Too often, beginning writers hear is, "Story must have conflict." The later understanding is that the conflict can come in many shapes and sizes. Conflict can be a direct interpretation of the word, like someone being chased by a knife-wielding crazy person, or an argument or a quest like you have in Lord of the Rings. But it can be, and often is, more subtle -- a man with ADD's struggle to appear normal.

Hrm...too close to home, perhaps.

The point is that every effective story has to have some reason to have been written. A story about a man standing, walking across the room, pouring himself a glass of water and sitting down at a table isn't a story at all. It's a description. It might even be written poetically, but to be a story, there needs to be some...conflict. Dammit.

Possible conflicts in this simple scenario:

• The man would need to have some difficulty in moving.
• He has made a bet that he could go a whole day without drinking water, so he knows that drinking the water would mean losing the bet.
• Maybe he's locked in the room and the crazy person who put him there only gave him water laced with drug that will force him to reveal a secret, thus making the decision to alleviate a trade-off.

Fun. This, really, is the part of writing that I tend to like -- the planning and justification of motivation and action.

And THAT'S why I was so shocked that I had totally neglected to do so in a recent story. I had an evil force descend on a situation and do a bunch of cool nasty stuff. The nature nasty stuff was so cool by itself, thought, that I forgot to give a reason why this particular evil person had decided to descent in this particular place and torture this other particular person.

Crap and damn.

Looking back, I realize that not only does the story have to have a conflict, it also has to have a reason for the conflict and a reason for selecting a place, and selecting a victim.

For the same reason that a character's actions must follow a logical stimulus, every element of the story must also have a logic justification for existing in the place and with the other characters in the story. Otherwise, you may as well be rolling dice.

So, I had a great story concept and a couple of great characters (all imho) but I failed to show why they were there and why they were pitted against one another. No concept or characters can overcome such a vacuum.

Moral: Right up front, give every story character specific, uncontrived justifications for his/her presence and deeds. The same can be said of setting, time, and plot.