Don’t Make This Common Writing Mistake: Creating Cardboard Conflicts

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Novels need conflict, but not all conflicts are created equal.

Years ago, when I first started writing, I didn’t fully understand what conflict meant or how to use it in a novel. I’d read plenty of books on the subject, and understood that I needed to make things harder and put obstacles in my protagonist’s way, but that didn’t seem to make the books any better.

I studied some more, took some classes, attended a few conferences, and while I thought I was finally getting it, I was still running into the same issues.

Beta readers didn’t care about the story, because everything was too easy for my characters.

“Too easy?” I cried. “Look at all they have to go through to succeed!”

“Yes, but none of it matters,” they said. “It makes it harder, but not harder.”

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com