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Nope, that works. Thanks for clarifying.

So the one thing I can tell you is that in order to create conflict, you need to make sure that your characters have variety between them. By that, I don’t mean that your characters can’t all have red hair and blue eyes. I mean that they need to be different–different careers, different families, different places in society. When differences resonate against differences, conflict forms on its own. People don’t like it when others aren’t like them.

In order to strengthen that conflict, your characters need to have–or think they have–an advantage over others. Say your villain is a ruthless political leader who thinks he can treat his subjects any way he wants. That’ll cause conflict real quick–either that, or an uprising.

Having an advantage over someone is a dangerous thing, because it can turn into a prideful spirit pretty quickly. As soon as someone begins to think that they’re better than everyone else, their outer conflict turns into an inner one, which can cause a whole other set of problems.

I hope you see what I mean. No one event should cause immediate conflict; rather, conflict should spring from your characters–heroes, villains, and the like–interactions with each other. The story will move if you let your characters speak for themselves, and let their personalities, including their flaws, show.