I am finishing a late draft of my current long-form project. The setting of the story is agricultural, pre-electricity. The family uses open flame for light. A couple of days ago, I was working on edits to the manuscript when I realized I had all the elements needed but had fully missed an opportunity for tension, conflict, and story.

A fire.

For some mysterious reason it had never dawned on me that a fire should occur in the story. I thought I’d mined the story line for all the tension it could offer, but in doing so I’d overlooked an obvious option.

Now there’s a fire. 

And now that it’s occurred, it’s hard to imagine the story without it. The conflict opened up another facet of characterization––for more than one character––and gave the reader another reason to turn the page.

What opportunities for conflict or tension are you overlooking in your current story? It could be as simple as taking the existing elements of the world you’ve built and letting them naturally interact.