A conflict type where the protagonist struggles against natural forces - storms, wilderness, animals, disease, or the sheer indifference of the physical world.
Man vs. nature pits a character against the physical world itself. This could mean surviving a hurricane, crossing a desert, fighting off a bear, or battling a pandemic. The key distinction is that nature is not malicious - it has no agenda, no vendetta, no plan. It just is. That indifference is what makes this conflict type so terrifying and so philosophically rich. The character isn't fighting an enemy who can be reasoned with or outsmarted in the traditional sense. They're fighting something that doesn't even know they exist.
Man vs. nature stories strip characters down to their essentials. When you take away society, technology, and comfort, you find out who someone really is. These conflicts are also a powerful way to explore themes of humility, resilience, and humanity's relationship with the planet - topics that feel increasingly urgent. Plus, survival stakes are primal. Your reader doesn't need backstory to understand why your character doesn't want to freeze to death.
Santiago's three-day battle with a giant marlin is man vs. nature in its most iconic form - one human, one fish, the open ocean, and nothing else.
Chris McCandless walks into the Alaskan wilderness seeking transcendence and discovers that nature doesn't care about your idealism. A true story that reads like a cautionary fable.
Mark Watney is stranded on Mars and must science his way to survival. The planet isn't trying to kill him - it just has no oxygen, no water pressure, and no food. Same difference.
The protagonist navigates a vast, flooding house-world where tides and weather patterns are both beautiful and deadly - nature as mystery rather than enemy.
The storm isn't angry at your character. The ocean isn't punishing them. Nature's power comes from its indifference. Keep it impersonal and it'll be far scarier.
A character running from a bear for 300 pages gets boring fast. The external survival struggle should mirror or trigger an internal one - fear, guilt, regret, transformation.
Readers who know wilderness, weather, or biology will lose trust if you get details wrong. Research your setting thoroughly, or lean into the fantastical and make it clear you're not going for realism.
Drop your character into a natural environment that wants to kill them - a blizzard, a desert, a flooding river. Write 400 words where they must solve one immediate survival problem using only what they have on them right now. Focus on sensory details: what do they feel, hear, smell? Make the reader shiver or sweat.