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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28332
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 **Stories need conflict** - that's a rule.

**Rules are there to be broken** - that's another.

And there's the unbreakable one, about when the rules can be broken: _when you know what you're doing._

Story when the author failed to create a conflict - through negligence, lack of skill, or burn-out, or whatever lame excuse - are _boring_. Yes, you can create one, and no, it won't be good.

But a conflict is such an inherent part of every known story, that subverting it can achieve great results when done right.

It's very rare the conflict will vanish completely. It may do so in some jokes, especially _groaners_. It may be completely vestigial in slice-of-life, documentary, mood pieces. Sometimes it will be merely implied. In more "active" genres the more likely approach is subversion: consciously "murdering" the obvious conflict and replacing it with a more subtle and less obvious one.

Let me give an example of the latter: One Punch Man manga. It's humorous, but simultaneously cynically bitter. The protagonist is a superhero, who can beat every single enemy with a single punch. Which totally ruins the obvious conflict of the typical superhero story (which "One Punch Man" pretends to be). That's boring! And that boredom is lampshaded to ludicrous levels.

This is the actual conflict: man versus self; protagonist versus own boredom. He's so powerful he has no room to develop. No super-villain is powerful enough to stand in his way. And so we have the _actual_ conflict - search for friendship, recognition, challenge, overcoming simple daily routine difficulties - all in a world wrecked by supervillains he can dispose of with one punch.

Original score: 2