Whether it’s hitting a shot over your opponent, shoving a bayonet into the belly of a wounded soldier to make sure he dies, or getting the news that your employees’ class action lawsuit against you won’t make it to trial, it feels good to destroy your enemies.

So it’s no wonder that Man versus Man conflicts are the most popular in fiction. Audiences love seeing Batman take on the Joker, they love seeing Superman also take on the Joker. And they love watching James Bond duke it out with a woman who just won’t listen to reason.  

This is the second installment of our six-part series about the six main conflicts in fiction. While last week was catered toward the lonely and depressed viewers who probably should seek professional help instead of listening to me, this week will be more relatable for the more confident Stories’ Matter fans, those who don’t understand why everyone else is such a stupid fucking asshole.

Man vs Man conflicts usually focus on characters who are at odds due to differences in beliefs, values or ideologies. The conflict is usually resolved with one character triumphing over the other, however, it can also be resolved by characters working through a misunderstanding to ease tensions, which never really occurred to me until I started researching this article.

Before we go further, I should also use this time to point out that some viewers protested my use of Man versus Self and stated I should use the more gender-neutral Person versus Self. Well, it was only one person, and as we’ll see in this video, you can use your interactions with self-righteous virtue signalers like this to inspire your writing. Each tip today will use a personal vendetta of mine to illustrate ways to improve your writing.  

We’ll be shitty to wait staff and drive around town like a district judge on this edition of Stories’ Matter.

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Tip One – Make Your Characters Reflections of Each Other

A great villain is often one who reminds us of the protagonist. They often have the same goals, but use evil means to achieve them. Or they may have had a similar upbringing but chose a different path. Like how my brother and I grew up in the same abusive household, but while I became a writer, he started a boat-themed cult.  

In my own life, Tabitha Cartwright was a great example of a reflective antagonist. She was a writer like myself and she had a great knack for clever book marketing strategies. In the mid-2000s she became something of a mentor figure, and as anyone who watched this video knows, she got me through the most productive year of my career by secretly poisoning me with amphetamines.

It wasn’t the poisoning so much that rubbed me the wrong way. I knew when I became a writer that I’d have to sacrifice my health for fame and fortune, and most of the books I’d written under the influence were decent. Unfortunately, Tabitha also knew my one weakness: that I hadn’t gotten a vasectomy. I have to assume the maid she’d hired was a call girl meant to entrap me and make me even more dependent on Tabitha, seeing as she did a terrible job of cleaning my house. 

Anyway, you can use this duality in your fiction to have your characters reflect on their own methods and moral codes, creating an interesting combination of internal and external conflict. You’d be surprised how true this rings. For example, a few years ago, I’d noticed my employees were a little logy at their desks. I had several discussions with my building superintendent about putting some sort of aerosolized caffeine into the air duct system until I thought about it for a moment and realized I’d be no better than Tabitha if I did that.

Tip Two – Make your antagonist believable

Villains who do things for the sake of evil are never interesting. Your antagonist should always have a goal that’s at least a little bit understandable, even if it’s something totally crazy. In my novel Zodiac, the killer wants to murder one person every year using that animal of the Zodiac. While most of us wouldn’t try doing this – after all, finding a way to kill someone with a rabbit sounds exhausting – I think we sympathize with the need to see a goal to its completion.  

Fans of the channel will know my first agent and I came to odds in the early 2010s shortly before I started D&E Publishing. We had been a great pair for almost 10 years. Long story short, I had written a book of medical advice that I realized would probably kill somebody if they actually followed it. And while I had books inspire readers to kill themselves before, this wasn’t some teens imitating a fictional gunslinger detective who shoots through his own body to kill the main villain. Anyway, I wrote the manuscript but refused to send it to the publisher. For the next several years my agent devised cleverer and cleverer ways to try and steal the manuscript back. Which is understandable, seeing as I’d spent the advance I’d gotten. Anyway, long story short again, this is why I’m even more vigilant about catfishing scams.

Tip Three – Make Them Fight For the Same Goal

Darth Vader might seem like an unrelatable villain. He’s basically magic and he kills little kids really quickly for a guy who hadn’t spent much time around them. But it works in the story because he and the Jedi are fighting for control over the galaxy.

My second wife’s new husband to this day is the greatest villain in my life. And of course, we have the same goal, the love and affection of Cindy. Like in fiction, we had different methods of obtaining it. He relied on boring things like money and handsomeness while I relied on my wit and charm and letting her make all of the decisions in the relationship. While we’re at the point in the story where he’s the winner, as he ages and loses his good looks, in addition to the lawsuit I’m filing against his company, there’s still a future where I emerge victorious. Anyway, it’s conflicts like these that will win you readers.