The Usual Suspects

When populating a story with secondary characters who stir up conflict for the protagonist(s), remember to round up the usual suspects: family and friends. There's a reason that when a serious crime is committed, police investigate family and friends first. They are the people most likely to be in motivated conflict with the victim.

Conflict can and often does mean something other than violence or catastrophe in fiction. More often conflict simply means tension, trouble, or stress. There are no people better suited to spinning tension, stirring up trouble, or inducing stress in a protagonist than her family and friends.

Means

Every protagonist has a family or surrogate family somewhere in her past or present. The human drive for a sense of belonging and interpersonal connection is so strong and undeniable that if a person is denied a biological family due to death or distance, she will seek out substitute relationships. She may look at an elderly neighbor as a grandparent figure, or bond with a social outreach group, or win initiation into an "office family."

Strong friendships are another useful component of a protagonist's life. Try imagining Lethal Weapon without the tension between Mel Gibson's and Danny Glover's characters. A protagonist--particularly a hero--without at least one good friend may appear strange or even creepy to readers. The strong female friendships in Steel Magnolias are the centerpiece of that story.

With the sense of connection and acceptance found in family and friend relationships comes real vulnerability. Families and friends know each other's strengths and weaknesses. They know where someone needs extra support, and where to hit someone where it hurts. Masala's betrayal in Ben-Hur hurts the protagonist a thousand times more because he is Ben-Hur's lifelong friend than if he were simply another greedy Roman oppressor.

Because a protagonist is emotionally, legally, and/or socially bound to her family and friends, they above all others have the means to erect barricades to her external and internal journeys. Cinderella, longing for maternal love, was vulnerable both to her wicked stepmother's demoralizing cruelty (a conflict to Cindy's internal growth) and to her social scheming (a conflict to Cindy's external goal).

Family members can be sweet and kind, and still have the means to create conflict for the protagonist. Elizabeth in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice suffers great stress on behalf of her whole family. Her supremely sweet-natured sister Jane's marital prospects causes the heroine great trouble.

Motive

Does the protagonist's family and friends want her to change, to grow, to develop into a better person? This is the driving force behind many stories about well-intentioned matchmakers. Motivation works both ways. Librarian Marian's desire to help her younger brother speak again motivates her to open her life and heart to a charming con man in The Music Man.

Family and friends may have reason to want the protagonist to change for the worse. Michael Corleone in The Godfather begins with good intentions, but the needs and pressures of his criminal family and friends corrode his soul. They are motivated to turn him into a powerful don to further their external goal.

The protagonist's strengths and weaknesses are woven into the fabric of her family and friends' status quo. Consciously or unconsciously, even those with the best intentions may resist her internal growth. When she changes, a part of them--at least the part that relates with her--will necessarily change, too. Her new goals will be foreign, her new reactions unanticipated. She will no longer fit into their lives in the same way as before. This can feel very threatening to them, either on a conscious or subconscious level.

Opportunity

A protagonist spends the majority of her quality time with family and friends. They are the people most likely present when significant events occur in her life. They may even initiate or be directly involved in many of those happenings, including but not limited to birth and death. Therefore, they have the greatest opportunity to stir up trouble for her.

Who but a parent has the opportunity to abandon his children? Who but a family member has the opportunity to contest a will? Who but a spouse has the opportunity to file for divorce? Who but a friend has the opportunity to betray a trust?

As potent as negative relationships are for stirring up trouble, positive ones provide amble opportunity for mounting tension. Ilsa in Casablanca admires and respects her husband, Lazlo, but she is also deeply in love with Rick. Her conflict is even more poignant because both men love her and are willing to sacrifice for her.

A favorite plot device to kick the story into high gear is to subtract or add someone to/from the protagonist's family. Ben-Hur loses Masala as his best friend, and his mother and sister to an unknown fate, propelling him on a journey for revenge. Cinderella loses her mother and then her father, condemning her to the guardianship of a jealous stepmother.

If a story begins to drag, look for the usual suspects--a protagonist's family and friends--to stir up tension. What are the longstanding conflicts between the protagonist and her spouse, children, parents, siblings, or friends? Is there a way to make those tensions more urgent, more immediate? Maybe it's time to resurrect some old family skeletons.