CONFLICT: The relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist. The conflict can be threefold: 1) conflict between individuals, 2) between the character and circumstances intervening between him and a goal he has set himself, and 3) conflict of opposing tendencies within a single individual's mind.
There are five basic types of conflict:
Exercises:
1) Cut New Wood. If you've always put characters into conflict with other characters, find a new type of conflict to explore. For example, you may have written about a teenager fighting with her parents. What if you take that character and pit her against a blizzard? What if you pit her against one of her own fears?
2) Be Ambitious. Three people walk into a building. Two walk out forever changed. The third comes out in an unexpected manner. What happened? What was the conflict? See if you can create a conflict that works on more than one level.
3) Who You Callin' Fortunes Fool? Give a character, or two, an uncontrollable problem, the result of some strange or unbelievable coincidence that that may be fate causing a conflict.
4) Welcome To The Machine. Create a scenario in which a character does battle with some element of society--the school, the law, the accepted way of doing things, and so on.