You know why people watch soap operas? It's not for the stellar acting, the profound story arcs, or the fascinating setting: John the carpenter's wife Mary has an affair with the much younger Steve the bartender, but he's her step-sister's son. She gets pregnant... with quintuplets! John doesn't realize Mary is cheating on him, because he's gripped in an intense rivalry with Shelly the seamstress' father James, and it's this close to coming to blows... so why does he look longingly at James whenever James isn't looking? Meanwhile Shelly's long-lost son Edward just came back to the village after 20 years, having been presumed lost at sea! He had a DNA test done, and he's brought the result in an unopened envelope. Whoa! I hammered this out in a minute flat. (OK, fine, 3 minutes.) It's stupid, silly, superficial garbage. But there's drama! Excitement! Intrigue! Conflict! It's obviously ridiculous... but it's fun! In real life, being part of a team that has a unified goal, that works together well, whose skills complement each other, who make up for each other's weaknesses... is fucking glorious. A once in a lifetime experience. A world like that would be wonderful. But if you're writing fiction? Boooooooooring! Happiness is dull. A scene consisting of two people fighting (physically, verbally, or otherwise) is 10 times more enjoyable to read and write than one consisting of the same two people cooperating harmoniously to achieve their shared goal. So make sure your story has a decent amount of conflict. Your company of adventurers entering a dungeon should not all get along. The Elf is prejudiced against the Orc. The rogue is greedy and steals from the shared coin purse. The overeager teenager takes far too many risks. The druid is a suspiciously effective healer, and the cleric suspects them of using Forbidden Magicks. And all the while, one of them might secretly be working for the malignant spirit who resides at the bottom floor of the dungeon. Clashing personalities, conflicting goals, intrigue and betrayals, schisms and redemption! Oh my!
I think... it depends. I am actually tired of modern media overdoing it. You seldom find a group of people who feel like actual friends who work together. Sure, conflict is necessary for any story but character vs character is not the only source of it. Also, if you have a harmonious group working together, then few conflicts between them that do happen will have a much greater impact.
This is something I ran into with Good Sex. Writing purely happy fun content wholesome lovey-doveyness just isn't very appealing. It may hold for a scene, but it's conflict that tends to draw people in, and gives an opportunity to heighten the emotional appeal of the erotic scenes.
Yeah, there is such a thing as overdoing it. The worst kind of drama is that which only occurs because no one fucking talks to each other. Infuriating. I edited the OP to say "a decent amount of conflict" instead of "lots of conflict".
I definitely agree, for the most part. I *do* think you need the happy moments as a sort of juxtaposition to the drama; if it’s bad thing after bad thing after bad thing, it’s whatever… but throw a moment of joy in there? The glee being torn to shreds when the next bad thing happens greatly exaggerates any pain that can be given. also, it’s very fun to write drama/ bad things happening and it’s very… boring?… to write happiness.
I'd say that some kind of conflict is essential to any story, and since it can't always be conflict with "the bad guys" (who, if they do exist, may be abstract or absent much of the time), it's often necessary for some that conflict to be between the protagonists. So the challenge is to ensure that it feels organic, not forced purely for the sake of drama, and that it doesn't leave all the main characters coming across as unlikeable jerks who the reader simply doesn't care about. As always, it comes back to some kind of balance. Conflict among the protagonists is also useful for the "show, don't tell" principle: it lets us reveal the different traits of characters organically. Rather than simply saying that this character is very neat and orderly, we can show their clashes and frustrations with this other character who is more relaxed/messy/disorganised. This is (I think?) what is originally meant by one character being a "foil" to another: that the clashes in their personalities highlight their different strengths and weakness. And it feeds character development by giving them each directions in which they can grow. Part of the problem on this site in particular, though, is that a lot of people are seemingly here looking for a power fantasy in which the main character is never challenged in any meaningful way, which just neutralises whatever sense of conflict might exist. That type of story doesn't appeal to me at all, but the popularity of them speaks for itself.
