Conflict is what makes a story. Without it, you’re just reading about a character going through events with few, if any, problems. My favorite example is “Mary went to the store and bought some milk.” Not very exciting. But, what if I told you that “Mary went to the store, bought some, milk, and was abducted by aliens”? Now, you want to know what happened. Why would the aliens abduct Mary? Why are they here? Can Mary escape?
Recently, my mom read the sample of a book. She told me that the story was awful. So many bad things happened to the main character, all in a short period of time. There was too much conflict. While my example with Mary and the aliens is straight forward and is more interesting than when she simply went to the store, the sample that my mom read doesn’t seem to know when to quit. Nothing is going right for the main character. She has absolutely no friends and the whole thing sounds miserable. Maybe if the story was about clearing her name and some friends helping her along the way, but no, the story just piles one thing after another onto the main character’s shoulders that you feel exhausted for her. That isn’t a fun story. That’s depressing.
Any story written for fun, should be, well fun. It’s okay to be entertained. Readers want to escape into a good book, follow the characters on grand adventures, and ultimately watch them triumph. That’s what conflict in a story is all about. We want the main character to overcome these obstacles and become a better person. Conflict can help with that, but sometimes, it’s all just a bit too much. The books that resonate with me the longest are the ones with happy endings.