How Much Conflict Is Too Much Conflict?

While I love critique partners and certainly do believe that every writer needs these people in his or her life, sometimes, these people create more problems than the help they provide. OK, maybe I can't blame the problems ENTIRELY on them but they are one of the big contributors. 

I am talking about adding conflict to the story.

This often starts up when someone says, "Yes, but why did this happen in the first place...?" or "But they need to have a reason to..."

So you add conflict.

Sometimes, writers will also start to add conflict to "make the story interesting." Again, not exactly the best approach.

Conflict does drive a story. We want to see that character overcome those obstacles to get to that end goal. However, when you start to add too many conflicts to the story, things become unmanageable and unbelievable. What is worse is that your readers will get to the point where they cannot connect with the story. This last part stems from a literary criticism concept called Reader Response Theory. In essence, the reader brings meaning to the story.

Let's take women's fiction as an example where I see the most of these problems. A classic is that it is a contemporary women's fiction and the main character is now at a point in her life where she is an empty nester. Now what? This is something people can connect with. But the authors often look at this and believe this storyline is not enough so they add more. 

Instead of just making her an empty nester, they add in a divorce to a husband (who was cheating on her and, heck, why not add in has now discovered he is gay), a daughter who is pregnant with a band that only plays in local bars, a son who is now doing drugs, and her boss has just fired her because someone has falsely accused her of skimming money out of the till. 

Slow down now. A reader simply cannot connect to all of this. One yes. All no.

When it comes to conflict, I often like to make an analogy to cooking. You can go to one of those mall feed your face buffets and eat a lot but not know what you ate, OR, eat a nicer restaurant, eat a smaller portion that is fully packed with flavor and looks gorgeous. Which will you remember?