How to create conflict when you have no bad guys?

[Drakai]

I'm doing it by creating opposing personalities between main characters. There's an imminent apocalypse so the tensions rise and different perspectives on values and methods collide. I would like to hear your ideas and tools in achieving this.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

You can have internal conflict as well as conflict between two characters. Maybe one has problems with jealousy, insecurity, low self - esteem, social anxiety, etc. to overcome? The other might have other inner conflicts to resolve.

Or you can make the environment challenging for one or both of them. Lots of ways without a bad guy!

 

[Brian G Turner]

An antagonist prevents a protagonist from achieving some big thing - but secondary characters, and the protagonist themselves, can prevent the protagonist from achieving smaller things, or even taking steps to achieve some big thing.

In The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie, the first chapter has the torturer, Glotka, in conflict with stairs. Only a little thing to us, to a big thing to someone with crippling injuries.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

You can do it by putting the character in conflict with their environment -- and by that I mean it could be either the natural environment or the social and cultural environment. If a character is in conflict with society, it might not be that the society is evil or repressive. The other characters, in fact, might be kind and well-meaning, but ignorant. The role of the protagonist might be to enlighten them about the past, about the dangers they face in the future, etc. As with your scenario, it might be about different values, different perspectives.

You might write a story where the antagonist and the protagonist are both perfectly decent people but they have conflicting goals. If readers like the protagonist (and readers are likely to become partisans of the first sympathetic character they encounter in a story) then they will want him or her to prevail, even if the other character is not so bad as to be rightly characterized as a villain. And then there are romance novels, where the potential lovers might be in conflict, or there might be two people competing for the main character and neither of them a bad person, just one of them, ultimately, more appealing.

Of course there is inner conflict, and conflict with a character's own limitations. There are real-life stories of people who overcome their physical disabilities to become athletes, for instance, or other limitations to fulfill a role that is thrust on them (The King's Speech is a good example).

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Competitive characters ... competing over one potential partner, business deal, honours earned etc.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

There's always the character working against himself -- Miles Vorkosigan is frequently his own worst enemy, for example.

 

[hopewrites]

The end to which an antagonist is often the means is Character Growth. What we readers really love in a story is Character Growth we can Relate to.

Absent the 'villain' or 'antagonist' and your audience wont mind so long as the characters Grow. How do they change over the course of their adventure? What opinions alter? What ignorance are removed? How are they removed? Forcibly? By events? Or Willingly? Are their prejudices to be overcome? If so, are they actually overcome, or simply set aside? If preserved, how do those prejudices survive proof of their erroneousness?

Not all character flaws should be removed. Often times fans will be more devoted to a character with flaws they understand (ether by having them or by loving someone who has them) that they never seem to get over, than characters who outgrow every flaw to become perfect. I mean, yes we love to see how someone else overcomes the same problems that we have, but we also learn from those characters who learn to live with those imperfections they just cant seem to let go of.

As others have said before me, characters working against themselves. How often in our lives do we sabotage our goals without realizing it. Some prejudice or ignorance has us walk past the best solution, or turn our best help out. Do your characters come to realize they have done this? Or do they find adequate solutions/help while remaining blind/nosedeaf to what could have been?

for example: a character who can admit no genius but his own would need caring friends willing to plant good ideas in his head to over come an obstacle that would otherwise defeat him. Why do these caring souls go to the trouble? Are they manipulating him to their own ends? Do they hold out hope that one day he will learn to love and respect them in return? and How do they go about planting these ideas? Is the audience privy to it? to their goals? or do you leave them to remain shadowy and allow each reader to decide for themselves what the True Motives of these 'friends' are?


Good writing is about answers and questions. What questions do you answer? What answers do you question? and the ratio of answers to questions throughout the piece.
The 'hook' is the question that the reader says "I have to know the answer to this" from there the number of questions you raise will determine the hold you have on your reader, as will the number of answers. I've read stories that answer the Hook before the middle, but I keep reading because there are more questions I want answered, and sometimes, even because I want to see what other questions an author will raise.

 

[Jarshen]

This is the starting point of great drama, especially if you can maintain the balance between the two perspectives to a point where the reader is conflicted. Nothing is absolute, so to create a story where we are genuinely engaged in (at least) the two responses of your tale and they are both valid, means suspense is on your side without plot. I guess you will know who wins, who you want to win (in terms of the argument, or saving the world) but it can always be Pyhrric.

Personally I like the absence of absolute good and evil.

 

[Mirannan]

I'm not sure whether this is relevant, but one way of achieving this on a larger scale (international tension or even war) is for the two sides both to have equally valid claims over something. In an SF context, I remember reading a post-apocalyptic story in which all living, active humans were killed in an apocalyptic war and there were two AIs warring over Earth, because of an event unforeseen by the programmers. (There was one, with its backup, which was disabled so the backup was activated - but the disablement was temporary and that was unforeseen.)

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

My thought would be that the situation they're dealing with gives them two mutually exclusive and opposite potential solutions. Think Ransom with Mel Gibson. The wife wants to pay - potential solution. Mel wants to hunt the kidnapper - potential solution. They can't do both. So imagine if the wife hadn't backed down and they were both equally certain of the way to get their son back? How far would they go? How bad would the fight be?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Toby Frost]

I agree with everyone else! I think the main difference is that the usual bad guys are usually clearly wrong: either they’re purely in it for themselves, like bandits, or follow some sort of ideology that is so crazy no decent person would have anything to do with it. Here, the person who’s wrong (or, better still, the least correct person) might change from scene to scene depending on what’s being suggested.

The only thing I’d warn against is having a character who is incorrect and then “learns a lesson” and abjectly apologises. This seems to happen quite a lot in fiction, but it rarely feels right to me (perhaps this is just me) because it makes the “right” character seem too clever and the “wrong” one too stupid. It would seem more realistic for the character to say “Yes, your idea was better in the end, but mine wasn’t bad”. It’s also a really good opportunity to show what the characters are like, as the opinions they have will say a lot about their personalities.

 

[ralphkern]

I'm not a fan of clear cut baddies. I think they should have a reason which is rational within their own world view. David Weber did this well with his Honorverse series... Although arguably went too far as I found myself rooting for some of his antagonists more than the goodies.

 

[psychotick]

Hi Ralph,

Actually I am a fan of the all out baddies. Maybe I need a rational motive for their actions and that's fine, but I still enjoy being able to hate the bad guy and cheer when he gets his comeuppance. Preferably I want him to suffer a nasty end. If I have to "understand" the baddie and even feel sorry for him, I can't do that.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Bodhi]

My initial reaction was "character vs. environment"; I see that has been suggested.
Something, som state, always has to hav the potential for change.
The drama occurs in a discordant state which we want resolved.
I suppose you define "bad guy" as som character whose primary defining characteristic is ey's "badness".
Without such an obvious obstacle, I think most of the bases hav been coverd: self vs. self, vs. environment, vs. nonbad character.
I particularly like @Teresa Edgerton 's response that poses som complex solutions.
Ther could also be just one big emotional or intellectual problem that the hero has to overcome.

 

[Brian Rogers]

Your scenario can be seen two ways: 1) most readers can identify with both characters, thus making everyone like the story for the same reasons or 2) most readers will only identify with one character because your value systems and personalities will be so vastly different. In 2, you can spark debates among readers about which character was actually the good/smart/clever/rational/survivor/weaker, etc. Depending on what type of reaction you want from your reader, you should mold a story like the one you outlined above in these two formats.

As it seems you already have a "2" type story set up you must create tension and conflict by the relationship between the two characters. If they are not closely tied together in some way, such as marriage or criminal actions, where they MUST rely on each other for ultimate success, then readers would expect the two characters to diverge immediately to their respective parties. Something must hold them together despite their conflicting views/personalities/morals/values. To enhance tension for the reader you don't even have to explain what ties them together. Enough scenes where a normal person would surely leave the other, but even then your characters stick together, will signify the pervasiveness of whatever binds them.

This can be conflict with the reader as well as the character, creating suspense or irony where the readers know far more than the two characters is very effective and doesn't rely on characterization as much as it would on the plot itself. The reader may know which ideal is most suited for a situation and you could even force them to agree with a character they would otherwise not relate to making some readers nod with satisfaction the right course of action was taken where others will cringe and hate that the plot went that direction but be forced to admit under "those circumstances" it was the only way. Most readers won't drop a book if it challenges their convictions although some will, so be tactful enough by not straying into ultra controversial topics that your characters see oppositely.

Honestly, there are TONS of ways to take your original two sentence premise and make it into a phenomenal story line with the conflict and tension being the Main Attraction even over the character's growth.

 

[tinkerdan]

All relationships are quite complex and rarely do two people work toward all the same goals. When a person takes a job the biggest stumbling block can be an inability to realize that they need to find out what the boss wants as opposed to what they think the boss should want. I've seen this in engineering when a new product has been neatly designed by the engineer who was oblivious to what the boss wanted and pretty soon he was complaining about all the bells an whistles he needed to add to accommodate last minute ideas someone had.

Pretty soon he's so far behind the schedule he handed into the boss that he needs extensions on his targets; but the boss has promised a potential customer a finished product based on the first time estimate.

Or there were the two engineers working in an extremely professional environment who had opposing styles of operation. One engineer plans everything out methodically and takes his time to make sure every aspect has been polished and well documented before he hands off a finished product. The other engineer has three or four projects going all the time and several in the field and rarely has time for complete documentation but he delivers what the end user needs on time every time. They always butt up against each other because one seems to drag the other while the other is throwing out slipshod work willy nilly and as long as they don't get put on the same project they are happy.

But what happens when Mr. willy nilly is out of the office and one of his black boxes goes poof and Mr. dot his i's and cross his t's has to fix it because it's critical to someones work today and no one can go home until this work is finished.

Mr. willy nilly begins to look like the bad guy; but everyone has one of his black boxes and as long as they work they are happy enough to consider the man a genius. Mr. meticulous can't reverse engineer the thing to save the day and there will be a blowup coming the next time these two meet.