Writers are told to put conflict in their stories, that stories without conflict are boring. This is true. While the prose of a story may be beautiful without conflict what you have is more like poetry. That is fine and if that is what you're going for: great. Or, it may be history, a boring part of history, but a true story. But if you want a story in which a reader will be interested you will need conflict.

What is prompting this blog are two movies I saw recently. Black Hawk Down and Sunshine (although most SyFy made movies can be substituted) are both filled with conflict. The difference is one is based on real events which the other is pure fiction.

In Sunshine a spaceship crew is traveling to the sun to restart it (a stupid idea but accept it for now) The entire earth and everybody and every living thing depend on this to succeed. The conflict in this is mostly between the crew members. With all of the people on earth to pick from they don't have a crew that is totally dedicated to the mission of saving the entire world.

Why haven't we learned from the recent event in Japan, or years ago in Chernobyl or on 9/11 in New York, that people are very willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

Another common Hollywood trope is that soldiers commonly violate orders. Compare the movies Top Gun and Black Hawk Down. We need conflict so have the MC will disobey orders.

I guess what I'm ranting about is that we should make our conflict at least as believable as the worlds we create.