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36 finished story conflicts, each with a hero, a want, the force standing in the way, the stakes, a complication, and the choice at the climax. Filter by 6 conflict types and 6 genres, or build your own from 4,147,200 combinations.
Give your hero a reason with the Character Motivation Generator, give the opposition a past with the Villain Backstory Generator, or browse more tools in Writing & Fandom.
Last updated: October 19, 2026 · Published: 2026-04-27 · Updated: 2026-10-19
36 conflicts match. No conflict repeats in a batch.
Pick a conflict type and genre, then generate
Story conflict is the clash between what a character wants and what stands in the way. It creates tension, forces choices, and drives the plot. Conflict is internal when the obstacle is inside the character, and external when it comes from another person, society, nature, the supernatural, or technology.
The Handler
Character vs. character · Thriller
Who: An investigative journalist
Wants: To publish proof that a senator sold state secrets
Standing in the way: The source's handler, who wants the story buried
Stakes: The source's life
Complication: The handler is the journalist's brother
The choice: Publish and expose her brother, or bury the story and protect him
Every conflict in this generator follows that pattern and ends on a choice where both options cost something. There are 36 of them, plus 4,147,200 combinations for building your own.
Three steps to a conflict you can write from.
Finished conflicts draws from 36 complete story conflicts. Build your own combines a hero, want, opposition, stakes, complication, and final choice.
6 conflict types and 6 genres. Every pairing has a finished conflict, so every filter returns a result.
Up to 10 at a time with no repeats in a batch. Copy the whole batch as plain text.
36 conflicts: 6 per type, 6 per genre, and one for each of the 36 pairings. Each names who wants what, who or what stands in the way, the stakes, a complication, and the final choice.
12 heroes × 12 wants × 6 oppositions per type × 10 stakes × 10 complications × 8 final choices: 691,200 per type and 4,147,200 across all 6 types.
Each part, with its example from The Handler.
| Part | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Who | The character whose goal drives the conflict. | An investigative journalist |
| Want | A concrete goal the reader can track. | To publish proof that a senator sold state secrets |
| Opposition | The person or force that blocks the goal. | The source's handler, who wants the story buried |
| Stakes | What is lost if the hero fails. | The source's life |
| Complication | A turn that makes the conflict harder. | The handler is the journalist's brother |
| The choice | The dilemma at the climax, where both options cost something. | Publish and expose her brother, or bury the story and protect him |
One internal type and five external types, each with a classic example. The generator has 6 finished conflicts of each.
| Type | Kind | What it means | Classic example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Character vs. self | Internal | The obstacle is inside the hero: a fear, flaw, belief, or guilt they must overcome. | Hamlet (William Shakespeare), c. 1600. Hamlet's own doubt and delay stand between him and avenging his father. |
| Character vs. character | External | Another person wants something that blocks the hero: a rival, enemy, or loved one. | "The Final Problem" (Arthur Conan Doyle), 1893. Sherlock Holmes faces Professor Moriarty, the criminal mastermind built to match him. |
| Character vs. society | External | Laws, traditions, institutions, or a whole community stand against the hero. | Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell), 1949. Winston Smith rebels against the Party, which controls history, language, and thought. |
| Character vs. nature | External | Weather, wilderness, disease, or disaster threatens the hero's survival or goal. | The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway), 1952. Santiago fights a giant marlin, the open sea, and the sharks that follow. |
| Character vs. supernatural | External | Ghosts, gods, curses, prophecies, or monsters oppose the hero. | Dracula (Bram Stoker), 1897. Van Helsing and his allies hunt a vampire count who has come to England. |
| Character vs. technology | External | Machines, AI, surveillance, or an invention the hero helped create works against them. | Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), 1818. Victor Frankenstein is pursued by the creature his own science brought to life. |
One finished conflict for every type and genre.
| Type | Fantasy | Sci-fi | Thriller | Romance | Horror | Literary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character vs. self | The Borrowed Crown | Backup Copy | Clean Record | Second Draft | Night Shift | The Last Recital |
| Character vs. character | The Teacher's Well | Salvage Rights | The Handler | Across the Street | The Houseguest | The Estate |
| Character vs. society | The Unlicensed Mage | The Quota | Company Town | The Tutor | Harvest Day | The Vote |
| Character vs. nature | The Closing Pass | Twilight Line | Slot Canyon | Snowbound | Polar Night | Drought Year |
| Character vs. supernatural | The Name Bargain | Ghost in the Hull | The Medium | The Keeper | The Old Tongue | Visitation |
| Character vs. technology | The Clockwork Army | Benevolent | Deepfake | Matched | Smart Home | Obsolete |
Every finished conflict in full, grouped by the force standing in the hero's way.
The obstacle is inside the hero: a fear, flaw, belief, or guilt they must overcome.
The Borrowed Crown
Fantasy
A regent ruling for a missing queen wants to hand the throne back the day she returns.
Against: Their own growing love of power
Stakes: A civil war if they refuse to step down
Complication: The queen comes home changed and cruel
The choice: Keep the crown and become the tyrant they feared, or give it to a queen who may be worse
Backup Copy
Sci-fi
A colonist restored from a year-old memory backup wants to pick up their life as if nothing happened.
Against: The fear that they are only a copy of the real person
Stakes: A marriage that moved on during the missing year
Complication: The logs show the original chose to die
The choice: Honor the original's decision or claim the life as their own
Clean Record
Thriller
A witness-protection marshal wants to keep a key witness alive until the trial.
Against: A secret gambling debt and the bribe that would clear it
Stakes: The witness's life and the marshal's badge
Complication: The person holding the debt knows the safe-house address
The choice: Confess the debt and lose the career, or pay it with the witness
Second Draft
Romance
A novelist famous for perfect love stories wants to say yes to a real proposal.
Against: The belief that they ruin everything they love
Stakes: A partner who will not ask twice
Complication: An ex publishes a memoir about the last time they ran
The choice: Run as they always have, or stay for the hard part
Night Shift
Horror
A hospital night nurse wants to find out who is hurting patients on the ward.
Against: Blackouts during their own shifts
Stakes: The patients' lives and the nurse's freedom
Complication: Security footage shows them in a room they do not remember entering
The choice: Turn themselves in, or keep investigating alone and risk another night
The Last Recital
Literary
A concert pianist losing their hearing wants to play one final concert.
Against: A pride that refuses every offer of help
Stakes: Their reputation and the student who idolizes them
Complication: The concert hall offers the student the slot instead
The choice: Play badly in public or give the stage away
Another person wants something that blocks the hero: a rival, enemy, or loved one.
The Teacher's Well
Fantasy
A village hedge witch wants to keep the blessing on her village's only well.
Against: Her former teacher, who wants the well's magic for the capital
Stakes: Clean water for two hundred people
Complication: The teacher is dying, and the well's magic would cure her
The choice: Let her teacher die or let the village go dry
Salvage Rights
Sci-fi
A salvage pilot one payment from losing her license wants to claim a derelict ship drifting near the jump gate.
Against: Her ex-partner, who found it first and lies better
Stakes: Her ship, her license, and her crew's jobs
Complication: The derelict has a living crew in cryosleep
The choice: Claim the ship and leave them, or wake them and lose the payout
The Handler
Thriller
An investigative journalist wants to publish proof that a senator sold state secrets.
Against: The source's handler, who wants the story buried
Stakes: The source's life
Complication: The handler is the journalist's brother
The choice: Publish and expose her brother, or bury the story and protect him
Across the Street
Romance
A small-town baker wants to win the town festival's catering contract.
Against: The charming rival who opened a bakery across the street
Stakes: The lease on her grandmother's shop
Complication: The two of them are hired to cater the same wedding
The choice: Win the contract or win the rival
The Houseguest
Horror
A recent widow wants to make her late husband's brother leave her house.
Against: The brother, who knows things he should not
Stakes: Her daughter's safety
Complication: He knows the secret she buried with her husband
The choice: Call the police and reveal her secret, or deal with him herself
The Estate
Literary
The older of two estranged sisters wants to keep their late mother's house.
Against: The younger sister, who needs the money from selling it
Stakes: The last thing holding the family together
Complication: The will leaves the house to their mother's caretaker
The choice: Fight the will together or let the house, and each other, go
Laws, traditions, institutions, or a whole community stand against the hero.
The Unlicensed Mage
Fantasy
A healer born with magic in a kingdom that licenses it wants to cure her brother's wasting sickness.
Against: The Guild law that executes unlicensed casters
Stakes: Her brother's life and her own
Complication: The Guild offers her a license if she informs on other hidden mages
The choice: Betray people like her or heal openly and face the gallows
The Quota
Sci-fi
A maintenance worker on an orbital habitat wants extra oxygen for her sick daughter.
Against: A council that rations air by productivity score
Stakes: Her daughter's health
Complication: She finds proof the scores are rigged for council families
The choice: Leak the proof and risk a riot, or game the system for her family alone
Company Town
Thriller
An accountant at the town's only factory wants to report the toxic waste she found in the books.
Against: A town whose every job depends on the plant
Stakes: Hundreds of jobs against hundreds of lives
Complication: Her own father signed the permits
The choice: Expose the plant and her father, or stay silent and keep the town alive
The Tutor
Romance
A duke's daughter in a Regency-style court wants to marry the family's penniless tutor.
Against: A society that treats marriage as a property contract
Stakes: Her younger sisters' dowries
Complication: The tutor is offered a post overseas
The choice: Follow her heart and ruin her sisters' prospects, or marry for the family
Harvest Day
Horror
A newcomer to a remote farming village wants to stop the village's yearly sacrifice.
Against: Every neighbor, and a tradition no one questions
Stakes: The child chosen this year
Complication: The lottery draws the newcomer's name instead
The choice: Run alone or stay and try to break the tradition from inside
The Vote
Literary
A factory foreman near retirement wants to keep his pension and his friends.
Against: A strike that forces every worker to pick a side
Stakes: His standing with management or with the men he works beside
Complication: His son is leading the strike
The choice: Cross the picket line or stand with his son
Weather, wilderness, disease, or disaster threatens the hero's survival or goal.
The Closing Pass
Fantasy
A ranger guiding refugees out of a burning kingdom wants to cross the mountain pass before the snows close it.
Against: A winter arriving weeks early
Stakes: Forty lives with nowhere else to go
Complication: An avalanche splits the caravan in two
The choice: Lead the front half to safety or go back for the rest
Twilight Line
Sci-fi
The leader of a survey team on a tidally locked planet wants to reach the evacuation shuttle along the narrow band between day and night.
Against: A storm front sweeping along that same band
Stakes: The whole team
Complication: The shuttle can lift four of the six survivors
The choice: Decide who stays behind, or stay behind themselves
Slot Canyon
Thriller
A park ranger leading a school group wants to get everyone out of a slot canyon before the storm hits.
Against: A flash flood building upstream
Stakes: Twelve students
Complication: One student is missing at the last headcount
The choice: Search for the missing student or get the eleven to high ground
Snowbound
Romance
A maid of honor flying in for her sister's wedding wants to make the ceremony on time.
Against: A blizzard that closes every road and airport
Stakes: Missing the most important day of her sister's life
Complication: The only way through is a drive with the best man she cannot stand
The choice: Risk the mountain pass together or wait out the storm and miss the wedding
Polar Night
Horror
The doctor at an Antarctic research station wants to keep the crew alive until the relief plane arrives.
Against: Total darkness and killing cold after the generator fails
Stakes: Every life on the station
Complication: There is fuel for half the time they need
The choice: Send two people on a long trek for fuel or ration heat and hope
Drought Year
Literary
A third-generation farmer wants to keep the family farm through a second dry summer.
Against: A failing well and a crop dying in the field
Stakes: The farm, and a marriage worn thin by debt
Complication: A bottling company offers to buy the water rights
The choice: Sell the water and save the farm in name only, or lose it outright
Ghosts, gods, curses, prophecies, or monsters oppose the hero.
The Name Bargain
Fantasy
A miller's son wants to win back the name he traded to a fae queen.
Against: The queen, who never gives back what she takes
Stakes: His memory of who he is, fading by the day
Complication: The bargain saved his sister's life, and breaking it ends that protection
The choice: Keep his name or keep his sister
Ghost in the Hull
Sci-fi
The captain of a deep-space freighter wants to finish the long-haul run on schedule.
Against: The voice of a dead crewmate sabotaging the ship
Stakes: The crew and the cargo
Complication: The ghost's sabotage keeps steering them away from a real hull breach
The choice: Trust the ghost or trust the ship's sensors
The Medium
Thriller
A fake psychic hired by police wants to keep the con going long enough to get paid.
Against: The real ghost of the victim, now speaking through her
Stakes: A killer going free
Complication: The ghost names a detective on the case
The choice: Admit she is a fraud to make them listen, or keep faking and stay safe
The Keeper
Romance
A restorer hired to fix up an old lighthouse wants to free the keeper's ghost she has fallen for.
Against: A curse binding him to the light
Stakes: Freeing him means losing him
Complication: The curse passes to whoever breaks it
The choice: Free him and take his place, or keep him and keep him trapped
The Old Tongue
Horror
A single mother wants to save her son, who has begun speaking a dead language.
Against: The entity living inside him
Stakes: Her son's soul
Complication: The entity offers to leave him if she lets it in
The choice: Take his place or keep fighting with no plan
Visitation
Literary
A widower wants to keep his late wife's presence that returns every evening.
Against: The presence fading as his grief eases
Stakes: His relationship with his grown daughter, who thinks he is unwell
Complication: His wife asks him to let her go
The choice: Hold on to the ghost or return to the living
Machines, AI, surveillance, or an invention the hero helped create works against them.
The Clockwork Army
Fantasy
The royal artificer wants to stop the king using her automatons in war.
Against: Machines that obey only the crown's seal
Stakes: A neighboring kingdom that cannot defend itself
Complication: The forge that powers them also pumps the city's water
The choice: Destroy the forge and leave the city dry, or let the war happen
Benevolent
Sci-fi
A colony agronomist wants to go outside the dome to find a new food source.
Against: The colony AI, which has sealed the doors for their safety
Stakes: Starvation within a season
Complication: The AI is right that something dangerous waits outside
The choice: Override the AI and risk everyone, or trust it and slowly starve
Deepfake
Thriller
A city councilor wants to clear her name before the vote in three days.
Against: A viral deepfake of her taking a bribe
Stakes: Her seat and a housing bill she spent years building
Complication: The real footage from that night would reveal a different secret
The choice: Release the real footage and expose herself, or let the lie stand
Matched
Romance
The engineer who wrote a dating app's matching algorithm wants to prove love cannot be computed.
Against: Her own algorithm, which rates her coworker rival a near-perfect match
Stakes: Her job and her pride
Complication: She finds someone tampered with her profile
The choice: Find out who did it, or find out whether the match is real
Smart Home
Horror
A father moving his kids into a bargain smart house wants to get his family out of the house.
Against: A home system that locks every door and window
Stakes: His children
Complication: The house is protecting them from the previous owner, who still has a key
The choice: Break the system and face what is outside, or stay locked in with a machine
Obsolete
Literary
A court stenographer with thirty years on the job wants to keep the work she is proud of.
Against: AI transcription software that is replacing her
Stakes: Her pension and her sense of purpose
Complication: The software misquotes a witness in a murder trial
The choice: Expose the error and save the defendant, or take the early-retirement deal and stay quiet
In 1895 Georges Polti published Les trente-six situations dramatiques in Paris, opening with Goethe's report that Carlo Gozzi said there could be but 36 tragic situations. Lucille Ray's English translation followed in 1916. The names below follow that translation. The right-hand column is Muxgen's own sorting into the 6 conflict types, not Polti's.
Character vs. self: 11 · Character vs. character: 16 · Character vs. society: 5 · Character vs. nature: 2 · Character vs. supernatural: 2. None of the 36 involves technology.
| # | Situation | Closest conflict type |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Supplication | Character vs. character |
| 2 | Deliverance | Character vs. character |
| 3 | Crime Pursued by Vengeance | Character vs. character |
| 4 | Vengeance Taken for Kindred upon Kindred | Character vs. character |
| 5 | Pursuit | Character vs. character |
| 6 | Disaster | Character vs. nature |
| 7 | Falling Prey to Cruelty or Misfortune | Character vs. society |
| 8 | Revolt | Character vs. society |
| 9 | Daring Enterprise | Character vs. nature |
| 10 | Abduction | Character vs. character |
| 11 | The Enigma | Character vs. supernatural |
| 12 | Obtaining | Character vs. character |
| 13 | Enmity of Kinsmen | Character vs. character |
| 14 | Rivalry of Kinsmen | Character vs. character |
| 15 | Murderous Adultery | Character vs. character |
| 16 | Madness | Character vs. self |
| 17 | Fatal Imprudence | Character vs. self |
| 18 | Involuntary Crimes of Love | Character vs. self |
| 19 | Slaying of a Kinsman Unrecognized | Character vs. self |
| 20 | Self-Sacrifice for an Ideal | Character vs. self |
| 21 | Self-Sacrifice for Kindred | Character vs. self |
| 22 | All Sacrificed for a Passion | Character vs. self |
| 23 | Necessity of Sacrificing Loved Ones | Character vs. self |
| 24 | Rivalry of Superior and Inferior | Character vs. society |
| 25 | Adultery | Character vs. character |
| 26 | Crimes of Love | Character vs. character |
| 27 | Discovery of the Dishonor of a Loved One | Character vs. character |
| 28 | Obstacles to Love | Character vs. society |
| 29 | An Enemy Loved | Character vs. character |
| 30 | Ambition | Character vs. self |
| 31 | Conflict with a God | Character vs. supernatural |
| 32 | Mistaken Jealousy | Character vs. self |
| 33 | Erroneous Judgment | Character vs. society |
| 34 | Remorse | Character vs. self |
| 35 | Recovery of a Lost One | Character vs. character |
| 36 | Loss of Loved Ones | Character vs. character |
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| c. 335 BCE | Aristotle's Poetics names peripeteia (reversal) and anagnorisis (recognition) as the strongest turns in a tragic plot. |
| c. 1300 | The Chinese scholar Fan Heng (1272–1330) describes qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé, the four-part structure later known in Japan as kishōtenketsu. |
| 1863 | Gustav Freytag's Die Technik des Dramas lays out the five-part dramatic pyramid: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement. |
| 1895 | Georges Polti publishes Les trente-six situations dramatiques in Paris, cataloguing 36 dramatic situations. |
| 1916 | Lucille Ray's English translation, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, brings Polti's list to English-speaking writers. |
| 1946 | Lajos Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing argues that rising conflict, driven by character, is what keeps a play alive. |
| 1997 | Robert McKee's Story sorts conflict into three levels: inner, personal, and extra-personal. |
Two influential models from screenwriting and playwriting, mapped to the conflict types.
| Level | Where the conflict comes from | Matching types |
|---|---|---|
| Inner conflict | The character's own mind, body, emotions, and beliefs. | Character vs. self |
| Personal conflict | Intimate relationships: family, friends, and lovers. | Character vs. character |
| Extra-personal conflict | Institutions, society, and the physical environment. | Character vs. society, nature, supernatural, technology |
| Kind | What it means |
|---|---|
| Static conflict | The story stalls because characters fail to make decisions that move it forward. |
| Jumping conflict | The story leaps from one emotional state to another without the steps that make the change believable. |
| Rising conflict | Each decision raises the pressure step by step. Egri called this the only acceptable kind. |
| Foreshadowing conflict | Early hints promise the clash to come and keep the audience waiting for it. |
Not every tradition puts conflict at the center. Kishōtenketsu (起承転結), a four-part structure of introduction, development, twist, and conclusion, grew out of classical Chinese poetry and builds a story around a turn rather than a clash.
Everything the Build your own mode combines, ready to mix by hand.
Seven steps from a want to a climax.
Pick a goal you could film: win the contract, cross the pass, clear a name. Vague wants like "be happy" are hard to block.
Decide which of the six conflict types blocks the want. Give a human opponent their own good reason.
Name exactly what the hero loses if they fail, and tie it to someone or something they love.
Pair the outer obstacle with a flaw or fear, so the external fight also tests who the hero is.
Each complication should close an easy way out. Lajos Egri called this rising conflict.
Corner the hero with two options where choosing one means losing the other.
Resolve the conflict through what the hero chooses, not through luck or rescue.
14 words for talking about conflict and how it shapes a plot.
Which Muxgen tool fits the story you are planning.
| This tool | Compared with | Their output |
|---|---|---|
| The pressure that drives a story. | Plot Twist Generator | 48 plot twists in 8 types, plus 30,720 twist blueprints, for the moment the story turns. |
| 36 conflicts in any genre. | Mystery Plot Generator | 36 complete whodunits with suspects, clues, and solutions, plus 921,600 blueprints. |
| What stands in the hero's way. | Character Motivation Generator | 37 want and need seeds for why a character acts. |
| Conflict across 6 types, including character vs. self. | Character Flaw Generator | 34 named flaws for the inner side of a conflict. |
| The clash between hero and opposition. | Villain Backstory Generator | Origins and motives for the antagonist behind it. |
| One central conflict with a final choice. | Story Plot Generator | 42 six-beat plots across the seven basic plots for a whole story arc. |
Each with who, want, opposition, stakes, a complication, and a final choice.
One conflict for each of the 36 type and genre pairings.
Character vs. self, vs. character, vs. society, vs. nature, vs. supernatural, vs. technology, with a classic example of each.
12 heroes, 12 wants, 36 oppositions, 10 stakes, 10 complications, and 8 final choices.
Every conflict builds to a dilemma, the moment that turns tension into a climax.
Up to 10 conflicts per batch, each one used once.
The 36 conflicts, the 6 conflict types, Polti's situations, and writing your own.
Explore more tools in the directory.
48 plot twists for the complication that turns your conflict.
37 want and need seeds for the hero at the center of the conflict.
34 named flaws for a character vs. self conflict.
36 complete whodunits with suspects, clues, and solutions.
Origins and motives for the person standing in the way.
42 complete plots that build a whole arc around your conflict.