It's Time To Talk Conflict Again

Yes, yes, yes... I know I have AOL for a while. Been dealing with a lot of home repairs lately... I know, a lot of excuses and you want some information.

So, here you go.

I am once again seeing a ton of submissions where there is absolutely no conflict between the two characters. Now, don't get me wrong. The characters have some serious conflicts going on in their own heads and their own life, but there is nothing that is stopping their relationships from moving forward.

Let's start from the beginning here.

First of all, a romance is about the relationship. That, my friends, is the story arc. Your goal as an author is to guide the reader from page one to the end and navigate us over all of those hurdles, but more importantly, to get us over that one big obstacle that is PREVENTING that relationship from happening. Notice the bold print here. A conflict is not a head game. We are not talking about the characters just having to decide that it is ok to move on. A conflict needs to be a big time deal.

Let me give you an example. Let's say the hero and heroine are in a company and have now found themselves romantically attracted to each other. The problem is this. If they are together, someone is required to lose their job due to a company policy. They have both fought for this career choice. If they choose the career, now they are forced to have to be together knowing they can never have a relationship.

This is a conflict and it totally sucks.

What if we have a long distance relationship and neither person wants to move because they have a career that is worth fighting for? Someone has to break. Relationship or career?

The deal is, they have to make a decision to give something up, or figure out a solution on their own. Now, let me stress here, readers DO NOT WANT you to throw in a gift from the heavens where suddenly an uncle who we have never heard from dies and leaves someone a butt-load of money and he or she can quit their job and problem is solved. We want the characters to fix the problem.

When all you have is someone just having to say, "You know, it is ok to move on from my past relationship and date this person" that is nothing more than a complication. 

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Tropes Do Not Make A Story

Romance writers love 'em. The good old trope! Unknown baby, forced proximity, you name it! Romance writers seem to think a story needs these to make a story work. Ahh, my good friends, that is far from the truth. In fact, too many of you romance writers are ruining your stories with these tropes.

What? Are we using the wrong tropes? That must be it, right?

Actually, no. The reality is that you are either basing the entire story on a single trope and just wearing the reader out, or throwing in far too many tropes at us and really killing us. 

Let me explain.

First of all, we need to remember the definition of a romance. This is a story about a relationship to a HEA or a Happily Ever After. Simple As That. It means that the plot of the story, the central story arc focus on the relationship. It doesn't matter if it is a RomCon, Historical, Romantic Suspense, Inspirational or Romantasy, M/F, F/F, M/M, it is about the relationship. Do you notice I am not saying anything about the tropes here? 

To build the story arc, we add in conflict. That comes in with the GMC, or the Goals, Motivations and the Conflicts of the characters. In other words, what they want, what is driving them and what is standing in their way of achieving it. What stands in the way of their relationship is the central conflict of the story and it has to be something more than a simple "we have to get over ourselves" moment.

BTW, have you noticed...still no mention of a trope???

Now, if you want to throw a spin into your plot, sure, you can toss in one (and yes I mean ONE) trope but only if it needs it. I always like to think of it like those cooking shows.

A little bit goes a long way.

Don't buy into the myth that it is the trope that sells the story. It is the writing and how you use it. I promise. 

Don't Quit Writing When Things Get Tough

You are going to have bad days. I can promise you that! Everyone is going to have those days.

You will have days when you have every intention of writing that next chapter of getting a ton of pages written and yet, when you sit down at the computer, all you get is a blank screen staring back at you and taunting you, daring you to even come up with anything worthwhile to write. 

You will have days when you open your email and all of those queries you sent out that you knew would be favorable came back as "So sorry but NO!" 

You will have days when every life problem jumps in your face at the exact same time when you have all of the great ideas about your story and you can't even get near a piece of paper to write the ideas down.

So, do you quit? 

NO!

Just know good and well that tomorrow things will likely get better. Don't fight life. It will get in the way every now and then. I know it is frustrating right in the moment and there will be the temptation to scream and give up, but it is not worth it. Take a deep breath and relax. You will find time to jot those ideas down. You may find some time to get to that computer to at least get something written. It might not be much, but it may be something.