: Hang on - where's the main conflict? I've recently been struggling with a very strange problem in my writing: I can't find the main conflict in my novels. This has inspired quite a bit of

Honestly, I think you might be overthinking it and trying to use improper abstraction to understand detective fiction. So instead of explaining conflict in typical detective fiction, I'll use an abstraction I find more convenient, which should be broadly applicable to understanding the conflict if you wish. Hope it helps.

thesis

The society we live in is ordered. When things that blatantly violate the accepted order, there is some agent of chaos that breaks the accepted rules of society causing it.

antithesis

A blatant violation of social order, a crime, has happened, but no agent responsible for it is known. This leaves the order incomplete and threatens with descent to chaos and anarchy.

synthesis

The responsibility for the violation of order is properly assigned, natural order is reaffirmed by completing the cause and effect, chaos and anarchy staved off.

what it means

The main conflict of a typical detective fiction is essentially the compound of three separate but closely related conflicts. Explains why it can be difficult to explain as a single main conflict.

thesis - antithesis

We want to believe that the society is ordered and secure, but crimes that endanger the order and security happen. Society wants order and that rules are followed, but some will wish to break the rules, set themselves above the rules, which violates natural order. There is unsolved crime.

antithesis - synthesis

The conflict between powers that threaten order and ones that seek to restore it. Assigning responsibility and avoiding responsibility. It is more difficult to write detective fiction unless there at least appears to be someone who tries to avoid responsibility.

thesis - synthesis

We want to believe that society is naturally ordered, but in fact constant effort is required to stave off chaos. Great detectives are generally deeply committed to order, but their function is to reaffirm the rules after they were broken, not to follow them. So there is often a degree of creative interpretation of the rules, of seeing beyond the rules to their actual purpose.

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This related answer may help you, but I'll expand more here:

I think it was J. Michael Straczynski, writer of Bablyon 5, who wrote that one could sum up "conflict" in three questions:

What does the character want?
What will the character do to get it?
What will someone do to stop the character?

As noted in some of the other excellent answers here, the Someone who is Stopping the character could be the character him/herself.

I'm not sure what you consider to be a message or theme, but let's say your message is "Work is important, but love is more so."

So your detective is assigned a case. And it's a really big case, Mr. Muckety-Muck got whacked and nobody knows who did it, and the superintendent is really breathing down your detective's neck to solve this before the Police Officer's Ball next week. Separately, your detective's husband has been feeling lonely and neglected, and has been threatening to pack up and go home to mom if your detective doesn't put some more effort into the marriage.

So your character now wants two things, which happen to be in opposition: (1) to find and catch the killer (2) to spend more time with/attention on husband so he doesn't leave.

What will the detective do? Take hubby to dinner but keep fielding phone calls? Stake out a suspect but also trade texts with hubby? This balance can keep seesawing.

The boss will want to stop the detective from being distracted (or maybe not, if the boss is really sympathetic). The killer wants to stop the detective from catching her. The husband wants the detective to stop working and come home on time for once.

To resolve this in favor of your message, at some point the detective would have to choose between catching the killer and doing something important for hubby, and chooses hubby in some way. Or maybe the killer is caught and the detective quits and they both move to mom's city.

You may be going at this backwards with your current work. If your message or theme is the central point, then you have to define that first. The conflict then becomes what gets in the way of the characters realizing or embodying that message.

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My two cents! Which cost me significantly more after this morning's referendum result, mind you...

What's conflict?

Conflict exists when one desire is opposed to another.

The opposing desires can belong to two different characters:

Batman wants to punch Joker in the face
But Joker wants to not be punched in the face

Or the opposing desires can belong to the same character:

Batman wants to save Rachel Dawes from the bomb at Location A
But Batman wants to save Harvey Dent from the simultaneous bomb at location B

This definitely won't end well. Oh goody.

Of course, those come from a big-budget action movie — they're concrete and external to the characters to hopefully better illustrate the point. But good fiction will also build conflict from desires which are internal. More subtle or emotional. (Say, 'I hate endangering Aunt May, but I have to fight crime because of my Uncle-Ben guilt.')

Where should you use conflict?

Your story should have conflict, and your individual scenes should have conflict.

At a story level, conflict might be

Dick Punchman P.I. wants to stop the killer
But he also wants to save his marriage

Wait! Those aren't opposed. There's not necessarily any conflict here.

Dick Punchman P.I. wants to stop the killer
But he has to be less obsessed with work to save his marriage

Much better. Now we're ruining his life. Mmmmmm...

At a scene level, conflict might be:

Dick Punchman wants information from Sultry Broad #14
But she wants to see him punished for putting her boyfriend in jail

Two desires, check. Opposed, check. Completely dumb? Also check! But it's a conflict. Woohoo!

How should you use conflict?

There are two considerations, as I see it:

Watching characters resolve conflict is satisfying
Scenes which don't have any conflict are boring

In the example above with Sultry Broad #14 , if Dick finds a way to give them both what they want, then that act of problem solving is satisfying for us as readers; you've got a potentially compelling scene; but don't then continue it for fifteen pages if you've just resolved the only conflict. Either close the scene, or sprinkle in more conflict to keep us interested.

I think your headache might be...

And I might be completely wrong here, because, of course, I don't really know what I'm talking about. But I think you're potentially getting tied in knots because you're thinking of conflict as a single absolute to be identified for the book, then ticked off. You're cooking a meal, and you need to choose the meat — will it be chicken or duck or lamb? What's your 'main conflict'?

Instead, think of conflict like the spice. You need some here and there. Make sure every part of the story has enough — taste it, and if it's boring, add more — but don't stress about what is 'the spice' of your dish. It's about multiples and degrees, rather than an absolute.

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There is nothing wrong here it just feels you don't like your conflict to be nerve gripping and mind boggling. I understand your concern and find it very genuine cause as long as you don't satisfy your own nerve you won't be happy about what outcome will be.

I know you never asked about probable conflicts but I wrote them cause I feel you are not happy with your present conflict. And I swear on god I don't want to feed my ideas in your plot, it's your story altogether and will always be. But here is what I feel strong conflicts can be

Lack of capabilities from the detective
Hidden agenda of detective behind the veil of ignorance
Highly skilled criminal
Criminal with a legitimate motive and people who are helping him to delay the trapping (maybe for a period of time and after that it won't be a crime anymore and/or the purpose of these people is served)
Loopholes in the process
Any side plots which derail the detective from doing his job
A mystery woman (I always like them maybe they are all what I fascinate about) or choose a man if you may please.
Anything that you feel is worthy of keeping the outcome/catch/confession delayed.
Amazing idea, the criminal confesses in first chapter itself but the circumstances make the evidence disappear hence causing the delay in justice or maybe the crime never happened (you'd be hating me by now)

Hope this helps in anyway. Good luck with your project.

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