Cenonn's How to Holofic and Writing in General

Unfortunately, the spice of life is conflict

Every story needs a conflict. It's not just applicable in fanfictions but in storytelling in general. Movies, TV shows, animes, and other media need a conflict in order to push the plot along.

Now then... What is a conflict? Conflict is defined as a struggle between two opposing forces. It is responsible for giving the needed tension in the story and pushes the plot forward. It's often used to reveal more things in the narrative while highlighting a character's motivations, values, and weaknesses.

There are two kinds of conflicts and these are internal conflicts and external conflicts.

Internal conflict is when a character is struggling with their own desires and beliefs. It happens inside of them and it drives them in the magical path called "Character Development." This kind of conflict is commonly found in stories where the characters are the focus.

External conflicts are about a character fighting against something or someone beyond their control. These external obstructions are in the way of a character's motivation and creates tension as the character tries to reach his goal. This kind of conflict is commonly found in stories where the plot is the focus.

However, it's always good to include both kinds of conflicts in your Holofic. It would be more realistic that way. After all, life gives you both internal and external conflicts.

In order to create a conflict, you need a force that goes against your protagonist (Remember: Main characters are not always the protagonists). It doesn't even have to be people. It can even just be an antagonistic concept that goes against your protagonist's path.

There are three things you have to check when creating an antagonistic force.

First, the antagonistic force must be strong in order to develop your characters more. That goes without saying. The more powerful or dangerous the antagonistic force is, the more developed the protagonist would become. Kind of like in an RPG. The stronger the enemy, the more EXP it gives.

Second, the conflict should be tailored to your protagonist's main desire. If your character wants to be the best hero, then his antagonist has to be the most dangerous villain. If your protagonist wants to be the most famous Vtuber, his conflict would be the fear of being forgotten.

Lastly, the antagonism has to increase over time. Let's go back to the hero example. The most dangerous villain has to become stronger and/or smarter to continue being a worthy conflict against the hero. In the Vtuber example, a dangerous conflict can be about antis and other haters who would cancel him the moment he became famous enough to attract their attention. You have to also improve the antagonism or else, you won't be able to hold the reader's interests.

Now that I talked about the three main things you should look out for when creating a conflict, I'll talk about the six main types of conflict.

The first one is the Character vs Self. This kind of conflict deals with a character having doubts about themselves. It could be a struggle to determine what is morally correct. It could be a conflict of trying to make themselves become better people.

Then we have Character vs Character. This is the most common kind of conflict. We're talking about the Sherlock Holmes-Moriarty fight. That's right! This conflict deals with two characters who have opposing views and ended up fighting each other. It could be a simple fist fight to a complicated power struggle.

After that, we have Character vs Nature. It could be a story where a character has to survive in the wilderness or living through a natural disaster. What matters is that the character's enemy is the entire natural world itself.

We also have Character vs Supernatural. Ghosts, gods, monsters, and other creatures are the enemy of your protagonist. It is somehow a subset of Character vs Character since some might argue that gods are characters themselves.

Character vs Technology also exists. That means the enemies of the protagonists are AI and robots. It could even be a tribal chief rejecting the advancements of technology.

Lastly, we have Character vs Society. This is the conflict where the protagonist is fighting against the norm, government, traditions and stuff. The protagonist might be an advocate of freedom against a tyrannical government or even fighting against the traditions of a village.

Let's look at a Holofic, shall we? We have LunaRen112's Our Own War (A hololive story). The conflict of his book can be described as Character vs Society and Character vs Character.

The first half can be described as Character vs Society because the characters were wronged by a kingdom and so they ended up fighting them. The second half is Character vs Character because the characters are fighting against Watson.

Another Holofic we can look at is drunk_lost_calliP's Amori. The story has two main characters who are Kiara and Calli. Both of them have a Character vs Self conflict.

In Amori, Kiara is destined to destroy Olympus but she ends up falling for Calli who is indebted to the gods. Her struggle of accepting her destiny and her feelings for the girl was in her way.

Then, we have Calli who also ended up falling in love with Kiara. Because of her debt to the gods, she has to stop Kiara from fulfilling her destiny. However, her feelings for her are getting in the way of doing what needs to be done.

Conflicts are responsible for making the story interesting. A good story is filled with unforeseen tensions, competitions, and power struggles. This is because the conflict would not only drive the story forward but it also gives an insight to the protagonist's actions and motivations.

And like I said before, unique doesn't mean interesting. You can have a complex conflict but still end up boring your readers if you fail in execution.

Now that I'm done talking about conflicts, I'll talk about one important person in your fanfic. Yes. I'm going to talk about antagonists.