It simply can't be said enough: Conflict is directly connected to your character's goals. If you are having a hard time defining the conflict in your novel, refer back to the character sketch and reconnect to what it is your character wants, desires, and needs. Then, as you define your plot and the conflict, think of the chapters and scenes as the stepping stones that your character must cross to arrive at his or her main goal.

Opposing Goals

One of the easiest ways to establish conflict is to give your hero and heroine opposing goals. When it appears that only one can win, and someone must lose, the conflict is forever present. The one difficulty with writing opposing goals is that you must still find a way to have that important Happily Ever After ending.

Generally, an author will have one of the characters realize that his or her goal has changed, maybe discovering a better goal along the way, or the author may redefine the situation and prove that the hero and heroine can both win after all.

Every Romance's Underlying Goal

Remember, no matter what your characters' goals are, in a romance novel there is always the implied goal of finding love with that perfect person. And the best way to keep the romance and story flowing together is to make sure that the romance and external plot are dependent on the other and somehow linked. For example, your hero needs something from the heroine to achieve his main quest or your heroine must rely upon the hero to complete her lifelong goal.

Main Story Goal/Main Story Conflict

Most novels, even romance novels where the romance is essentially the principal theme, have what writers refer to as a main goal. This is generally the innermost quest of the character. Once you have the main goal clear in your head, it helps to be able to define the main conflict. So, in a nutshell, what is the thing standing in the way of your character achieving his goal? Some examples of main goals and conflict follow:

• The hero, a cop, wants to catch the man who killed his father, but the villain is not only a master at evading the police, but a master sharpshooter who never lets anyone get too close.

• A heroine sets out to find the mother she hasn't seen since she was a child, but the mother is running from an abusive husband.

• A heroine who is really an alien wants to find a man to impregnate her so she can become a mother, but the one man who interests her wants more than a one-night stand.

Once you know your main story goal and conflict, you start linking the internal conflicts to the external conflicts. Make sure the things that will happen externally will have an emotional impact on what is going on internally with both the romance and any other internal issues the characters may have. Once you have outlined your conflicts and goals, it's time to start thinking about the needed steps your characters must take to achieve their goals. These steps are your scene goals and with each scene goal comes a scene conflict.

How Scene Conflict Works

Once again, scene conflict goes back to the all-important goals. What is it that your hero wants to achieve in this scene? New writers often find defining scene goals very difficult. They know what will happen next, but they haven't plotted the scene in a way that the hero has a concrete goal.

Many new romance writers question the need for scene goals. They are quick to point out that in real life, people don't always have an “agenda.” And perhaps in real life, people don't always have a concrete goal. However, they generally have an implied goal. Think of the average Joe who gets up every day and goes to work. He may not have a stated/concrete goal, but his implied goal is probably to have a normal day.

Yes, like in real life, sometimes your characters enter scenes with implied goals, but it's wise to remember that while you want your books to have a sense of realism, you are writing romance fiction. The characters in your books must be more proactive than the average Joe. Readers don't necessarily want to read about people who just have things happen to them; readers want to read about people who make things happen.

The closer your scene goals are linked to the character's main goal, the more involved your readers will be in the story. Readers want and need to see the characters on the path to accomplishing their dreams. If the characters detour off the main path, a reader will likely feel less emotionally connected to the story.

Sizing Up Your Scene Conflict

Once you define what your characters want in a scene, you need to decide what conflict they will face in their quest for the goal. The size of your scene conflict will depend upon the importance of the scene. If the scene is a turning point in the book, naturally, the conflict will be more dramatic. However, every scene will not contain a breathtaking event. Conflict should escalate during the course of the book, and the lows are just as important as the highs for maintaining proper pacing.

A scene goal can be as small as a hero asking the heroine out for a date and moving their “just good buddies” relationship to the next level. The conflict can be another coworker who barges in on the conversation, making it difficult for the hero to ask. Remember, your hero should both win and lose some of his struggles as he moves through the story. The loss of a scene goal ups the tension for him to reach his main story goal.

Opposing Goals

A good way to increase the conflict is to give another person in the scene a goal that directly opposes what your character wants. If your heroine's goal is run into the drugstore to buy birth control and be at home before her date arrives, have her run into an old friend who's been trying to reach her. If she wants to get an appointment with her vet right now, have the vet's wife at the office needing to talk to her husband before he takes another client. If your hero needs to find out what happened to his kid, have a lawyer in the room who tells the ex-wife she shouldn't talk to him. Opposing goals up the conflict.