How to Create Story Conflict

now that I have given an understanding of the purpose of conflict this video will focus on how to create conflict for an overall story and an individual scene this video will take elements from my previous four videos understanding story structure creating characters parts 1 & 2 and the purpose of conflict if you haven't watched those videos I recommend watching them and then coming back to this video before I start I do want to say that this video is here to help give an understanding of how to create conflict not to tell you that this is the only writing process that you can have adapt what I say in this video to your own process my hope is that this gives you a framework that helps you create a much more compelling dramatic story let's begin creating conflict happens way before you actually start writing scenes whether you're a detailed outliner or you just start writing it's important to have some sense of what the story conflict is and at least how it will begin in your story your story is not a concept your story will not really be about planting ideas in other people's minds through dreams it won't really be about getting to the beauty pageant on time and it won't really be about building a social media platform your story is about characters and their struggle to understand how to live their lives your story will be about love betrayal greed meaning purpose or other ideas like I explained in the purpose of conflict video the different belief systems that characters hold place them in conflict with one another characters are placed in a conflict when their beliefs and philosophies compete with other characters who have differing beliefs and philosophies and 12 Angry Men juror 8 who believes in the importance of the judicial system and giving people the benefit of the doubt competes with the other jurors who all have belief systems and reasons for why they believe the man should be found guilty in the Dark Knight Batman who believes in justice and the rule of law competes with Joker who believes that the systems of justice and morality are just facades that we all hide behind so how do you apply this idea to the writing process start with one character most stories have a single central character while there are many major characters in a story and most stories you can pick out one character that stands at the center of the plot and the conflict once you have this main character you need to build out their belief system what elements of their personal worldview or philosophy will be challenged in your story you need to understand how your character sees the world to understand what sort of decisions they will make and what kinds of things they want now that you have an understanding of who your main character is and what they believe you can begin building some of the other characters in your story these characters will have their own beliefs that conflict with the main characters in different ways and Little Miss Sunshine all is is the main character olive sits at the center of different belief systems that pull her in different directions olives father Richard is the main force of philosophical antagonism research believes that the world is made up of winners and losers and that losers are essentially worthless olives grandpa rejects these ideas believing that personal acceptance and being yourself matters much more than society's perception of winners and losers Duane rejects society entirely and takes a more angry dejected point of view to existence Frank who recently tried to commit suicide is struggling with life and meaning as well it's Dwayne and Frank's B's story that adds another philosophical layer to the events of the story while on the surface the film seems to just be a light-hearted feel-good story about a family going to a beauty pageant it was intentionally created to look at life and how to live from multiple points of view 12 Angry Men is a fascinating example of complicated philosophical conflict while juror 8 stands as the one devoted to finding justice each of the other members of the jury challenged her aids point of view in different ways the most obvious and Haggen istic figure is juror 3 who is constantly berating juror 8 and getting angry at the entire process in the end we find that his bias against the man on trial comes from a bad relationship with his own son drove r7 wants to get out quickly so he can go to a baseball game this isn't a philosophical desire it's a simple one however it shows us what he believes he believes the man is guilty and he sees being on a jury as a waste of his time he's focused on himself and anxious to get on with his life and we subconsciously understand this as the audience simply by seeing that he wants to go to the baseball game while in the context of being a juror on a criminal trial juror tan is blatantly racist and harbors hatred towards the man on trial for this reason he believes he is superior to the man on trial and this belief changes how we see is the entire process in the Dark Knight Batman and the Joker sit at the center of the philosophical conflict Batman believes in the rule of law the justice system and morality Joker rejects all of these elements believing Humanity is just one push away from chaos Harvey Dent stands as an ideological figure he is the possibility of a truly just system and that is why Batman wants to raise him up it's also why Joker wants to take him down lieutenant Gordon is more of a pragmatist he realizes some corners must be cut for the sake of justice and he is willing to cut them I don't get political points for me and I can't list I have to do the best I can with what I have Rachel does not necessarily hold an important belief system however Batman and Harvey's belief in justice and morality are heavily tied to her well-being Joker knows that rachel is their weakness and uses this against them does every single character have to be a perfectly obvious element of the philosophical conflict taking place in the story no some characters like Joker's henchmen will serve as simple external obstacles but these sorts of characters should not be the main force of opposition in the story understanding external and internal conflict and establishing the characters want becomes much more simple once you understand the philosophical beliefs of the particular character khaliv wants to win the beauty pageant because she believes winning gives her Worth and her father's eyes yet she also wants to be herself no matter what society says juror eight wants to take the trial seriously because he believes human life and justice are important this isn't a game Batman wants order and justice in Gotham because he believes these things will create a better world a city to show you that it's full of people ready to believe it good but once you have an understanding of who your characters are what they believe and what they want how do you create interesting continual conflict over the course of a screenplay when a character begins the story we need to understand who they are and what they are capable of when a character first starts they won't be making massive moves to defeat an antagonist they will use the most minimal amount of effort when you begin a story the person your character is should not be able to fight against the forces of antagonism at the climax they must go through lower levels of antagonism to change into someone who can take on the climax when it comes in story Robert McKee talks about progressive complications McKee writes a story must not retreat to actions of lesser quality or magnitude but move progressively forward to a final action beyond which the audience cannot imagine another there's a couple defining elements of McKee's method of progressive complications number one create greater and greater conflict number two create a succession of events that continually pass points of no return number one create greater and greater conflict as the character morphs and changes to rise to the challenge of the antagonistic forces the antagonistic forces must grow stronger and more intense to continually push the main character towards deeper change human nature is fundamentally conservative Robert McKee notes that your character will start with minimal effort in the beginning of the story when the minimal effort doesn't work and only creates a greater struggle between the antagonistic forces the character must act again this time in a stronger way even when writing a flat arc main character the philosophical pressures will still increase over the course of a story remember when I looked at Paddington - Paddington holds the same beliefs over the course of the story however as he is imprisoned and deals with the feelings of being forgotten the pressures around him increase but he comes out the other side holding the same beliefs when juror 8 initially voices his disagreement with the rest of the group he simply states he isn't sure you think he's innocent I don't know the other jurors stay at his energy level but disagree however as the story continues juror eight takes more action and focuses heavily on persuading the other members of the jury some of the other members of the jury get angrier with him and argue loudly with each other at the climax juror eight stands against juror 3 as juror 3 angrily yells at him number to create a succession of events that continually pass points of no return McKee writes progression builds by drawing upon greater and greater capacities from characters demanding greater and greater will power from them constantly passing points of no return in terms of the magnitude or quality of action it's not only about creating larger forces of antagonism it's also about not being able to turn back because of the philosophical consequences in Little Miss Sunshine the points of no return aren't external they are philosophical could the family simply turn around and go home yes if the conflict was simply external but philosophically they would fail Richard cannot turn around because he would be admitting defeat it's not really about having some major villain that must be defeated it's about what the main character believes that keeps them heading towards their goal conflict needs to rise characters need to grow if both of these things can happen at the same time you will be on your way to a strong dramatic story with a good pace so what's one way to build a story with constantly bigger conflict and points of no return one of the best ways to break down a story and make sure that it doesn't lose steam is to break up the ax into many stories that follow Harmons story circle at the end of each act you create a major point of no return for the character and an internal change that they've made they are becoming a different person over the course of the story because the forces of antagonism continue to get stronger when you use the story circle to break up each act or each sequence it's easier to stay focused and create those important changes in your character as the story goes forward for an in-depth example of breaking each act down into the story circle I recommend watching my video on story structure linked below so once you have an understanding of story conflict where it comes from and how to progressively build it we need to focus on one last element scene conflict a big mistake writers make is that they get to a scene and try to artificially inject conflict into it they try to give the scene some sort of purpose without really knowing why it needs to be in the story rather than trying to inject conflict into a specific scene you should focus on creating your characters and their goals in a way that creates conflict organically when you place the characters into the particular scene once you know your characters and have an idea of how the scene might move the story forward we can start looking at scene objective and super objective scene objective and super objective are elements of a scene that Robert McKee talks about in story the scene objective is the character specific goal for this specific scene the super objective is the characters overall goal and reason for doing what they are doing the super objective is usually the underlying reason that the character wants the scene objective in the scene where olive orders ice cream the scene objective becomes whether or not olive will eat the ice cream the super objective remains to get to the beauty pageant on time but it's also deeper than that this scene is a moment of philosophical conflict Richard doesn't want olive to eat the ice cream because she could get fat and no longer be able to compete in beauty pageants which makes her a loser's women and Miss America skinnier both grandpa and Cheryl want olive to simply do what she wants no matter what others think which openly attacks Richards view of the world I love Richard is an idiot I like a woman with meat on the bones it's okay to be skinny and it's okay to be fat if that's what you want to be whatever you want it's okay olive is now stuck between these two competing philosophies as the ice cream is placed in front of her the choice isn't just should she eat the ice cream or not she's choosing between two ways of looking at the world in one of the scenes in the bathroom juror 8 washes his hands and speaks to juror seven and juror six the scene objective is to simply take a break before returning to the discussion the super objective is to find out whether or not the man on trial is innocent or guilty again it's deeper than this juror seven admires what he believes is salesmanship from juror 8 as juror eight tries to place doubt in the minds of the other jurors you've got this displays juror sevens attitude and shows that he can't wait to get out of here and move on with his life juror eight hates this attitude and believes that the trial should be taken seriously juror 6 creates the opposite problem juror 6 attacks the core fear that juror 8 holds supposed to talk us all out of this and kid really did knife his father and the Dark Knight's interrogation scene the scene objective is to find the location of Harvey Dent the super objective is to bring Gotham back to a state of order and justice however as Batman and the Joker sit across from one another for the first time the Joker is able to explain his belief system to Batman and not only that but Batman lives by a single rule and Joker has come to break it the philosophical conflict at the center creates the external and internal conflict that we see on screen this idea is combined with John troubies idea of Essene should be structured Truby uses an upside-down triangle to explain this concept Truby writes the beginning of the scene should frame what the whole scene is about the scene should then funnel down to a single point with the most important word or line of dialogue stated last the scene objective or endpoint is the purpose for the scenes existence in the story a new piece of information is learned an action is taken or a choice is made let's go back to those three scenes the beginning of the scene should frame what the whole scene is about olive orders ice cream Richard tries to explain to her that ice cream will make her fat which will make her unable to compete in beauty competitions Olive begins to listen to her father then funnel down the ice cream arrives at the table and the other members of the family refute Richards point by eating olives ice cream to a single point Olive eats the ice cream she chooses to reject her father's understanding of the world the beginning of the scene should frame what the whole scene is about juror 7 doesn't understand why juror ade is doing what he's doing he frames it within his understanding of the world then funnel down juror 8 fires back at juror sevens flippant view of the trial which wins the small conflict between the two men so why don't we stop wasting our time here we're gonna all get sore throats if we keep it up you know my difference is making it to get it here at the ball game no difference pop no difference at all to a single point however juror six enters and asks gerrate a very important question suppose you talk us all out of this and kid really did knife his father for the first time one of the other members of the jury has attacked juror aids biggest fear this moment propels us into the next jury discussion the beginning of the scene should frame what the whole scene is about the first line of the scene tells us what's going on the Joker's men took Harvey Dent Gordon and Batman need to find him then funnel down when Batman tries to get Harvey's location out of the Joker the Joker reveals something else now the stakes have risen the scene continues to a single point Batman gets the addresses and rushes out of the room the story is shoved forward each scene should have a specific objective that also places it in the overall story by bringing the scene to a single point usually an action or new information the story is turned and shoved forward okay I covered a lot in a short time so let me condense this for you as you go to write your next screenplay number one start with characters and lure deeply held beliefs number two challenge those deeply held beliefs with other characters who believe differently number three start small and grow larger let the conflict rise and force your characters to change number four understand the purpose of the scene bring the scene to a specific point how does your particular scene drive the story forward start with philosophical struggle and characters that is the absolute backbone of your story plot concept fun dialogue and crazy action scenes all come second to those two elements don't try to inject a scene with conflict and then place your characters in it know who your characters are know how they will change know what pressures are on them and know how those pressures will affect them hello I hope you enjoyed the video the focus of this channel is to teach screenwriting and focus on what practically works for writers if you'd like to join a community of writers who are brainstorming together giving criticism and helping each other along I recommend joining the Facebook group linked below if you want to see more videos on screenwriting click on the playlist linked in the description and also hit that subscribe button thanks for watching

Channel: Tyler Mowery

Views: 280,035

Keywords: film analysis, movie review, tyler mowery, nerdwriter, lessons from the screenplay, every frame a painting, screenwriting, script breakdown, writing, workshop, writing course, teach screenwriting, oscar best screenplay, film school, behind the curtain, how to create conflict, creating conflict, how to write conflict, screenwriting conflict, little miss sunshine, the dark knight, robert mckee, john truby

Id: XF4Kw_J0RK8

Length: 21min 19sec (1279 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 15 2019