Gotta have some conflict

Get the full show notes on the blog here.

We did an episode on raising the stakes and one on “White Knuckle Scenes” back in October of last year. And when I texted you and asked, “What should we talk about tomorrow?” you (Rex) said, “tention.” Leaving off that “tention” is a misspelled version of “tension” I assumed you meant how to create drama, conflict, or action in the scene.

So we’re going to work on that today: how to make the scene interesting by building the conflict. Because, while we did the tension thing a year ago, we haven’t done “conflict” since episode 10.

Conflict, according to this resource from Oregon State, basically means “thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire. It’s when a character wants something, but something else gets in the way.”

In the broadest terms, there are 7 types of conflict (link):

1. Character vs. characters
2. Character vs. society
3. Character vs. nature
4. Character vs. technology
5. Character vs. supernatural
6. Character vs. fate
7. Character vs. self

At the scene level, these conflicts play out in dialogue and action, and drive the plot forward.

Read more on the blog.