Is it a story without conflict?

In school I was taught that conflict was a required element when writing a story. But is it really necessary?

Warning for spoilers for Caffrey Flashback.

As a teenager in school I wrote short stories that were light on conflict. One in particular didn't have a conflict at all, and I was called out on it. Characters, setting, plot, point of view -- the story had all of those elements, and the character overcame a challenge and learned things and achieved a goal that had been eluding her, but the teacher assured me it wasn't a true story without conflict.

There were three types of conflict, according to my teachers: character vs. another character, character vs. herself, and character vs. nature. Maybe another teacher would have seen my story as a having a character vs. herself conflict where the main character overcame doubts about her abilities, but the focus of my story was truly more on learning and accepting and less about the doubts.

Conflict is what makes stories interesting, or at least that was the conventional thinking. Certainly I appreciate the excitement and suspense conflict can add to a story, and I like to think I'm good at wielding that element when it's appropriate.

Over time, however, I've continued to question the assumption that stories must have conflict. In particular, right after 9/11 my tastes in novels and television changed. I wanted lighter stories where no one was trying kill or hurt anyone else. I watched shows about cooking or design where the suspense -- what little there was -- focused simply on which house the client would prefer, or which chef the judges would name the winner.

Eventually, many of the cooking and design networks redesigned their shows, moving away from teaching to a more competitive format, featuring conflict among contestants. When that happened I was disappointed. It seemed to me that entertainment didn't need to center around conflict. In fact, maybe society would be better off if we placed more value on stories and entertainment that aren't about conflict.

If I were designing a writing curriculum, I'd advise students to transform their thinking to focus on challenges instead of conflict. What do the characters need to accomplish? How can they get the knowledge, skills, and allies they need to meet their goals?

For instance, when I wrote Caffrey Flashback, my primary goal was to show Neal realizing he can't deal with his childhood trauma on his own, and how he learns to accept help from his friends. He faces a challenge and learns something important. And yeah, the challenge is escalated when bad guys who are drugging and blackmailing their clients give Neal an overdose of the flashback drug; there's a conflict as the good guys investigate and find out who are the masterminds behind the bad guys. But that conflict was secondary in my plotting, and provided the backdrop for the challenge that the story was really about.

If you were to talk to fans of White Collar -- especially the ones who hang out in fan forums -- I think they'd tell you that the main story in the show was how Peter and Neal learned to meld their styles and to trust each other. Yes, there were cases to solve, bad guys to arrest, and arch villains to track down, but the show was at its best when the two main characters were overcoming the challenges of their own assumptions about each other and discovering what a great team they made. Likewise, the show was its most frustrating when those characters seemed to abandon or forget the lessons they'd learned, instead shutting each other out.

Conflict-laden story arcs with lots of chases, fight scenes, and explosions might sound exciting, but I think there's a sizable set of fans who simply endure that to get to the bromance and friendships that make us feel like we really know the characters.

Something I've particularly appreciated about fanfic forums is how stories can be anything we want. Stories are even tagged as not having a plot. We can find stories that are plot-driven, character-driven, angst-driven, or fluff-driven, filling whatever need we have at the time. I'd like to see that openness regarding what is a story become more widespread. And yes, I want the stories I write to be more about overcoming challenges than about who wins and who loses in a conflict.


Some of our favorite moments in White Collar are when we see Peter and Neal take steps forward in their friendship.