Conflict is the fuel of a novel. The Conflict Box, a simple four box diagram, is a useful tool to help writers pin down their protagonist and antagonist goals and how trying to achieve those goals bring them into conflict and thus provide the backbone of the story.

1. CONFLICT:
The Fuel of Your Story

2. Basic Story Dynamic
The Protagonist (the character who owns the story)
struggles with . . .
The Antagonist (the character who if removed will cause
the conflict and story to collapse)
because both must achieve their concrete, specific .
. .
Goals (the external thing they are each trying
desperately to get, not necessarily the same thing)

3. CONFLICT:
EXERCISE ONE
What does your protagonist want most?
(Must be a concrete, external thing)
Do not confuse goal with motivation!

4. CONFLICT:
EXERCISE TWO
What does your antagonist want most?
(Must be a concrete, external thing)

5. CONFLICT:
EXERCISE THREE
What is stopping your protagonist from
getting what he/she wants most?
What is stopping your antagonist from
getting what he/she wants most?

6. The Conflict Box
A way of diagraming your protagonist,
antagonist, goals, and conflict.
You can have conflict because:
Protagonist and antagonist want the same
thing.
Protagonist and antagonist want different
things, but achieving one goal causes conflict
with the other’s goal.

7. Conflict Box
Protagonist
Conflict
Protagonist
Goal
Antagonist
Goal
Antagonist
Conflict

8. The Conflict Box
Fill the conflict boxes out one at a time.
I’ve found it’s an interesting exercise during
workshops. We do it right after the one
sentence original idea is written down.
The first problem for many is simply identifying
their protagonist and antagonist.

9. The Conflict Box
Remember that goal is not motivation.
Often people put the motivation in the goal box.
A goal has to be tangible. Something the
reader knows has either been achieved or not.
Once more, the key to filling this out is to do
one box at a time, ignoring the other boxes,
until complete.

10. Conflict Box: Same Goals
Agnes and the Hitman
•Agnes wants
to keep her
house, which
she bought
from Brenda.
•Brenda wants
to steal back
the house she
just sold to
Agnes
Keep
HOUSE
Get
HOUSE
Back
Protagonist
Conflict
Antagonist
Conflict

11. Conflict Box: Conflict
Someone is
trying to
steal the
house from
her!
Someone
won’t let her
steal the
house back!
Keep
HOUSE
Get
HOUSE
Back
A
G
N
E
S
B
R
E
N
D
A
GOAL CONFLICT

12. The Conflict Box
You have inescapable goal when one person’s
goal is causing the other person’s conflict.

13. Conflict Box: Same Goal
• To see if your
conflict is
inescapable:
Draw a line from
Agnes’ goal to
Brenda’s Conflict.
If Agnes is
causing Brenda’s
conflict, you’re
halfway there.
• Then draw a line
from Brenda’s
goal to Agnes’
conflict. If Brenda
is causing Agnes’
conflict, you have
a conflict lock.
Keep
HOUSE
Get
HOUSE
Back
Someone
won’t let her
steal the
house back!
Someone is
trying to
steal the
house from
her!
A
G
N
E
S
B
R
E
N
D
A
GOAL CONFLICT

14. Conflict Box: Different Goals
Lost Girls
KILL whoever is
killing young
girls
KILL the
daughters of the
men who
betrayed him
Protagonist
Conflict
Antagonist
Conflict
•Gant wants to
find out and kill
whoever is
kidnapping and
killing young
girls.
•The Sniper wants
revenge for being
betrayed.

15. The Conflict Box
Notice in this case that the Sniper wants
revenge. However, you can’t put revenge in the
goal box because revenge means different
things to different people. We can’t see
“revenge”. We don’t know when “revenge” has
been enacted.
We can see the manifestation of his revenge
when he kills or kidnaps the daughters of the
man who betrayed him.

16. Conflict Box: Conflict
KILL whoever is
killing young
girls
KILL the
daughters of the
men who
betrayed him
Another Girl is
killed,
kidnapped.
Someone is
closing in on
him, trying to
stop him.
•Gant wants to kill
who is
kidnapping and
killing young
girls.
•The Sniper wants
revenge for being
betrayed.

17. Conflict Box: Conflict
KILL whoever is
killing young
girls
KILL the
daughters of the
men who
betrayed him
Another Girl is
killed,
kidnapped.
Someone is
closing in on
him, trying to
stop him.
•Gant wants to
find out who is
kidnapping and
killing young
girls.
•The Sniper wants
revenge for being
betrayed.

18. The Conflict Box
When I run a weekend workshop with a
handful of writers, we start with the Original
Idea. Boiling the idea down to one sentence,
which we write on a whiteboard.
Then we move on to the Conflict Box. This
takes a while. We have to identify the
protagonist. The antagonist. Their goals.
What’s stopping them. And whether we have
conflict lock between the two.

19. The Craft Of Writing
You start with an Original Idea.
You figure out your protagonist,
antagonist, and core conflict (conflict
lock.)
Remember to stay open-minded to
possibilities.
So now you . . .

20. Research
Research your characters.
Research your setting (place & time).
Research your plot.
Research produces possibilities for
story.

21. Narrative Questions:
Characters
Who is my protagonist? What is his goal?
What is his motivation for achieving that
goal?
Who is my antagonist? What is his goal?
What is his motivation for achieving that
goal?
How does this bring them into conflict?
Does my story collapse if I remove the
antagonist?
If I remove my protagonist, what happens?
What is at stake?

22. After Original Idea and
Conflict Box
We move into story. There are numerous
elements to story:
Plot
Character
Point of View
Setting
Dialogue and much more. All covered on
other slideshows.

23. PLOT

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go to:
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be an author
www.bobmayer.com/nonfiction
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