The Past is Now, and Using Conflict in Fiction
By Heather Webb | March 17, 2025 |
I must admit, I have history on the brain these days. It should come as no surprise that as a historical fiction writer, I subscribe to the idea that history is always relevant. Understanding what has passed is the answer to our whys and hows, and becomes the building blocks of the future. While reading (and writing) historical fiction, I’m searching for aspects not always present in other genres of fiction, that are, in fact, the hisfic genre’s strengths. Things like:
- Escapism: living in a different world for a while
- Nostalgia: wasn’t everything better and easier before XYZ happened or XYZ was invented?
- Voyeurism: watching and experiencing the nature of a life different from our own from a safe distance
- Honoring genius or bravery of real people who haven’t been honored before
- Knowledge: learning about how and why social mores, political movements, art movements, technology, and a million other aspects of daily life evolved, as well as how they have paved the way for today
- Comfort: True stories of fortitude and survival are oddly comforting. They convey a message of hope and endurance. In those stories, we see the strength of the human spirit and understand that we will get through this, come what may, and there is not only an end to everything, but the other side.
Today, history is being made around us, for better or worse, and as writers, it’s nearly impossible not to consider how that affects our ways of life as well as our thinking. To many of us, we’re watching in horror as history’s dark past becomes the present once again. It seems we are doomed to repeat history as is so often said, because the human memory is short, and frankly, I don’t know many teenagers—or many adults—who have learned from someone else’s mistakes. Mostly we learn from our own. So here we are, in the midst of a great conflict.
Lately, common words in our everyday vocabulary are:
protest, resist, contradict, agitate, depose – all examples of CONFLICT
Another way to view conflict J. Turnbull of Oregon State University shares with eloquence: conflict really means “thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire.” These are fundamental words to those who wish to protect democracy, protect rights, protect others, but they’re also fundamental words in our writing lives. Conflict in all its forms are essential to a character’s journey and development, and ultimately, to the outcome of their fate.
There are many ways to sew conflict into a story, both externally and internally. A combination of both makes for a stronger narrative in general, though some character-driven stories are quite successful with the majority of the conflict being internal as well. We probably know a lot about conflict already, but I find after years and years of writing, it’s still easy enough to lose my way. Fiction writing is complex and each new story brings its own set of challenges. To help keep me on track – to ensure my manuscript is rife with tension and conflict – I find a series of guiding questions incredibly useful in pinpointing the most crucial aspects of character-conflict-outcome.
Let’s take a look at a few of my key points:
Guiding Questions:
- Which kinds of conflict are you threading into your WIP?
Man versus society.
Man versus fate.
Man versus man.
Man versus nature.
Man vs. himself.
- If it’s not obvious to you, how can you underscore or sharpen one or more of these types of conflict in your current work?
- How can you push your character to the very edge of their abilities to manage this conflict?
- Is there an agitator or antagonist that brings out the worst in your protagonist—or perhaps the best? In what way(s)?
- What does your protagonist believe? How is it real? How is it a lie? Does this fuel some internal/external conflict for them as they strive to reach their goal?
- How does your protagonist’s past, or their family’s past, shape their present day? How will it affect their journey to change? How will it determine their future?
- How can your MC’s confronting their darkest demons convey hope, not only for themselves but for your readers?
How about you? How do you maintain high tension and conflict in your manuscripts? Do you find ways to agitate and challenge your main character? How do you use the protagonist’s past to determine their future?
Heather Webb is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of historical fiction. As a freelance editor and an adjunct in a MFA in Creative Writing program, Heather has helped many writers sign with agents and go on to sell at market. When not writing, she feeds her cookbook addiction, geeks out on history and pop culture, and looks for excuses to head to the other side of the world. To date, her books have been translated to seventeen languages.
How does your protagonist’s past, or their family’s past, shape their present day? How will it affect their journey to change? How will it determine their future?
These questions struck me, because YES, probing various answers would provide an excellent structure for a novel. But I also believe in these precarious times, that we need to ask these questions of ourselves, of those we love and care for. Preserving trust and HONESTY, looking for truth and living by it can and should becomes the focus of our writing…whether it is a novel, an article or a quick note to a friend. Your interest in historical fiction underlines that we can FIND truth, live by it. But we need to know what sources are truthful…and currently, lies are popular and destructive. Thanks for your post.
This is so beautifully stated, Beth: “Preserving trust and HONESTY, looking for truth and living by it can and should becomes the focus of our writing.” Thanks for your insightful comments!
Heather, this is a master of an essay about both historical fiction and fiction. Thanks. xx
Thanks for your lovely compliment, Randy! xx
Hello Heather. Thank you for a useful checklist and discussion of what can’t be neglected by any anyone who writes narratives of any kind. You take your cue from political and social conflicts that have come into garish focus very quickly in the U.S. Here are the words that most caught my eye:
“’thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire.’ These are fundamental words to those who wish to protect democracy, protect rights, protect others, but they’re also fundamental words in our writing lives. Conflict in all its forms are essential to a character’s journey and development, and ultimately, to the outcome of their fate.”
Until very recently, who among us has felt a sense of American democracy at actual risk of being destroyed? Yes, “fringe elements” and persistent social injustice have long thwarted American ideals. Until now, though, how many of us thought we might actually lose not the reality (which doesn’t exist), but the hope of achieving a better future through democracy?
In the tiny footprint represented by my current novel, the central character has never given any thought to how he could lose his happiness, his family and friends by his own actions. Like our society, he’s been asleep, unaware of such a risk, until this threat, one of his own making, comes into focus.
Thanks again for your useful, timely words.
This is brilliantly stated, Barry: “Like our society, he’s been asleep, unaware of such a risk, until this threat, one of his own making, comes into focus.” We have been sleep-walking, haven’t we? Fat and happy, sedated? And this new reality is what that brings us… Thanks for your great comments!
Love these questions, Heather! Forwarding to a historical fiction writer who’s struggling to get a firm handle on her story.
Thanks, friend! Good luck to your writer!
“Good choices come from experience. But experience comes from bad choices.” Credited to Mark Twain by Google, but with no written source I can quote. Which probably means it didn’t, but it’s a good enough thought.
I write my novels one scene at a time, and I’m an extreme plotter. I gather gobs of information, snippets of dialogue, notes to myself, my Dramatica appreciations, everything I’ve had to research – and then give a home to in a particular scene-to-be in the list. A major part of all this is filling out, in writing, my long lists of prompts and how they might lead to material necessary for the current scene.
And then I go through it picking and choosing, editing and refining and polishing. I write the scene. It goes through as many listenings and readings and trips through the Autocrit counting functions (adjectives, cliches, 2- and 4-word phrases,…) as I need to be perfectly happy with it (very much like writing a short story). And then I’m done, move on, and very rarely go back.
Which also means I have to be sure, before I start the writing, that I’ve gathered EVERYTHING relevant.
The prompts for conflict I use are:
Basic emotions – from anger through regret (credit for the initial emotions list to Jessica Page Morrell)
And a list of the fourteen potential sources of microtension from Chapter 8, Tension all the time, of Donald Maass’ The Fire in Fiction (including violence, sex, and foreshadowing, some of them tweaked as I’ve used them over the years).
And the basic conflict and shape of the scene come from Maass’ Chapter 3, FIF, Scenes that can’t be cut: opening and closing lines, the shape of the scene, inner and outer turning points…
By giving them each a chance at my total attention, I find the natural spots in the scene for each possibility (if there is one), and make it specific.
It’s a slow process, but it has the advantage of being something small I can deal with at a time – which makes it possible for someone with a damaged brain not to miss things. And when the scene is finished (all pieces which would be better elsewhere have been assigned to a different scene), it is as complete (and as pared down) as I can imagine, and I move on to the next plotted scene.
Wow- thank you for sharing some really wonderful tips, Alicia. I’m going to take a look at Don’s tension section in his craft book for sure. I’m somewhere in the middle of plotter and pantser when it comes to a first draft, but like you, I try to be meticulous and methodical in my revision process. Thanks for sharing today!
These are insightful, useful questions, Heather–I’m sharing with authors.
Hope you’re hanging in there amid…history in the making. :(
Thanks, Tiffany! And I hope you’re hanging in there, too? What a world we live in right now. (heh. And always…?)