Stories run on conflict. If nothing bad ever happens, the characters have nothing to strive for. There’s no tension. Plus, a novel where nothing ever goes wrong would be a tad unrealistic. People make mistakes. They get into arguments. They hurt each other, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes they can’t get along for what seems like no reason at all.

When I was in school, there was this girl there with me, we’ll call her K. My first real encounter with K was in study hall. She’d had a long, stressful day, and I was in pain because my period had just started. One of us said something, the other took offense, and before we knew it we were verbally going at each other. I left the encounter with the firm belief that she was an utter bitch and I wanted nothing to do with her.

Then, the most amazing thing happened. The next day, she apologized. She explained that she’d been under a lot of stress, and she’d taken it out on me. Here’s the thing, though: She wasn’t entirely at fault. I’d been just as unreasonable, and I was determined to think the worst of her. But she decided to be the bigger person, and take the blame, and attempt to repair things.

Well, upon realizing that she wasn’t such an unmitigated bitch after all, I had to reevaluate my assessment of her. I apologized too, and explained that I was on my period, so I hadn’t exactly been myself either. After that, we were fast friends. I even took a day off work to go to her wedding out of state.

Anyway, the point is, sometimes in times of high stress, people don’t exactly behave in the most logical of fashions. And if that leads to a fight, they can carry a grudge against the other person, even if they were equally at fault.

There are going to be misunderstandings and personality clashes between your characters, even those who are purportedly working toward the same goal. Everyone approaches a problem with different worldviews. Different motivations.

In romance novels especially, it’s vital to for there to be conflict between the main characters. A science fiction or fantasy novel that’s entirely about an external conflict can still be gripping, but a romance requires internal tension. The classic formula of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back doesn’t work if there’s never a scene where the boy loses the girl.

(This is true in same-sex romances as well. Girl meets girl, they have lots of sapphic sex, they live happily ever with no conflict doesn’t exactly make for a gripping read.)

From here on I’m going to talk mainly about romance, although this can apply to other genres as well. Any kind of interpersonal conflict adds to the tension in a story and keeps readers turning pages.

Romance often depends on sexual tension, that will-they-or-won’t-they. The characters have to want to be together, but there’s something holding them back. I love the enemies-to-lovers trope for this reason. It provides lots of potential for conflict, along with a ready-made reason for them to resist their attraction to each other.

Conflicting motivations are also great. An excellent example of this is Eve Pendle’s Six Weeks with a Lord. The heroine needs her dowry in order to rescue her brother; the hero needs it in order to restore his estate. Both are noble goals, and there’s no good way to resolve the conflict. The book sets up the “boy loses girl” confrontation from the very beginning, making it a necessary and believable part of the story.

A lot of romances…don’t. The fight that causes the heroine to leave the hero, or the hero to cast the heroine out (in my experience this only happens in m/f romances, although it could just as easily occur in same-sex romance), is based on a misunderstanding that could have been solved if the two characters would just take thirty seconds to consider the other’s perspective, and not immediately jump to conclusions. Do fights like that happen in real life? Absolutely. My argument with K is a prime example. However, there’s a difference between two people getting off to a rocky start on a first meeting, and two people who have presumably by this point fallen in love with each other just exploding for little to no reason.

In order to sell the break-up scene, it has to build up from the beginning of the book. Examples of this can be seen in two of my novels. (Spoilers ahead.)

In Bite Me, Kerry Thomas is an FBI agent who is investigating vampire pirate Jacques Dumond as a suspected serial killer. As part of her investigation, she begins to date him, in order to gather more information. He’s cleared, and the two of them fall in love. Then, Jacques discovers that Kerry works for the FBI. He, quite understandably, feels betrayed, and reacts out of pain and emotion rather than logic.

In this scenario, there was never really a good time for Kerry to tell Jacques the truth, and we can’t expect Jacques to give her the benefit of the doubt when he discovers her betrayal. The relationship-ending confrontation isn’t a cringe-inducing farce; it’s something that has developed naturally from the events that precede it. Both characters are acting in a reasonable, if not precisely rational, manner.

In Give ’Em Hell, the heroine (Helen Astra) has recently escaped an abusive marriage, and encounters the hero (Daryush Derakhshani) just as she’s begun to recover emotionally from the ordeal. He’s had a crush on her for years, so when he finally gets the chance to sleep with her—after she rescues him from ISIS—he immediately falls head-over-heels in love. The problem is, premature declarations of love are a tactic commonly used by abusers to trick their victims into committing to a relationship before they have a chance to discover the abuser’s flaws, which is something that happened to her with her ex. So when Dare says he loves her, Hel panics and runs away.

In this scenario, the reader might want Hel to give Dare the benefit of the doubt, but her history prevents it. It’s the old adage of once bitten, twice shy. Even though he hasn’t actually done anything wrong, his actions remind her of past trauma. She doesn’t know him well enough to trust his motivations, so she acts to protect herself rather than risking making the same mistake twice.

As a bonus, there’s also a break-up scene in my book Insider Threat. I actually wrote the book specifically to include that scene, which is between two secondary characters who showed up in Playing with Fire and Bite Me. Jack Murphy, Kerry’s best friend, has been dating Kerry’s distant cousin, Katrina Stormwind, over Kerry’s protests. Kat is eighteen and determined to save herself for marriage, so between that and Kerry’s threats, she and Jack haven’t had sex. So when Jack discovers that she’s pregnant, his temper, which is on a hair-trigger at the best of times, explodes. Kerry sides with Jack, believing him when he says there’s no way the baby could be his, leading to conflict between her and Kat, who up until this point had gotten along.

While Jack ought perhaps to have listened to Kat’s side of the story rather than just jumping to conclusions, and Kerry ought perhaps to have given her cousin the benefit of the doubt, their behavior is in line with their respective personalities. Even when (double spoiler) Jack and Kat eventually reconcile, Kerry remains upset at Kat for not being more vocal about what really happened. Kat, on the other hand, was only eighteen when this occurred, and resents that nobody was willing to listen to her about her side of the story. In addition, she was too hurt at the time to advocate for herself to people who weren’t willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

This leads us to the flip side of conflict: the apology. As when K swallowed her pride and apologized to me, an apology is often necessary for characters to move on after a conflict. Sometimes both characters are equally at fault; sometimes the blame falls more firmly on one than the other. In either case, a genuine apology is necessary so that the readers believe in the reconciliation.

In the case of Kerry and Kat, the apology comes in Come Hell or High Water, years after Kat and Jack have reconciled. At this point Kerry and Kat have been working together to get revenge on Helen’s abusive ex, since Hel is Kat’s cousin and Kerry’s third-cousin, and Kerry values family over everything else. Kerry’s apology is noteworthy not in it’s particularly well-delivered, but in the fact that it occurs at all. Here’s how it goes down:

“Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for the way I’ve treated you these past few years,” Kerry said.
Kat blinked, wondering if Sam had slipped something hallucinogenic into her mimosa. “I’m sorry...could you repeat that? I’m sure I didn’t hear you correctly.”
“I-apostrophe-m-space-s-o-r-r-y.”

Not exactly the ideal apology, especially given the snark inherent in that last bit—but at least it’s an acknowledgment that she was in the wrong.

Apologies are tricky. Both in real life and in fiction. We don’t like admitting that we were wrong. It feels like an acknowledgment that we’re somehow bad, that our detractors are correct. But everyone makes mistakes. To err is human; to forgive divine. Yet in order to forgive, the person who erred has to ask for forgiveness. Has to admit that they erred.

One of the most common apologizing tactics I’ve encountered is what I’ve termed Schrodinger’s Apology. We’ve all seen it. It’s the apology that starts with “I’m sorry if.” I.e., “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” They’re both sorry and not sorry at the same time, depending on how you feel about what they did.

If you want to prolong the conflict between your characters, and don’t care if your readers decide one of them is an utter tool, this is an excellent tactic. “But I apologized!” Yeah…but not really.

Similar to Schrodinger’s Apology, but not quite as bad, is the apology that replaces “if” with “that.” In this case, they are sorry, but only because there were consequences to what they said. “I’m sorry that you were offended.” They’re not sorry for saying something offensive; they’re only sorry that their audience included some sensitive snowflake who got offended by what they said.

This actually happened to me recently. A Native American friend of mine got upset that some white dudebro on Twitter used the term “spirit animal,” but they were on lock and didn’t want to go off it to respond. So I informed this dudebro that the term was cultural appropriation and was offensive and disrespectful to Native Americans, and that he should remove it from his vocabulary. His response boiled down to, “I’m sorry that you were offended, but I didn’t use it in a disrespectful manner.”

Here’s the thing though. I wasn’t offended. He was apologizing for something that hadn’t even occurred. My Native American friend was offended, yes, but I’m 98% white, and any Native American blood I might have is just DNA. It doesn’t affect me, personally, if other white people culturally appropriate Native American terms. I used to use the term “spirit animal” myself until I was informed that it was offensive. I was just using my white privilege to call out a fellow white person. It’s no skin off my back if someone uses ethnic slurs against an ethnicity that doesn’t include me, or culturally appropriates a culture of which I’m not a part. You haven’t hurt me by doing so. I’m calling you out on behalf of the other people who could be harmed. Because I realize that we’re all human and equally deserving of respect.

To be fair, I was mildly offended by his reply, since “I didn’t use it in a disrespectful manner” rather dismissed my assertion that using the term at all was disrespectful. But he wasn’t apologizing for that, and he wasn’t apologizing for using the term in the first place; he was only apologizing for offending me, which at the point of apology hadn’t actually occurred. In his case, a simple, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I won’t use it again” would have sufficed. Instead he felt the need to double down and defend himself.

This is rather common among people who have been told they’ve done something wrong. “That term is racist and you shouldn’t use it” is internalized as “You’re racist and therefore a horrible person,” and they feel the need to defend themselves against the perceived accusation. If the term isn’t really racist, not the way they used it, then they can’t be racist for using it. But doubling down on their right to use an offensive term just escalates the conflict. In this case, it caused me to add swearing to the mix: “Nah bitch, I ain’t the one you offended, my Native friend was upset by your words. Just don’t fucking use the term.”

Of course at this point he felt the need to tone-police me and inform me that swearing wasn’t necessary. Sorry not sorry, but you gave up your right to be treated respectfully when you declared that Well Actually it’s not disrespectful despite being informed to the contrary. I tried to be nice, you decided to argue. And your apology wasn’t really an apology at all. Oh, and now you’re trying to tell me how I ought to react to your bigotry? Yeah men have been telling women how they should behave, how they should protest, for decades, centuries, millennia. Same for any marginalized groups. If we don’t protest the right way, then our objections can be dismissed.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you” or “I’m sorry that I offended you” can be a great way to escalate the conflict, or to indicate characterization of someone who isn’t comfortable with confrontation and therefore accepts such a non-apology. But a discerning reader isn’t going to be satisfied if that’s the extent of a character’s apology for bad behavior. For example, if the hero does something hurtful, and the heroine is therefore hurt, and the hero’s apology is “I’m sorry that you were hurt,” whether or not the heroine accepts the apology, I’m not going to trust in the Happily Ever After. The hero has demonstrated that he believes it’s actually the heroine’s fault, not his, and he’s unlikely to change his behavior to accommodate her. This sort of thing is just going to happen over and over again until the heroine accepts it as inevitable.

So how do you write genuine apologies? Well, it’s rather similar to how to apologize in real life. First, you have to accept responsibility for your actions, and apologize for that, rather than the consequences thereof. “I’m sorry you were hurt” places the onus on the victim. “I’m sorry I said this hurtful thing” places the onus on you. Second, you can express how you’ll prevent the harm from being perpetuated in the future. “It won’t happen again” is a good default. In some cases it will also be necessary to atone for the damage done. “What can I do to make up for it?”

In the case of “spirit animal” dudebro, as I mentioned, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I won’t use that term in the future” would have been a perfectly acceptable apology. Indeed I’ve gotten this sort of apology in the past in similar situations; sometimes it hasn’t even included a “sorry.” Once I was even on the receiving end, and I don’t think I said “sorry” then.

(CW: slurs)

Examples:
Me: And everyone was looking at me like I was retarded.
Friend: The term “retard” is offensive because it’s been weaponized against mentally ill people.
Me: Oh okay, thank you for telling me. (I may not have been this gracious during the actual incident, but I did take it to heart.)

Coworker: I feel gypped.
Me: Just so you know, the word “gypped” is an ethnic slur coming from “gypsy” and implies that the Romani are dishonest by nature.
Coworker: Oh I didn’t realize, that’s good to know.

Me: These players left a pizza box, a half-drunk energy drink, and an empty chicken fingers basket in the play area.
Fellow judge: Savages!
Me: So the word “savage” has been used as an insult for Native Americans and we should probably remove it from our vocabulary.
Fellow judge: I didn’t know that, thanks for telling me.

In all these cases, an explicit apology wasn’t necessary, because they occurred away from anyone who might actually be harmed. The important part was the implication that the person would do better in the future. This also translates to genuine apologies. You can be sorry for messing up all you like, but that doesn’t do anyone any good if you’re not actually going to change. Abusers may feel bad about hurting their victim, and be genuine in their remorse, but it doesn’t matter unless they actually change their behavior.

A good apology acknowledges the harm done, admits culpability, and promises that things will be better going forth. In the case of the apology dudebro should have given: “I’m sorry” with no attempted justification or deflection would have indicated culpability, “I didn’t know” both exculpates the actor and admits that there was harm done, and “I won’t use that term in the future” shows that he intends to change his behavior.

So what might this look like in fiction? Well, other than Kerry’s snarky barely-apology to Kat, there is at least one other apology that occurs in my books. Let’s return to Bite Me, when Jacques and Kerry are first dating. Kerry, who does not yet believe in magic, consumes an alcoholic drink—something to which she is not accustomed—and then finds herself inundated with demon pheromones from a third party trying to seduce her away from Jacques. Kerry is demisexual and a virgin, both of which lend her some resistance to the pheromones, so rather than becoming enthralled by the demon trying to seduce her, she focuses her sexual attention on Jacques. After the encounter, she’s embarrassed, because she realizes that such behavior is out of character, and she blames it on the drink. She’s upset at Jacques for taking advantage of her in her inebriated state.

Jacques, of course, knows that her behavior was due to the demonic pheromones, which just makes things worse. He should have resisted. In his defense, he wasn’t expecting demon pheromones to translate into desire for him; typically they cause the recipient to focus on the demon in question. But given her reaction, he does know that this is absolutely his fault.

Kerry isn’t talking to Jacques and refuses to listen to his apology, so what is he to do? Well, after he leaves several desperate messages on her voicemail (“I am a bastard and a whoreson and whatever else you would like to call me, just please call me!”), her sister decides to act as his ally. Ash tells Jacques where Kerry can be found, and Jacques shows up at Kerry’s place of work.

(It’s important to note here that Jacques’s behavior in this case could be construed as stalking, and the reconciliation only works because Kerry would absolutely have castrated him if she felt in the least threatened by his actions.)

Jacques apologizes to Kerry in front of the students she is teaching. He accepts the blame for what occurred, articulating why their encounter was in no way her fault. Such a public apology could easily have gone wrong, being used by a manipulative individual to coerce forgiveness from a victim, but Kerry isn’t susceptible to such tactics, and Jacques has been advised against trying it by a friend. The apology works because he states what he did wrong and doesn’t try to justify his actions. He screwed up, and he knows it.

In real life, a lot of apologies have ulterior motives, which is why we get such shitty ones. The person apologizing wants to make themself feel better, or wants the person they hurt to forgive them for screwing up. In the former case, the apology becomes not so much admission of wrongdoing as a justification of what they did wrong. I’m sorry if, I’m sorry that, I’m sorry but. I didn’t mean to hurt you, therefore it’s not my fault that you were hurt.

In the latter case, they might get angry if their apology isn’t accepted. But I apologized; you have to forgive me. Obviously now you’re the one in the wrong, because I did what I was supposed to do. How dare you still be upset at me after I told you I was sorry?

These can be excellent ways to escalate conflicts in books, especially if there’s no need for the characters to reconcile. Just keep in mind that these are not good apologies. If your character apologizes this way, and the person they hurt accepts the apology, the discerning reader isn’t going to feel like the issue has actually been addressed. Yes, real people do accept these non-apologies, usually because they know a better one won’t be forthcoming, or they’re afraid of what will happen if they don’t (i.e. the apologizing person will lose their temper because they have a history of abuse). But that’s the point—a relationship built on such non-apologies is inherently abusive. The reader won’t believe that the character is actually going to change, and if that’s the basis of the supposed Happily Ever After, it won’t ring true.

In summary: characters make mistakes and have misunderstandings, which is both realistic and leads to conflict which keeps the reader invested in the book. However, these mistakes and misunderstandings have to be rooted in the characters’ personalities, and not based on assumptions that get blown all out of proportion for no reason. When characters do fight, eventually, if you want them to reconcile, one or the other will have to tender an apology. That apology should admit culpability and promise a change in behavior; otherwise it’s nothing but empty air.