Conflict

A character who wants something isn't in conflict...he's a spoilt brat. Real conflict is about need, thirst, hunger. Conflict appears when your character believes that whatever they are searching for will return their world as it should be. Failure to achieve their goal will have dire consequences; the sky will come tumbling down and the earth will open. Meeting their goal is not as easy as sitting down to have a talk about the issue or pulling a sword from a rock and plunging it into a rock. Oh No! For one the hero doesn't even know how to handle a sword. The sword itself is in possession of some guy who thinks the hero is the only link to the underworld. To make matters worse the hero has issues with change and really does not feel like setting off for the expedition. Till his wife disappears. Gasp!

Conflict heightens the tension in the story and keeps the reader glued the story as they wait for your hero to resolve it. It can be internal (goal against personal values, weaknesses, beliefs) or external ( charcater against another character, nature, society, machines or supernatural forces). To create a viable conflict

1.      Revise the objective you had created for your character when coming up with your LOCK conducive idea and your 

2. List things that could prevent your character from reaching their goals be it internal or external issues i.e. an external conflict for a detective who is trying to solve a murder is missing evidence, tainted evidence, lying witnesses, interfering family members. Internal conflict would be the fact that this murder is so much like his mother's so he is getting way too emotional about it.
3. Assess your list to make sure you have a good conflict i.e. it will evoke some kind of reaction in your readers (pity, fear, shock), that it is pressing enough and the character cannot avoid dealing with it. resolving the conflict will not be easy - the character will have to expend some mental, emotional and physical energy to deal with it.  
4. Check to make sure that the conflict can be resolved. There is no point pitting Flesurias against an earthquake that he can't predict, prevent or protect himself from. Your hero must have reasonable opportunity to resolve the conflict but also equal probability of not resolving it.

At this stage of novel writing you will only need to create about three types of conflict but as your plot line develops you can create conflict from every decision the protagonist makes. Of course your primary conflict will depend on the genre of your novel. Romance novels will by nature require an romantic conflict, high fantasy will require conflict involving fighting and man against supernatural forces king of conflict. Sometimes you may have more than one main conflict but be prepared for a much longer and episodic novel.

Take note however that there is such a thing as 'Oh My God' overload and after a while the readers will get bored. To avoid this; The number of conflicts should not be more than what you can count on one finger.  Try to vary the kind of internal conflict for your main characters. Both John and Beth shouldn't be cynical about love.

Have Fun getting your little darling into trouble