Conflict Isn’t Necessary

I keep running across people who think conflict is the root of all plot. Google “conflict in fiction” and you get 155 million hits. One of the first began with a definition: “Character + want + obstacle = conflict.” Variations of that formula occur over and over in posts on plotting. “Conflict is at the heart of all stories,” trumpets another, and “Literature would be a little boring without conflict” asserts a third.

Now, it is undeniably true that most stories about happy people happily...