Judi Lauren

Writing Romantic Conflict

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Part of my job as an assistant editor at Entangled Publishing is helping my boss (the wonderful Stacy) go through the slush pile. As a company that predominantly publishes romance books (or books with a very strong romantic subplot) I’m always surprised at the biggest and most common issue I see in submissions:

Lack of romantic conflict.

It doesn’t matter if you have lovable characters, if you have no conflict in a romance, you have a problem. I’ve gotten quite a few questions on this topic recently, so I thought we’d dive into that a little today.

What is romantic conflict?

Romantic conflict is what’s keeping your love interests from getting together and living their happily ever after. It’s the thing they have to overcome in order to ride off into the sunset.

Romantic conflict can be both internal and external. In fact, the strongest love stories typically have a mix of both types. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, the internal conflict keeping Darcy and Elizabeth apart is his rudeness toward her, and Elizabeth’s preconceived bad opinion of Darcy before they’ve even met. These two things may seem small, but they carry a lot of weight to the characters throughout the book. Elizabeth is also not looking for a man or husband, when the majority of women around her are. Throughout the book, several more things happen that reinforce their early internal conflicts, keeping it strong. Such as Darcy convincing his best friend not to marry Elizabeth’s sister.

Several external conflicts in the book work to keep Darcy and Elizabeth apart as well. When Wickham is introduced, he tells Elizabeth lies about Darcy. Because of the meetings Elizabeth has already had with Darcy, she believes Wickham without much hesitation. There’s also Elizabeth’s family–specifically her mother–who pushed her daughters at any eligible man, including Darcy, regardless of how her daughters felt. Darcy refers to her family as having a “lack of propriety,” which was a huge deal in that time.

Why is romantic conflict important?

Simply put, if you don’t have romantic conflict, readers are going to have a hard time feeling invested in the love story. People read books–including romances–to not only be entertained, but to also see characters overcome obstacles. Readers want to see characters defy odds to be together. If there’s nothing for the characters to overcome in order to be together, then the romance feels flat and will leave your readers unsatisfied.

Making strong romantic conflict

Not all conflict is strong conflict.

One popular conflict to use is the “misunderstanding” or “mistaken identity.” Both work wonderfully when paired with more. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, if Elizabeth hadn’t met Darcy before meeting Wickham, would she have believed Wickham’s lies about him so quickly? If she hadn’t had previous interactions with Darcy, that lie/misunderstanding would’ve been cleared up in one conversation.

In the 1995 film While You Were Sleeping, the heroine–Lucy–is mistaken as the fiancee of a man in a coma. Over the course of the movie, she falls in love with the man’s older brother. The romantic conflict, the thing keeping them apart, is strong on its own on his end. He has a close relationship with his family and won’t do that to his brother. So what’s keeping Lucy from telling the truth? At first, it’s because she doesn’t know how to, and the fact that the family’s grandmother has a weak heart scares her. But it develops into something more. Lucy doesn’t have any family, and she’s drawn to the closeness of the Callahans. She doesn’t want to give up the relationship she forms with them over the course of the movie.

Both Pride and Prejudice and While You Were Sleeping create strong romances by adding layers to the characters, and by using a few different conflicts instead of just one.

In some romances, the conflict is woven so tightly into the plot conflict that it acts as the romantic conflict too. In The Hunger Games, the thing keeping Katniss and Peeta apart is the Game. It’s the fact that to survive, the other one has to die. That’s a very strong conflict all on its own.

Make it realistic

The goal and conflict must always matter to the protagonist.

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth’s dislike of Darcy (conflict) matters to her because he wounded her pride the night they met. His insult most likely had an even deeper impact because her own mother referred to Elizabeth as “plain.” Because this matters to Elizabeth in such a deep way, it can easily matter to the reader. If it didn’t matter to Elizabeth, it wouldn’t matter to the reader.

In While You Were Sleeping, the conflict Lucy is caught in is choosing between marrying Peter (the man from the coma) and finally having a family, or admitting her feelings to Peter’s older brother, and risk losing the caring family, and the love of her life.

Make it realistic. Make it matter.

If you’re looking for ways to strengthen your romantic conflict, check out Colleen Houck’s blog post that has over 80 romantic conflict ideas.

If you have questions, or have a topic you’d like to see discussed on my blog, feel free to leave a comment below, or reach out to me on Twitter!

Writing Query Letters: Conflict

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I’ve had a few writers talk to me this week about conflict and how important it is in a query letter. Conflict is one of my favorite things about editing. I love working with writers to make their conflicts stronger–ultimately making their characters stronger.

So what is conflict?

Conflict is what is keeping your character from his or her goal.

Let’s go back to The Princess Bride, because it’s such a good example. And because I just really like talking about it. Westley’s goal is to rescue Buttercup from Vizzini, and then again to rescue her from Prince Humperdinck. His conflict is everything he has to overcome on his journey to rescue her: The Cliffs of Insanity, dueling with Inigo, fighting Fezzik. And after he rescues her from them, he has to get her from Humperdinck. Conflict: Torture and being “mostly dead.”

Those are big, not-so-subtle conflicts. So let’s talk about subtle conflicts for a minute. The kind of conflict that may not be obvious from the back cover blurb, or even from the beginning of the book. Like The Perks of Being a Wallflower. *Pause for a moment of love*

Charlie’s goal in the book is to get through high school. He talks in the opening of the book in a countdown to how many days he has left to get out of there. He also wants to make friends and fit in. His conflict may not be all that obvious to some: He’s introverted. He’s shy and awkward. He’s also in a world of pain, which it seems like he doesn’t realize this until much later in the story, but we as readers see it. His conflict is very internal and quiet, and it works in that story.

You must have conflict. There’s really no doubt about it. But your conflict doesn’t have to be giants or torture or being “mostly dead.” But you must always have something to hold your character back from his or her goal. And it must be conveyed in the query letter.

Let’s talk to that friend again and say they should read/watch The Perks of Being a Wallflower. You mention Charlie’s goal of surviving high school and it’s like “So what? Ninety-nine percent of teenagers are just trying to survive high school. What’s different about this joker?”

Then you explain his conflict. His shyness and awkward moments and grief from his aunt who passed away and his friend who committed suicide. Now we care. Now we know what it is he’s having to overcome to reach that goal. Remember that conflict can also make your readers care about your characters even more. Make the conflict big for your character, and it will be big for your reader.

If you’re having trouble with your query letter, I’m running a sale on partial manuscript edits right now. Check them out here.