Conflict Thesaurus Entry: Being Ignored or Blown Off

Conflict is very often the magic sauce for generating tension and turning a ho-hum story into one that rivets readers. As such, every scene should contain a struggle of some kind. Maybe it’s an internal tug-of-war having to do with difficult decisions, morals, or temptations. Or it possibly could come from an external source—other characters, unfortunate circumstances, or the force of nature itself.

It’s our hope that this thesaurus will help you come up with meaningful and fitting conflict options for your stories. Think about what your character wants and how best to block them, then choose a source of conflict that will ramp up the tension in each scene. For the full entry of this and 200+ additional conflict scenarios, check into our best-selling resources: The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles, Volumes 1 and 2.

Being Ignored or Blown Off

Category: Power struggles, relationship friction, duty and responsibilities, ego

Examples:
Emails or texts going unanswered
Being talked over at a family dinner
Talking to someone who doesn’t bother to respond…

Minor Complications:
The character’s time being wasted
An assignment falling through the cracks when the character forgets that the other person didn’t get back to them
Venting to someone about the offending party, and them hearing about it…

Potentially Disastrous Results:
Flying off the handle and saying things that damage the relationship or make the character look bad
Accusing the other person of deliberate disrespect when it was really a misunderstanding
The character prematurely deciding to cut the person out of their life…

Possible Internal Struggles (Inner Conflict):
Being embarrassed
Heightened insecurity as the character wonders what they’ve done wrong
The character believing that they’re as unimportant or undervalued as the person has made them feel…

People Who Could Be Negatively Affected: Anyone having to wait while the character chases down the absentee party (e.g., partners on a work project), people who are also inconvenienced (such as a parent who has to pick up a teenager early when her friends don’t show up)

Resulting Emotions: Anger, annoyance, anxiety, apprehension, betrayed, bitterness, confusion, denial…

Personality Flaws that May Make the Situation Worse: Abrasive, addictive, insecure, jealous, martyr, melodramatic…

Positive Outcomes: 
The character learning to be more assertive and stand up for him or herself
Being able to read superficial or insincere people more accurately
Confronting the individual and finding out that it was a misunderstanding, thereby learning the importance of communicating before jumping to conclusions…

If you’re interested in other conflict options, you can find them here.

Use Conflict to Transform Your Story

Readers have a lot of choices when it comes to selecting books, so make it easy for them to choose yours. Conflict will help you deliver a fresh story premise every time, drawing readers in through meaningful challenges that reveal a character’s innermost needs, fears, weaknesses, and strengths.

To assist you, we’ve created a two-volume resource with 225 possible conflict events. Each volume contains expert advice on how to use conflict to improve your story along with a plethora of scenarios to challenge your characters.

For more information, read up on these GOLD and SILVER editions. You can also view the books at Goodreads to see what other authors are saying about them.