✍️Screenwriting I Unit 8 – Developing Engaging Conflict

What's Conflict and Why Does It Matter?

• Conflict drives the narrative forward by creating obstacles, challenges, or opposition that characters must overcome
• Engages the audience by evoking emotions, raising stakes, and generating uncertainty about the outcome
• Reveals characters' true nature, motivations, and flaws when they are put under pressure
• Creates opportunities for character growth and transformation as they navigate and resolve conflicts
• Adds depth and complexity to the story by introducing multiple layers of conflict (internal, external, interpersonal)
• Keeps the audience invested in the story by maintaining tension and suspense throughout the narrative
• Conflict is the engine that propels the plot and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats

Types of Conflict in Screenwriting

• Internal conflict arises from a character's inner struggles, doubts, fears, or moral dilemmas
  • Occurs when a character's desires, beliefs, or values are in opposition to each other (guilt vs. ambition)
• External conflict involves a character's struggle against outside forces, such as other characters, society, or nature
  • Man vs. man: conflict between two or more characters with opposing goals or ideologies (protagonist vs. antagonist)
  • Man vs. society: conflict between a character and the social, political, or cultural norms of their environment
  • Man vs. nature: conflict between a character and the natural world or forces beyond their control (survival stories)
• Interpersonal conflict stems from the relationships and interactions between characters
  • Arises from differences in personalities, goals, or expectations among characters (family dynamics, romantic relationships)
• Situational conflict occurs when characters are placed in challenging or unfamiliar circumstances that test their abilities and resolve
• Cosmic conflict involves a character's struggle against fate, destiny, or supernatural forces beyond their understanding or control

Creating Compelling Characters for Conflict

• Develop well-rounded characters with distinct personalities, backgrounds, and motivations
  • Give each character a unique set of strengths, weaknesses, and flaws that influence their actions and decisions
• Establish clear goals and desires for each character, which can serve as the basis for conflict when they clash with others' objectives
• Create characters with opposing values, beliefs, or worldviews to generate friction and tension in their interactions
• Use character backstories to inform their present-day conflicts and provide context for their actions
• Develop character arcs that showcase how conflicts impact their growth, change, or transformation throughout the story
• Ensure that characters' actions and reactions to conflict are consistent with their established traits and motivations
• Give characters high stakes and consequences for their choices to intensify the conflict and raise the emotional impact

Building Tension: Setup and Payoff

• Establish the story's central conflict early on to set the stage for the upcoming challenges and obstacles
• Introduce subplots and secondary conflicts that complement and complicate the main conflict
  • Use subplots to reveal different aspects of characters or to create additional layers of tension
• Escalate the conflict gradually, raising the stakes and increasing the pressure on the characters as the story progresses
  • Employ pacing techniques, such as cliffhangers or plot twists, to maintain tension and keep the audience engaged
• Create setups and payoffs by planting story elements, clues, or foreshadowing that will have significance later in the narrative
  • Use setups to build anticipation and payoffs to provide satisfying resolutions or revelations
• Alternate between moments of tension and relief to give the audience a chance to breathe and process the events
• Delay the resolution of conflicts to sustain tension and keep the audience guessing about the outcome
• Ensure that the resolution of the conflict is earned and satisfying, delivering on the promises made throughout the story

Dialogue That Sparks Conflict

• Use dialogue to reveal characters' conflicting desires, motivations, or beliefs through their words and tone
• Employ subtext in dialogue to convey underlying tensions, unspoken thoughts, or hidden agendas
  • Create contrast between what characters say and what they truly mean or feel to generate conflict
• Use confrontational or provocative language to escalate tensions and spark heated exchanges between characters
• Reveal characters' vulnerabilities, insecurities, or secrets through dialogue to create opportunities for conflict
• Employ interruptions, overlapping dialogue, or silence to convey the intensity of conflicts or power dynamics between characters
• Use dialogue to unveil characters' differing perspectives or interpretations of events, leading to misunderstandings or disagreements
• Craft memorable lines or exchanges that encapsulate the essence of the conflict and leave a lasting impact on the audience

Plot Structures That Heighten Conflict

• Three-act structure: establishes the central conflict in the setup, escalates it in the confrontation, and resolves it in the resolution
  • Inciting incident: the event that disrupts the protagonist's world and sets the conflict in motion
  • Midpoint: a major turning point that raises the stakes and intensifies the conflict
  • Climax: the ultimate confrontation where the conflict reaches its peak and the protagonist faces their greatest challenge
• Hero's journey: follows the protagonist's transformation as they navigate conflicts in the ordinary world, the special world, and the return
• Nonlinear narratives: use flashbacks, flash-forwards, or parallel storylines to reveal conflicts in a fragmented or unconventional manner
  • Create mystery, suspense, or dramatic irony by juxtaposing different timelines or perspectives
• Ensemble narratives: explore multiple characters' conflicts and how they intersect or influence each other
• Episodic structure: presents a series of self-contained conflicts that contribute to an overarching narrative or theme
• In medias res: begins the story in the middle of the action, immersing the audience in the conflict from the outset

Common Pitfalls in Writing Conflict

• Lack of stakes or consequences, making the conflict feel inconsequential or unimportant to the characters or audience
• Overreliance on external conflict without exploring the characters' internal struggles or motivations
  • Neglecting the emotional depth and complexity of conflicts in favor of superficial action or spectacle
• Contrived or coincidental conflicts that feel forced or unbelievable within the story's context
• Unbalanced conflicts where the power dynamics between characters are too one-sided or predictable
• Rushed or unearned resolutions that fail to satisfy the buildup of tension or address the underlying issues
• Repetitive or redundant conflicts that fail to introduce new challenges or reveal new aspects of the characters
• Conflicts that are resolved too easily or conveniently, undermining the sense of struggle or growth for the characters

Exercises to Improve Your Conflict-Writing Skills

• Identify the central conflict in your favorite films or TV shows and analyze how it is introduced, escalated, and resolved
• Write a scene where two characters with opposing goals confront each other, focusing on dialogue and subtext to convey the tension
• Develop a character's internal conflict and explore how it manifests in their actions, decisions, and relationships
• Create a list of potential obstacles or complications that could heighten the conflict in your story, and brainstorm ways to integrate them
• Experiment with different plot structures or narrative techniques to present conflicts in a fresh or engaging manner
• Revise a scene from your script, focusing on raising the stakes, adding subtext, or introducing a new layer of conflict
• Collaborate with a writing partner to roleplay a conflict between two characters, improvising dialogue and exploring different outcomes
• Analyze how successful films or TV shows in your genre handle conflict and identify techniques you can apply to your own writing