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store, and their carts bump. They laugh and move on. This is an incident.

What if the man and woman recognize each other from high school? Still just an incident. There is no conflict. Add the fact that they were high school sweethearts who planned to get married, but his being drafted separated them. After no word for over a year, she presumed he was dead, and a couple years later married his best friend. Seeing him, all the old feelings come flooding back. Now you have conflict. What will she do now? Complicate the conflict further by adding she was pregnant but hadn't had the chance to tell him before he left she was carrying his child, and now, her current husband is the only father their child knows. You could even complicate this further by adding that her husband is totally dependant on her, because he requires round the clock nursing care due to a debilitating illness. I'm using extreme examples to illustrate complications.

A complication must be relevant to the conflict, must make obtaining the protagonist's goal more difficult but not merely delay obtaining that goal. Complications whether internal or external should always contribute to the conflict and intensify it to an eventual crisis or climax.

Coincidences should never be used to give the main character a sudden or easy solution. Coincidences happen in real life and are usually amusingor spooky, depending on the situationbut they don't work in fiction. It's an easy way out. The reader will feel cheated and disappointed. However, an exception is to use the coincidence against your character. Coincidences (or miracles) that happen in real life are usually unbelievable if used in fiction. There must be a logical outcome for each complication.

Types of Plot.
The number varies on the number of actual basic plots. I've seen 13, 19, and 36. It all depends on what you read. Although there is a seemingly limited number of basic plots, how you cast the characters and structure your events make the possibilities limitless. You could take a classic story like "Cinderella" and create many variations.

There are character conflict plots using the basic character conflicts:

man vs. man
man vs. self
man vs. nature
man vs. society
man vs. machine
man vs. God
man vs. everyone

And there are several types of nonconfrontational plots:

Slice of life. In this type of story, the plot is controlled by the details of a character's day. The realistic details which are normally in the periphery of your story are now the center

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