Using conflict to power your story

This is another article written for the now-defunct Beverley Guardian, recreated here for your delectation and delight.

Conflict is the thing that powers your story. Your protagonist has a problem, they are trying to fix it, but there are things in the way, so they can’t solve their problem as easily as they’d hoped. So what are they going to do now? This tension, the wanting to know what happens next, is what keeps the reader turning the paged. The source of that tension is conflict.

Confl...