Conflict Thesaurus Entry: Sending a Private Message to the Wrong Person

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.

Below is a sample version of this entry that shows how conflict can deepen your story, make a character’s goals more difficult to achieve, and force them to change or make hard choices to overcome what stands in their way.

To see the full entry, visit One Stop for Writers’ Conflict Thesaurus (Free Trial available) or buy the book.

Conflict: Sending a private message to the wrong person

Category: Power struggles, failures and mistakes, relationship friction, moral dilemmas and temptation, losing an advantage, ego

Examples:
Accidentally “replying all” to a work email
Replying to an email instead of forwarding the response to someone else
Responding to a group text instead of an individual recipient…

Minor Complications:
Embarrassment over having made a stupid and public mistake
Relationship friction (if the message contained insulting or controversial material)
Time wasted having to do damage control…

Potentially Disastrous Results:
Being fired for using work email for inappropriate purposes (sexting, propositioning a co-worker, harassing them, etc.)
Getting fired because the contents of the message resulted in lost revenue, lost clients, or public blowback for the company
Being arrested or sued (if the contents suggested illegal activity by the character)…

Possible Internal Struggles (Inner Conflict):
Shame over what the message revealed (prejudice on the character’s part, a flaw such as cruelty or pettiness, etc.)
Feeling insecure around the involved parties
Worrying over possible long-term effects from what happened…

People Who Could Be Negatively Affected: The recipient(s), the subject of the message, other loved ones or co-workers (depending on where the mistake took place)

Resulting Emotions: Anxiety, appalled, apprehension, defensiveness, desperation, devastation, disbelief…

Personality Flaws that May Make the Situation Worse: Catty, cocky, defensive, melodramatic, paranoid…

Positive Outcomes: 
Learning to be more careful in the future about written communication
Seeing a blind spot in their character (a flaw or ideology) and determining to change it
Recognizing that gossip is hurtful and divisive and resolving to stop doing it…

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.

The Conflict Thesaurus is part of the largest, fiction-specific Description Database available. Access it here.

New to One Stop for Writers? Swing by and check out our video walkthrough, because it’s time to change the writing game.

The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles

This thesaurus is also in book form, a two-volume set. Each volume contains expert advice on how to use conflict to improve your story, and a plethora of conflict scenarios to provide ideas on how to best challenge your characters.

Each volume is a unique gateway into conflict, but looks at this important element from different angles. Together, they profile 225 conflict scenarios.

Find out more about the GOLD and SILVER editions.

“Many of the conflicts listed were ones I had never even thought of including in a story…” ~ Annie Lima

“Angela and Becca have done it again—and left no conflict stone unturned…” ~Jarm Boccio

“Ackerman-Puglisi’s thesaurus is so much more than just a “thesaurus”. It’s a tutor, a guide, and a writing mentor all crammed into one…” ~ Sacha Black

This book is amazing; another priceless resource…” ~ Brandi MacCurdy

Visit Goodreads to read more reviews about the GOLD and SILVER editions.