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.
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.
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.
Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.
That could definitely make for a sticky situation! Great post!