Ian Dawson's Blog - Posts Tagged "conflict-in-fiction"
Writing Tip of the Week: A Conversation About Conflict – Part One
While most of us prefer to go about our lives with as little conflict as possible, conflict is a key story element in fiction that gives a narrative life, energy, and momentum. Over the next two posts, we’ll explore why conflict is essential and discuss ways to use it in your writing.
Let’s get started!
Conflict Equals Drama
If the characters in a story get along, are always nice to each other, and never disagree, things will get really boring quickly. While it’s acceptable and necessary in the real world to have days where we go about our lives without any problems or issues, fictional narratives must conflict between characters to create drama for the audience.
The main character needs information from another character to get closer to their goal. The other character refuses to give the main character the information or wants something in return. This generates conflict between the two characters, giving the scene dramatic impact.
Will the main character get the information? How will they get the information? What happens if they don’t get the information or the wrong information? These conflicts set the stage for the audience to become invested in the situation and root for the main character.
On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Detective Stabler interrogates a suspect who’s placed one of his victims alive in a refrigerator buried somewhere in the city. Stabler needs to know where the woman is to save her life, but the suspect wants to speak in riddles, which creates conflict and drama in the scene. Will Stabler break the suspect, get the needed information, and save the woman in time?
Conflict Drives the Story Forward
Your main character has a goal. If the goal is easy, no real story or drama exists. To keep the audience engaged and help the story build momentum, the main character has to come up against opposing forces that create conflict for the hero.
These conflicts lead the main character to find creative and more innovative methods to reach their stated goal, which can lead to new conflicts during their journey. Even during setbacks, the hero remains active in their pursuit as the opposing forces increase, and the story continues to move forward.
In any James Bond movie, Bond is given his assignment but quickly meets a barrage of conflicts, double crosses, and other opposing forces that prevent him from easily reaching his intended target. As the action mounts and the conflict rises, the story moves forward as Bond gets closer to his final goal and completes the mission.
Next Time…
We’re just getting started! More conflict-based posts are on the way, all throughout the month of May!
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
Let’s get started!
Conflict Equals Drama
If the characters in a story get along, are always nice to each other, and never disagree, things will get really boring quickly. While it’s acceptable and necessary in the real world to have days where we go about our lives without any problems or issues, fictional narratives must conflict between characters to create drama for the audience.
The main character needs information from another character to get closer to their goal. The other character refuses to give the main character the information or wants something in return. This generates conflict between the two characters, giving the scene dramatic impact.
Will the main character get the information? How will they get the information? What happens if they don’t get the information or the wrong information? These conflicts set the stage for the audience to become invested in the situation and root for the main character.
On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Detective Stabler interrogates a suspect who’s placed one of his victims alive in a refrigerator buried somewhere in the city. Stabler needs to know where the woman is to save her life, but the suspect wants to speak in riddles, which creates conflict and drama in the scene. Will Stabler break the suspect, get the needed information, and save the woman in time?
Conflict Drives the Story Forward
Your main character has a goal. If the goal is easy, no real story or drama exists. To keep the audience engaged and help the story build momentum, the main character has to come up against opposing forces that create conflict for the hero.
These conflicts lead the main character to find creative and more innovative methods to reach their stated goal, which can lead to new conflicts during their journey. Even during setbacks, the hero remains active in their pursuit as the opposing forces increase, and the story continues to move forward.
In any James Bond movie, Bond is given his assignment but quickly meets a barrage of conflicts, double crosses, and other opposing forces that prevent him from easily reaching his intended target. As the action mounts and the conflict rises, the story moves forward as Bond gets closer to his final goal and completes the mission.
Next Time…
We’re just getting started! More conflict-based posts are on the way, all throughout the month of May!
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
Writing Tip of the Week: A Conversation About Conflict – Part Two
Last time, we explored three aspects of conflict and how conflict impacts a narrative. Today, we’ll explore three more reasons conflict is essential to any story and ways to utilize it. Let’s continue.
Conflict Keeps Our Attention
Have you ever watched a movie or read a story where nothing interesting happens? Your eyes glaze over, you check your phone to see how long you have before the movie ends, or you close the book and find something else to read.
If there’s conflict, you’re more likely to draw a reader’s or viewer’s attention and keep it as things escalate during the scene or chapter. You want to keep them hooked and focused so they keep reading or watching to see how things are resolved.
In Captain America: Civil War, many conflicts are established early in the story. As these conflicts unfold, a series of related conflicts keeps us watching and curious about how things will ultimately play out by the end of the story: the final battle between Iron Man, Captain America, and the Winter Soldier.
Conflict Can Be Small or Large
Conflict can be as small as two characters disagreeing about where to spend the holidays, or as big as trying to stop Thanos from collecting all six Infinity Stones. The critical thing to remember is that opposing views or forces should lead to a conflict between characters in a story.
Whatever the size of the conflict, both sides have to feel strongly enough about their positions that it leads them to fight over it.
On All in the Family, Archie Bunker is in constant conflict with his son-in-law, Mike, about politics and social issues. This is a minor conflict when compared to a film like Dirty Harry, where the hunt is on to stop a serial killer who’s murdering people at random in San Francisco.
The conflict should be reasonable within the world of the story, and should be scaled up or down accordingly. The conflict in an episode of Frasier will be much smaller than in an episode of Game of Thrones, but there should still be enough conflict between the opposing viewpoints of the characters to keep things interesting.
Next Time…
We’re just getting started! More conflict-based posts are on the way, all throughout the month of May!
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
Conflict Keeps Our Attention
Have you ever watched a movie or read a story where nothing interesting happens? Your eyes glaze over, you check your phone to see how long you have before the movie ends, or you close the book and find something else to read.
If there’s conflict, you’re more likely to draw a reader’s or viewer’s attention and keep it as things escalate during the scene or chapter. You want to keep them hooked and focused so they keep reading or watching to see how things are resolved.
In Captain America: Civil War, many conflicts are established early in the story. As these conflicts unfold, a series of related conflicts keeps us watching and curious about how things will ultimately play out by the end of the story: the final battle between Iron Man, Captain America, and the Winter Soldier.
Conflict Can Be Small or Large
Conflict can be as small as two characters disagreeing about where to spend the holidays, or as big as trying to stop Thanos from collecting all six Infinity Stones. The critical thing to remember is that opposing views or forces should lead to a conflict between characters in a story.
Whatever the size of the conflict, both sides have to feel strongly enough about their positions that it leads them to fight over it.
On All in the Family, Archie Bunker is in constant conflict with his son-in-law, Mike, about politics and social issues. This is a minor conflict when compared to a film like Dirty Harry, where the hunt is on to stop a serial killer who’s murdering people at random in San Francisco.
The conflict should be reasonable within the world of the story, and should be scaled up or down accordingly. The conflict in an episode of Frasier will be much smaller than in an episode of Game of Thrones, but there should still be enough conflict between the opposing viewpoints of the characters to keep things interesting.
Next Time…
We’re just getting started! More conflict-based posts are on the way, all throughout the month of May!
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
Writing Tip of the Week: A Conversation About Conflict – Part Three
In the last two posts, we discussed various ways conflict should be utilized in a story. We discussed how conflict equals drama and how it drives a story forward. We also explored how conflict keeps our attention, and how it can be large or small depending on the story being told.
Today, we’ll look at two more aspects of conflict. Let’s get started!
Conflict Can Be Internal or External
A main character is a vessel that helps a writer tell a compelling and engaging story. Essentially, they are the stand-in for the reader or viewer as the adventure unfolds, meaning they should be more than just a one-dimensional being. The main character is tasked with completing a goal, dealing with conflict, and evolving by the end of the story.
Their evolution comes from two sources: External and Internal conflict. In a story, both should be linked to one another in some way so that the main character can work on one as they resolve the other.
In Mrs. Doubtfire, Daniel Hillard’s divorce and separation from his kids are external conflicts that lead him to become Mrs. Doubtfire so he can be with them. His internal conflict is his struggle to evolve and change from an immature and irresponsible man-child into a competent and trustworthy adult and parent.
Both lead to further conflicts as Daniel becomes a better person, but Mrs. Doubtfire’s presence creates further conflict in his life as his ex-wife refuses to fire the nanny and lets Daniel take the kids after school. These warring factions escalate and lead to the film's climax, with Daniel’s internal and external conflicts colliding. In the end, Daniel has evolved as a person and parent to warrant the time he wanted with his kids, and both the external and internal conflicts have been resolved.
External conflict is essential, but giving your main character an internal conflict to work on and resolve also adds dimension to their character and can make them more relatable to an audience.
Conflict Should Have a Resolution?
Yes, a story's conflict should have a resolution. This doesn’t mean the main character wins, but leaving things open-ended without any conclusion is a surefire way to upset an audience.
A lot has happened since the main character set out on their journey. They’ve evolved as a character, been through many complex challenges that have tested them as a person, and have continued despite setbacks and problems to push toward their goal and get where they need to go. Once they arrive at the final showdown, the big conflict, the major resolution to the problems introduced at the story's beginning, the last thing that should happen is…nothing.
Audiences want that final fight. They crave that moment where the hero and the villain finally are in the ring together to finish things. If this doesn’t occur and the conflict goes unresolved, audiences feel their time has been wasted.
And you never want to be accused of wasting an audience’s time!
In Gladiator, the opposing forces of Maximus (hero) and Commodus (villain) finally get their shot at each other in the literal ring as they battle one-on-one in the Coliseum. Commodus has already dealt Maximus a fatal blow before this final fight, but in the end, both men end up dead, and Maximus is celebrated as the hero that he is.
If the two men didn’t fight, if the movie ended with some random character killing off either character, or if they decided to hug it out and be besties, the established conflict wouldn’t be resolved in a satisfying manner.
Like the scale of the conflict, the resolution should be scaled to match the conflict established between the hero and villain. The resolution in a rom-com will be much different from that in an action movie based on the scale of the conflict.
Final Thoughts
Conflict in a story matters. It’s a key ingredient that keeps the story moving and gives the main character opposition as they work toward their goal. Whether they win or lose, it’s essential that the main character encounters a series of roadblocks, problems, and issues that escalate the conflict and help them evolve as a character.
As you write your stories, consider how to add the appropriate amount of conflict to each scene to propel the story and the main character forward.
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
More conflict-based posts are on the way, all throughout the month of May!
Today, we’ll look at two more aspects of conflict. Let’s get started!
Conflict Can Be Internal or External
A main character is a vessel that helps a writer tell a compelling and engaging story. Essentially, they are the stand-in for the reader or viewer as the adventure unfolds, meaning they should be more than just a one-dimensional being. The main character is tasked with completing a goal, dealing with conflict, and evolving by the end of the story.
Their evolution comes from two sources: External and Internal conflict. In a story, both should be linked to one another in some way so that the main character can work on one as they resolve the other.
In Mrs. Doubtfire, Daniel Hillard’s divorce and separation from his kids are external conflicts that lead him to become Mrs. Doubtfire so he can be with them. His internal conflict is his struggle to evolve and change from an immature and irresponsible man-child into a competent and trustworthy adult and parent.
Both lead to further conflicts as Daniel becomes a better person, but Mrs. Doubtfire’s presence creates further conflict in his life as his ex-wife refuses to fire the nanny and lets Daniel take the kids after school. These warring factions escalate and lead to the film's climax, with Daniel’s internal and external conflicts colliding. In the end, Daniel has evolved as a person and parent to warrant the time he wanted with his kids, and both the external and internal conflicts have been resolved.
External conflict is essential, but giving your main character an internal conflict to work on and resolve also adds dimension to their character and can make them more relatable to an audience.
Conflict Should Have a Resolution?
Yes, a story's conflict should have a resolution. This doesn’t mean the main character wins, but leaving things open-ended without any conclusion is a surefire way to upset an audience.
A lot has happened since the main character set out on their journey. They’ve evolved as a character, been through many complex challenges that have tested them as a person, and have continued despite setbacks and problems to push toward their goal and get where they need to go. Once they arrive at the final showdown, the big conflict, the major resolution to the problems introduced at the story's beginning, the last thing that should happen is…nothing.
Audiences want that final fight. They crave that moment where the hero and the villain finally are in the ring together to finish things. If this doesn’t occur and the conflict goes unresolved, audiences feel their time has been wasted.
And you never want to be accused of wasting an audience’s time!
In Gladiator, the opposing forces of Maximus (hero) and Commodus (villain) finally get their shot at each other in the literal ring as they battle one-on-one in the Coliseum. Commodus has already dealt Maximus a fatal blow before this final fight, but in the end, both men end up dead, and Maximus is celebrated as the hero that he is.
If the two men didn’t fight, if the movie ended with some random character killing off either character, or if they decided to hug it out and be besties, the established conflict wouldn’t be resolved in a satisfying manner.
Like the scale of the conflict, the resolution should be scaled to match the conflict established between the hero and villain. The resolution in a rom-com will be much different from that in an action movie based on the scale of the conflict.
Final Thoughts
Conflict in a story matters. It’s a key ingredient that keeps the story moving and gives the main character opposition as they work toward their goal. Whether they win or lose, it’s essential that the main character encounters a series of roadblocks, problems, and issues that escalate the conflict and help them evolve as a character.
As you write your stories, consider how to add the appropriate amount of conflict to each scene to propel the story and the main character forward.
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
More conflict-based posts are on the way, all throughout the month of May!
