Always Run Into Explosions (And Let One Character Know It's Coming)

...unless there is something more interesting somewhere else. We always want what is most interesting, while still credible in the context of the plot/character.

Basically, and this is something I see frequently, beginners are shy about introducing their characters to conflict, as if this is a living person they are trying to protect. Know that you control this world and can always invent devices that will save your characters, provided you backtrack and plant the information in the narrative, so it doesn't seem to have manifested from thin air. This is constantly used in all forms of storytelling, and is not cheating.

You want to think about your reader, who is your vicarious main character, and maintaining their interest. The more your character runs from certain conflicts, the less your character actually does, and the more boring the story becomes. Resolving or prolonging conflicts is more difficult than disengaging from them, but since conflict is the pivot on which all fiction rests, it is a tool you'd do better to sharpen than ignore.

Dramatic irony is also a useful tool which some forget is at their disposal, involving conflict. What does your character know, compared to what other characters know, and what the audience as a whole knows? This can be very fun. For example, the current setting is a crowded dance club with balcony seating for dining. X has been fraternizing in a rather intimate sense down on the dance floor, and with a character she doesn't realize is an enemy (Y). In fact, Y would like to murder X, if he had the chance. Ah, murder. Where would fiction be without you? Another character (Z) sits in the balcony. Has he been watching X? And so theoretically would have seen this exchange with Y? Or did he only just barely miss the exchange, his eyes losing X in the crowd just as she embraces her new dance partner? Either way, moments later, the couple return to the balcony table, pretending that they have been nowhere and doing nothing in particular.

How interesting could the story be if Z had seen? After all, isn't this why we have balconies? To literally eavesdrop?

It would only be better if there were some plot-related reason to keep Z unaware of the intimate relationship developing between X and Y. Or perhaps Z is fully capable of ending the tryst, which would ruin the suspense, and so he can't have seen yet. He can't have seen until the last minute, when it's the climax, when it's almost too late. You're the writer, so you hopefully know the lay of your plot and what would be best in the long run.

It's always fun for the audience to know a lot more than each individual character does separately. This is a huge trope with situational comedy and with drama. It is deceptively simple to employ, because in life, we all know different things and don't know others, and art imitates life. Therefore, if each character is granted life-like agency, they will naturally accrue dramatic irony together.