It may sound harsh, but the truth is that without conflict, your story is probably destined to be rejected. Why? Because while it's the Happily Ever After ending that makes your reader sigh; it's initially the struggle that captures her interest. Without the struggle, the reader wouldn't hang around long enough, or care enough, to experience the sigh.

Conflict isn't something that just shows up in the black moment of the book. Conflict should be present in every scene and practically on every page. Most novels have one major conflict driving the story, but then each character will generally have one or more personal conflicts. In a romance novel, you will also find the romantic conflict. And all of these problems go hand-in-hand to create even bigger problems. So, if conflict is so important to the story, where does an author find it? Better yet, how do you go about creating it?

In real life, conflict is everywhere. It can stem from the weather, from traffic, from other people, from bad potato salad, or even a neighbor's gerbil. However, in your books, it is crucial that the conflict be a natural extension of either your plot or your characters. Before you can define what your characters' conflict will be, you need to have a clear definition of both your story goal and the personal goals of your characters. The conflict in your novel is whatever stands in the way of your characters' achieving their goals. Conflict is not something a writer just magically pulls out of thin air.

Yes, unexpected and unusual circumstances do happen to your characters. They can have a flat tire on the way to an important meeting. They can get caught in traffic. However, have more than one or two of these coincidental incidents occur that are not directly related to your story or character, and the plot becomes contrived. In other words, one flat tire might be acceptable, but the second and third flat might only be suitable if the heroine learns someone is flattening her tires on purpose. Therefore, the conflict is no longer just a coincidence, but an actual part of the story's plot.

If the conflict is big — meaning, it makes a huge emotional impact, as in a natural disaster or a kidnapping — it had better be a part of the plot and not just an occurrence. For example, if the conflict keeping a heroine from arriving home to visit her mother on Mother's Day is an earthquake, then the story needs to be about these characters surviving the earthquake. In other words, don't make the conflict that is stopping your character from achieving a small goal be more dramatic or more interesting than the main story conflict.

Too many contrivances, or what some authors call convenient problems, and readers will stop caring about your story. The best conflict grows naturally from your characters or plot. A problem that is merely a fluke is seldom considered a strong conflict.