At the core of a story is the idea of conflict. Conflict allows for a plot to be driven forward, create relationships, and build tension in a story. Without conflict, stories tend to feel quite boring. Our normal day-to-day lives have conflict of some sort, from maybe dropping a cup on the ground to getting into a fight with someone. Either way, conflict has always existed in the root of a good story. Today, I’ll be covering the 7 types of literary conflicts that you can pretty easily identify in most stories. They can be really interesting if done right, so I’ll also be talking about some tips to properly write these particular conflicts.
CONFLICT 1: PERSON VS PERSON
Often the most common type of literary conflict observed in literature, person vs person is a case where the main character’s goal is hindered or obstructed by another character or many characters. Oftentimes, in person vs person stories, we find the main character is some type of hero and the opposing force is a type of villain.
This is a pretty basic conflict structure, but to be fair, you can really make this interesting if you curate a good story behind it. Oftentimes, I found that person vs person stories can get a bit boring if the writers end the story in an unsatisfying way. We find this a lot in things like superhero movies where for some reason, the superhero has decided that after slaughtering all the villain’s henchmen, the villain can survive. I dunno what’s up with that story trope, but it’s bad. Don’t do it.
Basically, you want to create the right kind of story where the character has a real motivation, the opposing character(s) has a real motivation, and the plot makes sense in the context of their motives.
CONFLICT 2: PERSON VS SELF
Person vs self can be one of the most interesting conflict types if done right. Person vs self is basically when the main character of the story’s main conflict is their own self. This can be things like conflicting emotions, defying their own values, going against everything they know, etc…
Person vs self can be done really right in any story, and this is especially good for morally gray characters or antiheroes. An antihero has a good motivation at the base of their work, but they are willing to do evil. Maybe the antihero has to go too far to get something done and they have to sort of go against their own mind to do what they need to do.
Honestly, person vs self could be one of the most complex conflicts in your story if you curate an insane moral dilemma or something of that nature.
CONFLICT 3: PERSON VS NATURE
Person vs nature stories are quite different from the other sorts of conflicts. In person vs nature, typically, the main character is struggling against nature as in things like animals, the forest, etc… A lot of these stories follow the survival plotline wherein the main character is stuck somewhere remote or alone and must survive against the elements, the wild, and so on and so forth.
This can be a really interesting sort of conflict because your main character isn’t fighting someone in particular. Their main motivation is to literally just live, and that means going through hell and back sometimes.
Some good examples of stories like this are Cast Away, a movie starring Tom Hanks where he plays the role of Chuck Noland, a FedEx executive who crashes over the Pacific Ocean and winds up stranded on a deserted island. He has to survive against the island and try to find out how to get home.
CONFLICT 4: PERSON VS TECHNOLOGY
Person vs technology is a conflict type where the main character struggles against a machine, robot, technology of some sort, AI, etc… Basically, the enemy is not a person but a technological piece that is causing conflict for the main character.
For example, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the ship’s AI is a conflict for the main character. You find this sort of conflict type a lot in sci-fi because sci-fi often follows stories where technology in some way backfires on the people in the story.
Person vs technology can be really interesting, but it can also become a bit generic if your story follows the tropes that exist in media today. If you want to make your villain a robot or an AI or something of that nature, try to make it creative, interesting, and engaging for the reader. Don’t just make the AI evil for the sake of it being evil.
CONFLICT 5: PERSON VS DESTINY/FATE
Person vs destiny/fate is basically when a person is in conflict with their fate or destiny that exists in the story. Oftentimes, we see this when a character hears about a prophecy that they are set to fulfill and they try to run away from said prophecy. Destiny and fate can have religious undertones in stories as well, which can give you a good opportunity to add more to a religion you create in the story. If you want to learn how to create religions for world building, then check out this post on my website.
CONFLICT 6: PERSON VS SUPERNATURAL
Person vs supernatural is when a character fights against some sort of being that has mythical powers or magical powers–simply put, things like a ghost, a demon, a necromancer, a wizard, etc… This is most often seen in horror and fantasy books where the main character is dealing with something inhuman but may exhibit human characteristics.
In my series, The Fallen Age Saga, the main character struggles against a ton of supernatural conflict; in fact, the main conflict at the core of the story is supernatural with aliens and mythical ancient cults and similar situations.
CONFLICT 7: PERSON VS SOCIETY
Person vs society is when a character basically faces off against some sort of injustices in society. This is often seen in dystopian stories like The Hunger Games or when every other book suddenly decided to be The Hunger Games back in that YA dystopian era (I loved those books to be fair).
A great example of person vs society is V for Vendetta, where the masked vigilante V fought against the Norsefire party who were creating injustices across society. Another one is 1984 where the main character has to contend with a government that watches literally everything, down to the very thoughts in his mind.
COMBINING CONFLICT TYPES
Just because there are 7 identifiable conflict types doesn’t mean that your story can only contain a singular conflict. At the end of the day, most stories are a mix and amalgamation of many types of conflicts.
When you decide to write a story, combining conflicts can make for a complex plot that can be enticing and interesting for readers. For example, The Fallen Age Saga, my series, combines things like person vs self, person vs supernatural, person vs person, and person vs technology as major conflict points of the story.
When you combine conflict types though, make sure you can figure out how to integrate them together so that they make sense in the same story. Sometimes, overdoing the conflict types can get overwhelming for readers or they may start to lose the point of the story. When you draft your story, your conflicts will come naturally in your writing, but being able to identify them also gives you a chance to pick the most important one and spend more time developing it.
And before you go, don’t forget to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga. You can buy my books over on Amazon right now!