hadn’t encountered the obstacle, it’s not actually a conflict—it’s just a delay. This is one of the more common conflict issues, especially in plot-heavy novels. Getting past the obstacle doesn’t mean anything or change the outcome of the scene.

You can have a tense delay, especially in a heavy, emotional scene, but what the reader is worried about or anticipation, probably has little to do with the delay itself. There’s more going on that’s creating that fear, worry, or need to know.  

What’s driving the reader’s need to turn the page? 

A good conflict/tension mix pairs the anticipation of what’s to come with the uncertainty of how it will turn out. The conflict creates uncertainty (typically making the protagonist struggle with a choice on what to do), and the tension creates the need to see how it all turns out. 

It’s not easy to be objective about our writing, but take a step back and consider why a reader would want to turn that page. What would make them want to keep reading? If they skipped the scene, would it really matter? If the answer is no, odds are the scene needs more conflict.

Is the outcome obvious? 

If there’s anticipation but no problem to overcome, the outcome of the scene will likely be obvious. There won’t be a choice to make, or a challenge to face, because there’s no conflict preventing the protagonist from acting. 

The critical element here is how interested the reader is in how the protagonist gets to that obvious outcome.

For example, knowing the kiss is coming is obvious, but the fun is in watching the courtship dance to get there. Tension without a lot of conflict can work just fine in this situation. But watching the protagonist struggle to disarm a ticking time bomb readers know from the start they’ll be able to disarm lacks tension and conflict and just makes readers wait unnecessarily.

Scene Not Working?

Remember, conflict works with tension (as well as stakes, and a slew of other things) to put characters into situations that make readers want to know and worry about what happens next.

If a scene isn’t working, look at conflict and tension as separate items and determine if either one needs tweaking. Maybe you have plenty of tension, but the conflict is lacking. You might have a great conflict that requires the protagonist to really struggle to resolve or overcome it, but readers just don’t care because there’s no tension. Perhaps you have too little of both and that’s bringing the entire scene down. 

Quite often, it doesn’t take much to fix a scene and turn it from bland to gripping. Sometimes, all it takes is a solid understanding of how conflict and tension work to make readers desperate to see what happens next.

Will readers anticipate how your scenes turn out? Why or why not?

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About Janice

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she's not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series. Sign up for her newsletter and receive 25 ways to Strengthen Your Writing Right Now free.

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