Why Do I Write?

As I turn 53 today, several recent events converged to make me examine why I write and whether I want to continue writing.

I wrote and published 8 books between 2007 and 2012. I have not written a book in a while and Create Space sent me an email asking if I was still writing.

I had lunch with a friend and we talked about my dry spell and she asked me what would make me passionate about writing again. I have suffered health crisis after health crisis since before I wrote Mythikas Island, which has resulted in a roller coaster of frenzied work and months living as a cat. Health woes certainly contribute to the ambivalence.  

I began writing poetry and journaling as a young girl. I did not attempt fiction until I was middle-aged. So as I explored the reasons why I started writing books in the first place, a theme developed.

I wrote the Mythikas Island series (I: Diana, II: Persephone, III: Aphrodite, and IV: Athena) for my daughter Anna. She was a teenager and was sick of love triangles in YA books. She said some girls wanted stories that didn’t revolve around guys. Ideas for stories about goddesses and girl power had been percolating for a while and that became the impetus for the Mythikas Island series. Four girls are groomed to be leaders and must save themselves and fight for their future.

I wrote the Story Building Blocks (I: The Four Layers of Conflict, II: Crafting Believable Conflict, III: The Revision Layers, IV: Build A Cast Workbook) because I couldn’t find them anywhere when I needed them. I was tired of reading about the story arc and all those motivational tomes. I wanted nuts and bolts and tools for developing plots and characters. I wanted advanced craft lessons. I also wanted to centralize all of my notes on revision, editing, and proofreading. So, I spent several years learning, reading, dissecting stories, and researching. I developed a story architecture theory that made sense to me. This blog, Game On, is an extension of the desire to share what I learn. I also guest post on The Blood Red Pencil, another blog devoted to the craft of writing.

I have studied interior formatting, cover design, and website building. Although far from expert, I have added those skills to my tool kit.

Then I was blindsided with the misdiagnosis of a mystery muscle disease. That led to a year of research and another year of developing that research into a website for the rare disease, Stiff Person Syndrome, which became The Tin Man. It not only has up-to-date information on SPS, but a large section on how to cope with debilitating diseases and resources for patients with rare diseases. Again, things I couldn't find that I needed.

While I haven’t been entirely slothful, there was no book at the end of those two-plus years. Create Space had no way of knowing that, hence the gentle reminder.

It turns out, I am motivated by writing things that benefit other people. It is the sharing information and helping that bring me joy. If I inspired one teenager, helped one writer, or educated one patient, I consider all that time well spent.

I’ve always joked to my critique group that my biggest problem is that I don’t need the money and I don’t want to be famous. I admit to being turned off by the business and promotional aspect of publishing, as necessary as it is to being a lucrative independent author. It is an area I would need to research and I’d have to overcome my natural resistance to being in the spotlight and sales promotion. I would also have to work around my physical limitations. I’d much rather sit in a room churning out work and let others worry about what to do with the end product. Alas, successful writer-preneurs are not built that way. So, I have to decide if that is the way I want to spend time.

I attended a funeral yesterday for a friend that made me ponder what I want to do with my remaining time. He died during the adventure of a lifetime, checking off a big item on his bucket list. This led me to examine what I am still capable of and prioritizing my bucket list. The hubs is going to retire next year in August. After our relocation from Windyana to Adult Disneyland, I don’t know what my days will be like. All those long hours I spent working or sleeping while he was at the hospital will now be filled with different things.

My muses still visit and my characters still chime in with ideas of where they'd like to go, especially my goddess girls. I have more ideas for the Story Building Blocks series. I have a draft of a YA story, and first chapters of many others that I call my Widows & Orphans file including a mystery called The Wicked Stage.

But will they ever see print? Who knows? Once the reno nightmare of the new house and trauma of moving are over, I may put fingers back to keyboard. If for no other reason than to free the characters that haunt me like trapped ghosts seeking the light.

Adding Tension With Conflicting Alliances

Alliances can drag characters into gangs, criminal activities, and wars. Many tales hinge on divided alliances. Loyalty is often tested.

Members feel they belong to their religious congregations and sports teams. Citizens feel they belong to their city, state, or country. Plots can turn when the governing bodies of those organizations, cities, states, or countries place unreasonable demands on the characters they feel they “own.”

Organizations can be benevolent or menacing. 

Dick can force others to belong to his group. He can try to escape a group. Dick can be shunned, punished, or murdered if he attempts to leave a group.

Jane may be willing to lie, cheat, steal, or kill to belong to an exclusive club.

Sally can behave in ways that are detrimental in order to “belong.” She will accept unpleasant circumstances and tolerate unpleasant people in an attempt to “fit in.”

How far is Sally willing to go to belong to, or escape from, a group? This can make a taut Thriller.

If Jane joins a group or club and that group or club starts taking over her life, she has an overall story problem and the situation creates conflict for everyone around her: coworkers, family, spouse, and children.

If a teenaged Sally is desperate to fit into a clique at school, you have another overall story problem. She might humiliate and harm herself to be included. Cliques aren’t limited to high school. They surrounded royalty, emperors, prophets, politicians, actors, and rock stars.

Children feel they belong to their parents, family, or clan. If parents, families, or clans feel they own family members and can tell them what to do and how to live their lives, you have conflict. Perceived ownership can serve as an antagonist motive in a Romance or serve as the basis for a Literary novel.

Lovers feel they belong to each other. If a lover takes the concept of ownership too far, it makes a good Thriller & Suspense problem, a woman in peril novel, or the motive in a Mystery novel.

Devices such as the need to join or the need to break free can be used at the scene level.

Dick may be wrestling with divided loyalties: go to a cousin’s wedding or beg off to chase a clue or meet his dream girl at a public appearance she is making. It also works as an antagonist’s scene dilemma. He can be a mob boss whose presence is expected at a meeting with his second and third in command, but his instincts tell him something is up and that a bust will go down, so he squiggles out of it or does not show up. His minions will not be happy.

Dick’s religious beliefs may keep him from taking a necessary action at scene level. He can wrestle with whether or not it is okay to make an exception, just this once.

Dick may be sick of the idiots populating his tennis club, so he does something to overcome a scene obstacle that will result in his expulsion. The scene accomplished two things: freed him of the ties that were choking him and gained him the clue, evidence, knowledge, etc. that he needed to overcome the scene goal. A further complication could be that those idiots like him so much they ignore the infraction. Dick will have to come up with an even bigger violation to earn his freedom.

This conflict works in any genre. For these and other obstacles that create conflict, pick up a copy of Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict in print or E-book version.

Story World Building: Social Contracts

The terms of the social contract in Dick and Jane’s world puts pressure on them to behave in certain ways. The constraints can make whatever they have to do to solve the story problem difficult, if not impossible. If Dick and Jane violate the social contract in their world, they pay a price for it.

It is especially important in Fantasy and Science Fiction when writing about alternative worlds that you consider the demands social contracts impose on the people in them. 

In writing historical novels, it is important to understand what the social contract of the time and place required. Morals and practices changed over time and across geography. Small desert tribes had a different social contract than societies in king-ruled Europe and those of hunter-gatherers in Africa.

Studies have suggested that groups of one-hundred or less are pretty good at self-regulation. There isn’t a need for organized law enforcement in such a small community because the members all know each other and are able to keep tabs on one another. If one of the members commits an act that is detrimental to the group, the other 99 are willing and able to correct or punish them. Even in a small community, there are rules that they follow to keep the peace.

It isn’t in the group’s best interest if they can’t trust one another. If someone is lying, stealing, killing, or lusting after someone else’s mate, conflict will ensue and the transgressor will be booted out. It is hard to survive in the world alone, especially if you suck at hunting or gathering.

In groups larger than one-hundred, it is imperative to have some form of social contract with rules that are enforceable and enforced. The golden rule of most societies can be boiled down into the loose statement: “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” This isn’t effective if you’re visiting a community of purple people eaters.

Ancient Egyptians had a long list of “I will not ...” statements in their Husia. Jews and Christians embraced commandments which included admonitions to not worship different gods or idols, to not lie or bear false witness against a neighbor, to not murder, commit adultery, steal, or covet their neighbor’s wife.

Hinduism’s rules of dharma encouraged patience, forgiveness, self control, honesty, sanctity, control of senses, reason, knowledge or learning, truthfulness, and absence of anger.

In your story world, your characters will be subject to the rules of their society's contract. If Dick breaks those rules, there will be consequences. He may fight to change the rules or reveal the dark side to one of his society’s rules.

It is considered a plot hole if you apply modern sensibilities to the people from a historic setting. That doesn’t mean you can’t take some artistic license. However, having Victorian girls behave like the cast from a modern reality TV show does not work for most readers, unless you are portraying an alternate universe in Science Fiction or adding a Fantasy twist. 

Errors of this type will, at the very least, make the reader cringe. At worst, your book will go on the to-be-burned pile.

If you write fantasy or Science Fiction, develop your own ten commandments for your story world. How are they enforced? What are the consequences for breaking them? Are some infringements more serious than others? Are some ignored on a routine basis without consequence?

In The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the citizens of District 12 aren’t supposed to hunt outside the fence, yet Gale and Katniss do so regularly. Because they transgress, Katniss is better prepared to survive the Hunger Games. Breaking the social contract benefitted her. Katniss and Peeta break the contract again at the end of their first Hunger Games by refusing to kill each other, which sets up the conflict for the second book in the series.

Think about your story. Have you directly or indirectly explored social contracts in your story world? Have you put it to work for you in terms of complicating your characters’ lives? Have you utilized transgressions and punishments?

For more information on crafting believable obstacles, pick up a copy of Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict in print or E-book version.

Using Personal Space as Conflict

Personal physical boundaries vary from person to person and culture to culture. Some cultures hug, air-kiss, or shake hands and others bow politely. 

We’ve all had conversations with people who stand uncomfortably close or those who stand so far away we don’t think they are participating in the exchange. When someone infringes on Dick’s “personal” space, he is forced to back off, push them away or tolerate it until he gets what he needs. 

If Dick lays hands on people who don’t like to be touched, he has offended them. If they don’t outwardly respond, they may make an effort to avoid Dick in the future and are unlikely to do what Dick wants them to. If Dick needs to whisper something but the other person stands too far away, they make the exchange of information very difficult to achieve.

If Dick takes a seat in a nearly empty movie theater (train, plane, or bus) and someone chooses the seat next to him several things could happen. The stranger can be obnoxious enough that Dick moves, he can accept the situation, or Dick could become so obnoxious he forces the other person to move. If Dick needs information from this stranger, or if the stranger is targeting Dick, you have conflict.

If Dick is lunching alone and Jane, a stranger, takes the seat across from him, she is either crazed, wants something, or has mistaken him for someone else. Either way you can have fun with it. Characters don't share tables or hotel rooms with strangers unless there is a very good reason for it.

If someone at work consistently encroaches on Sally’s personal space (or work responsibilities), Sally might dread going to work. She may ask to switch offices or even quit. She might take an aggressive approach and escalate the territory war until the other person gives in or quits. This can serve as a scene obstacle or a personal dilemma.

If Dick is an interrogator, he may encroach on a suspect or witness's personal space to intimidate them. Intruding into someone's personal "bubble" is an act of aggression. It could also be an act of intimacy. Who do you really want to have up close and personal? Whose touch is acceptable?

If a sibling encroaches on Jane’s side of the room, she might complain to mom and dad. If that doesn’t work, it can escalate into petty acts of retaliation until one or the other wins, they agree to a truce, or mom and dad step in and separate them. These kinds of disputes can happen between teachers at school, soccer moms on the field, or waiters at a restaurant.

These conflicts are often featured in comedies, but can be utilized in any genre. Two opposing gangs forced to share a hideout in dystopian story works just as well as two enemies sharing a jail cell.

Bowing, handshaking, and hand gestures are the subjects of extensive studies and say a lot about a population and an era. When you write about different cultures, be sure to investigate the ins and outs of social and physical boundaries specific to that region and time period. When you create a fantasy world, this kind of detail can add richness to it. 

There are many reasons why one person's "bubble" is wider than anothers based on their past history, trauma, or training. You can use it to define character.

Using Physical Boundaries To Add Conflict

Last week, we discussed blurring psychological bounaries. This week, we'll tackle utilizing physical boundaries as conflict at the scene and overall story level.

The concept of physical boundaries ties in with the thematic question of ownership. Do we ever really “own” anything? Characters draw chalk lines and erect fences, warning signs, hedges, and walls to define physical boundaries.

Characters in any genre can argue the fine points of the debate whether they are talking about a desk, a house, a country, a dog, a child, or a partner. Trusts, inheritance entailments, and wills are drawn up to ensure that the ownership of a thing passes down in the desired way. 

These often play a part in a Mystery or Thriller, but can be used in any genre.  Physical boundary conflicts escalate until a crisis point is reached. These conflicts can be resolved amicably or resolved because only one is left standing. They can result in a new division of territory or someone takes all. Such are the basis for world or interstellar wars.

Skirmishes erupt between neighbors over the borders of their yards and driveways. It can erupt between cities and counties and states and countries. Border wars make great overall story problems and thematic arguments: borders are arbitrary versus borders are necessary. No one should fence in anything versus enforcing borders keeps its residents safe. When countries redraw borders, people get displaced and that makes a terrific thematic argument to explore. Humans are willing to kill over scraps of land, even if the land lacks water, food and clean air. Is every scrap of land worth fighting for? Some would argue yes, others no.

Battles over borders could also serve as a problem at scene level if Dick needs to enter a geographic area to gain something and can’t go there. He may have to find a way in that is subversive or get someone else to go there for him.

Characters get testy when people trespass on what they believe to be theirs, whether they are accurate or not. A character might object if someone else’s children played on his lawn or swam in his pool without permission. The same character might make justifications when his children do it to someone else. Characters get really testy, even violent, over their perceived boundaries. Try trimming someone's prize rose bush and you'll know what I mean.

Arguments over physical boundaries can involve a country’s borders, a contested parking space, a room with a view, or the scope can be narrowed to a very personal boundary. Making Dick confront physical boundaries creates conflicts whether he has to jump over a railroad track or cross into Palestine from Israel.

Use physical boundaries to trip up your protagonist and make his scene goal more difficult.

For more information on these and other obstacles for your fiction, pick up a copy of Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict in print or E-book version.

Five Ways to Use Context to Add Tension

Context is the frame that defines words, actions, and people.

1. When the mind registers something out of place, it hangs onto the image and tries to reconcile it. This dilemma can eat away at your character, and the reader, until it is explained.

Dick will either deny what he saw, decide he didn't see what the thought he had, or blame it on a trick of light.

A slick detective will notice the slightest thing out of place. The image will keep churning in his brain until he figures out why it bothered him. Things presented out of context cause cognitive dissonance. Dick will pick up on things a witness says that are out of context. Poirot and Sherlock were masters of detecting conflicts of context.

If Dick sees someone walking down an urban street in a pioneer costume, he may have caught a fleeting glimpse, but his mind will hang onto the image. His rational mind won't be able to resolve it easily. Dick might see someone who looks familiar, but he is seeing them out of context so he can't quite place them.

2. Context shifts when a character is relocated or finds himself in a different world.

The frame changes when small town football star, Dick, goes off to college. He becomes a small fish in a big pond. That's why college is a great place for characters to reinvent themselves. Everyone there is out of context. Whatever your character's past, he or she can start over with a new identity or self image.

3. Shifting context can shed a different light on something said or done or cause misunderstanding. 

Advertisers, politicians and news headlines do this all the time. You see a headline and think something must really be wrong. Then you read the same words in the context of the article and realize it meant nothing. It is also a way to advance false data to support a proposition.

If Dick wants to make Jane look bad, he can take something she said out of context and distort her meaning by making her quote sound more simplistic or extreme. When asked to confirm if she made the comment, she'll have to admit to it. She may not be given the opportunity to defend herself by explaining the context. This tactic is used in courtrooms to great effect. If Jane said she wanted to "kill" Sally for being such a bitch, she may have said so as a joke or in a moment of ire. She did not intend to ever harm Sally. On the witness stand, Dick will use her words against her.

Dick can also use this tactic by quoting an authority out of context to support his argument. If an article states that cigarettes cause cancer in six out of ten smokers, Dick can state that the article said cigarettes don't cause cancer in all smokers. He is technically correct, but that was not the intent of the article's author.

If Dick is caught quoting someone's inflammatory statement, Jane can turn on him and pretend the statement came from Dick himself, when in fact the remainder of Dick's comment countered the inflammatory statement. This is often done with biblical quotes. Just because a scribe in biblical times said that something was okay does not make it an acceptable, rational choice in modern society. Or the person takes a quote from a trusted text and uses it out of context intentionally (or ignorantly) to support their proposition.

Jane can state there is some evidence that a specific medical treatment was effective. She leaves out the part where the article stated that it was effective in such a small sampling as to be considered ineffective and not worth further study.

Dick could film Jane doing something and edit the film to make it look like she was doing something wrong or illegal. In a world where virtually everyone has a cell phone camera, it's easy to take a random shot or video clip of someone and use it however you like. This is a frequent tactic by paparazzi when it comes to celebrity hookups. They show two actors standing together and call them a couple when all they were doing was posing for an upcoming film promotion.

4. Seeing photographs or images out of context can make Jane view something in an entirely different light. An example would be the "this is your brain on drugs" that showed an egg frying in a skillet. Juxtaposing different verbal images can have the same effect.

Commercials sometime stream images of unrelated images together to illustrate a point. The images are all out of context but work together to change perceptions. The E-trade baby commercials where they show toddlers talking like adults or the identity theft commercials where they show teenage girl voices emitting from a middle aged man are good examples. The switch in context makes them funny. The photo of an oil rig next to an oil-soaked duckling is another example. Sometimes it is not until you see something out of context that the reality sinks in.

5. Conflicts occur when something Dick says is taken out of context or misunderstood. He can have the best intentions in the world, but if Jane is having a bad day, feeling overly sensitive or Dick's words catch her at just the wrong angle, he has conflict. This happens all the time in all facets of life. Small misunderstandings create big wounds. We all have our issues and sensitive moments. Jane can be experiencing emotion due to something else entirely and an innocent comment from Dick can set off a storm of retaliation.

Sally can reveal information she didn’t intend to under these circumstances. Characters have their hot buttons and comments can push those hot buttons. Sally might perceive someone’s comment as a blow to her pride, honor, integrity, intelligence, generosity, or belief system. A casual comment from a spouse, friend or relative, even if it was meant to be funny, could result in a massive blowout if it strikes an unintended nerve. What Jane said might have been funny if it hadn't been out of context. If Jane intentionally says something knowing she'll strike a nerve, that’s another conflict.

Characters hear things wrong, interpret things wrong, and relate information filtered through their past experiences and personal preferences. They could repeat something that was said to them. They may believe in the accuracy of what they are saying. That does not, however, make it true or accurate.

Conflicts of context can be utilized in all genres and all aspects of a story from setting and character description to dialogue.

For more information on using context and other obstacles to create conflict, pick up a copy of Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict in print or E-book version.

Characters with Blurred Lines

Boundaries can be geographical, social, psychological, or physical. 

This post will address psychological boundaries: the lines that are drawn that separate one person from another. Blur these lines and things get messy fast. No one likes having their boundaries violated. Cross them and you create conflict. 

Characters adopt behaviors, coping mechanisms, verbal warnings and body language to defend psychological boundaries. Psychological boundary violations are often very subtle and complicate relationships between protagonists and antagonists, siblings, lovers, parents, children, friends, coworkers, and teammates.

Relationships are supposed to bring people together. In healthy relationships, boundaries are flexible. We grow and adapt to allow the other person in, but keep the self intact. We give in only so much and will only go so far. We allow the other person into our personal space. We allow them to touch us. We give them access to our deepest thoughts and feelings. If someone uses that access to harm us, it is betrayal of the highest order.

Most of your characters would be hard-pressed to vocalize what their boundaries are, but feel violations all the way to their core. Boundary violations can inspire heated arguments, divorces, revenge plots, and serve as motive for murder.

1. A woman who tries to get too close too fast will unsettle Dick. He will either decide that she is up to something or that she is emotionally unstable. If he is at first flattered by the attention, he will soon realize that he should have been more wary. Such is the stuff of many a horror story. Romances thrive on love at first sight and sex with a stranger, but that is rushing intimacy. In real life this scenario typically does not end well. That level of intimacy implies connections that haven't been formed yet. It is forcing a character to trust someone they don't know with their health and welfare. It is a boundary violation that runs rampant throughout modern fiction. It's also a plot hole, especially when it happens because "the script calls for it."

2. A character who offers too much personal information too soon will make Dick suspicious. This is effective as a plot complication. However, if a character enters the story and shares way too much personal information for no reason apart from delivering information, it becomes a plot hole. Readers will be irritated by it, unless they relate to the situation because their own boundaries are fuzzy.

3. Readers sense boundary violations in your story. They won't necessarily stop reading to shout, "Their boundaries are off!" Rather, they stop reading because they don't like the characters or think the plants and payoffs aren't realistic. I have tossed several books aside because the protagonist fell on either extreme end of the unhealthy boundary spectrum. This is often true in Thrillers where the protagonist runs around shooting people in a display of badass. Protagonists without conscience don't feel particularly heroic to the reader. They may still root for him to succeed but they don't necessarily like him. It may turn readers off so that they don't read the next book in the series. We want our heroes to care. They may have to take drastic measures to save us, but we don't want them to be the monster, even if you are writing paranormal.

4. Con men often approach and get real chummy too fast. Dick takes the stranger at face value initially. Unless Dick is professionally trained to detect liars, he won't stop to think, "this man is being way too friendly." Instead his intuition will tell him that something doesn't quite add up. As you relate Dick's responses, your reader will feel that same tug of intuition. As the plot progresses, Dick will begin connecting the dots and the reader will too.

5. At the extreme end, characters lacking sufficient boundaries remain in toxic, even abusive situations, befriend serial killers, or allow other characters to walk all over them. Most characters fall somewhere in the middle or slightly off center on the fuzzy-rigid spectrum. Circumstances can force any of them to be slightly rigid or slightly fuzzy.

6. On the mild end, they enable their children, can’t say no to excessive overtime, think celebrities are actually friends, or insist on taking photos of their butts on the company copier during the Christmas party. They cling and make outrageous demands, manipulate through guilt, or spend their time trying to fix broken people. They expect to be admired for their sacrifices and outrageous efforts to please and repair.

7. Use characters with poor boundaries to complicate Dick's life. If Dick is the responsible hero type he will try to drag this person back to a healthy sense of self or convince them of the error of their ways. In the end, unless it's a biography or a down-ending tale, Dick should be willing and able to accept that he can’t and isn’t responsible for fixing them. Even if it means losing them or letting them self-destruct. He may get sidetracked or dragged down temporarily by the toxic character, but his boundaries should be healthy enough for him to know when to walk away.

The toxic character may make solving the overall story problem next to impossible. Your antagonist, if you have one, is often toxic or is surrounded by toxic types enabling his erroneous ways.

8. A fairly well-balanced Dick can be driven to some derivative of fuzzy or rigid behavior depending on the circumstances. He would have to tolerate incursions to work for a rigid character. He would have to become a bit rigid when solving a problem with a fuzzy character. Extreme circumstances can force him into extreme behaviors.

9. If Sally has a weak sense of self, she’ll find it difficult to distinguish herself from the characters she forms relationships with. She will use the other people to fill in her missing pieces or the emptiness she feels when she is alone. The problem is, no one can do that for her and no amount of trying will make it so. It could show growth if she starts off a little insecure and grows into confidence. However, characters with a truly weak sense of self make poor protagonists. I could list a few contemporary examples.

10. If Jane is rigid, she will find it difficult to adjust her boundaries to allow the other person in. She ends up in emotionally detached relationships and is incapable of intimacy. She will make a lousy friend and a difficult lover. Rigid characters make excellent antagonists and foes.

11. Put fuzzy Sally with rigid Jane and you have a neurotic, passive-aggressive relationship. Their opposing approaches will make anything they undertake unsuccessful. They will get frustrated with each other and constantly return to the arena to repeat their tug of war.

Pair a healthy Dick with a rigid Jane or fuzzy Sally and the game is on. They will disagree verbally, thematically, even physically.

12. Dick can fear hurting someone he cares about, so he gets a little fuzzy. It’s easy to kick out a terrible tenant. It’s harder to evict an aging father with a Vicodin habit.

If Dick has healthy boundaries in all other respects, he may get fuzzy when it comes to dealing with a wife who is emotionally abusive due to mental illness or a child who has violent outbreaks.

Boundary conflicts can be a thematic argument, an overall story problem, a disruptive factor at scene level or serve as a motive. It can complicate things for your protagonist in any story.

Next time, we will explore physical boundaries.

For more information on how to use boundaries and other obstacles to create conflict, pick up a copy of Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict in print or E-book version.