Conflicting over conflict

There are those who say a genre book needs tension on every page. I think I agree with that, mostly. I do have a critique partner who soundly rejects that idea. For literary fiction, I'll agree with her, but for mysteries, thrillers, romance, speculative fiction, I think you gotta have it. If not on every page, at least in every scene.

Once things get going, I don't mind a let up and some relaxation. Let the heroine have a nice dinner with the guy, let the sleuth relax in the tub with candles and bubbles for an evening, let the spy find comfort in a soft, warm bed with a soft, warm body.

But not for more than a page or so!

How to write conflict and tension? The most obvious is to put obstacles in the way of the protagonist's goals. But that's already built in with your plot, most probably. What other kinds of conflict will keep the reader reading?

Your characters can have inner conflicts based either on the situations they're facing, or relationships with other characters. Or even aspects of their own personalities they're unhappy with and want to change--bad habits, addictions, disastrous relationships.

I love it when two or three characters have conflicting goals and something has to give. I also appreciate a built-in ticking bomb. Not literally a bomb, of course, although it could be, but a situation that must resolved within a given time period. This is the ultimate tension as the characters race against the clock to save the heir, rescue the prince, find the device that will end the world as we know it, etc.

Tension can even build when nothing overt is happening. This has to be set up, though. The reader has to know that something is brewing in the background while things are going smoothly. She has to know that the Sunday driver is heading toward a washed out bridge, just beyond the sharp bend. Or that the elderly man walking the Yorkie is about to pass the meth lab house where the three pit bulls have figured out how to get out of the chain link fence.  Or that the delicious apple pie ala mode has probably been poisoned.

Weather can create conflict for you, too. Impending storms, tornado sightings, earthquakes, floods. I like to use weather for mood, but also, occasionally, to put the characters into just a little more peril than they're already in.

What other good types of conflict have you read lately? Or maybe you've written them? 

pictured:
“Picture of Captain Awata, Who Fights Furiously with His Celebrated Sword in the Assault on Magongcheng in the Pescadores” 1895

This photographic image was published before December 31st 1956, or photographed before 1946 and not published for 10 years thereafter, under jurisdiction of the Government of Japan. Thus this photographic image is considered to be public domain according to article 23 of old copyright law of Japan and article 2 of supplemental provision of copyright law of Japan.