You're probably wondering what in the world the title of this entry is about. Well, this is the next question I ask myself when creating my story. And it's the question my editor loves to ask me when I'm telling her about my latest book idea.

So, you have two people who are attracted to each other. And then what? What's the conflict? What is going to force them to circle around each other for a while instead of just diving right in and living happily ever after?

There are so many possibilities here. Is the problem the hero and/or heroine themselves? Or is it external, like an evil demon who is stalking one or the other...or both?

The conflict has to be something that will help to invest the readers in the story. It doesn't necessarily have to be real world, either. In Refuge: Fortress, the conflict was two fold: our hero knew that the heroine was going to become a powerful witch...but she had no clue. Inherent with that fact, of course, were the bad guys intent on getting to her. But what would really, really keep our hero from announcing himself as real instead of a dream or a ghost? Why, because he's a vampire! And the bad guys after her? You guessed it, they're vampires, too.

Of course, my latest book, Masquerade, didn't have as wild a conflict; it was based more in reality than other worldly events. Our heroine is a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman), our hero is a handsome, rich man.

Let me stop myself right here and tell you that I did not want a whiny heroine. I didn't want her thinking she had to lose weight to be someone, or to get our hero. With this in mind, I decided to give her issues because she'd been hurt before, and not just because she isn't a size two. Her problem is also with his upper echelon world, and the fact that she believes he has his pick of women. So why want her?

His conflict is a bit easier. He begins having an affair with a masked woman who calls herself Scarlet. Yet he has a wild attraction for the mousy librarian Sophie. It drives him crazy for a couple of weeks, until, of course, he figures it all out. Can't have a complete idiot of a hero.

Somehow this didn't seem like enough, though. She needed to have a reason not to suck in her pride and admit to our hero what was really going on. But how to make her feel like she couldn't say anything? Why, let's just toss in another woman, Sophie's opposite, the type of woman who Sophie thinks is our hero's ideal. A woman who constantly reminds her in all sorts of little ways that Sophie could never be what the hero wants or needs.

Viola! We have so much conflict it's coming out of our ears! And we have something that an editor would say has definite potential. Mine thought it was an excellently twisted mesh of conflict. Once I had the conflict figured out, it was all a matter of pacing it. But that's for another post.

So, just remember, the conflict comes from the characters. Once you have your flesh and bone hero and heroine, it's only a quick jump to the left and/or right for their conflict. It can be reality based, it can be brought on by both inner and outer conflicts (having both is a great way to draw out the story), it can be other worldly...the possibilities are almost endless. Let the characters' needs, wants, and frailties lead you to what the books conflicts will be.