Let’s face it: If you don’t have conflict, you don’t have a story.
Photo by Clinton Naik on Unsplash
This is why every course in Screen writing you find will drone on and on about this for most of the course, while you wait for them to get to the “MOS means film without sound” stuff.
Courses about novel writing should literally spend as much time on it, but from what I’ve seen, they don’t – but should.
If you do not have conflict in some form, you do not have a story. The more conflict, the more story.
What is conflict?
The Pippi Longstocking stories never had conflict, right? Well, actually they did. Like the day she decided to go find her poppa, a seafaring captain. There’s conflict. A little girl living by herself decides to find her father, who is nowhere to be found. It’s amusing conflict, because she doesn’t seem to really need him, she just misses him. Does she find him right away? No. That’s conflict.
Let’s say you want to write a story about a man who wants to buy a cup of coffee. No conflict.
Take away his money. Suddenly conflict.
People are trying to keep him away from any store that sells coffee. MORE conflict.
Take away his transportation. Even MORE conflict.
And add in another group of people who are trying to get him to go off with their polka band because he can play the clarinet… and all he wants is a cup of coffee!
Okay, you actually have the ingredients here for a comedy. Just keep loading it up with any obstacle whatsoever you can have to keep him from the coffee.
If you add too many obstacles, and manage to get him the cup of coffee at the end of the movie, it’s a comedy.
If you take away just one of the obstacles, now it’s a drama.
See? If you understand this, you’re ready to write a story. As I told my producer in my short, terse manner, “H wants something. We have to deny him that.”
That’s the essence of story. Let’s say you watch Die Hard, and McLain orders Hans and the others to drop their guns. They do so, raise their hands, and he has to resort to using their belts as handcuffs because he doesn’t have enough to go around. (did you ever figure out why McLain offers Hans the cigarette? He’s waiting to see if Hans holds the cigarette American style or European).
If everyone just surrendered, it wouldn’t be a story.
Add in the terrorists, guns, glass, bombs, unfinished office tower, brain dead FBI agents and a stubborn LA police Captain that doesn’t want to listen to reason, and a lack of shoes, and suddenly you’ve got conflict galore.
Why did people like Finding Nemo better than Finding Dory, even though Finding Dory was in many ways a better movie?
[Tweet “Your character needs something, and needs it badly. If they don’t, you don’t have a story. – Nicholas Reicher”]
Because in Nemo, Marlin and Nemo were both facing sure death almost every step of the way. In Finding Dory, the conflict was they would lose Dory, or she would never find her parents. Sad, but not life threatening. Finding Dory was in many ways merely overconfidence on the part of Pixar. If the stakes had been raised – they have to find Dory’s parents or Nemo, Marlin or Dory would die – then it would have been more successful.
Get it now?
You’re got to have conflict. Your character needs something, and needs it badly. If they don’t need it badly, no big deal, no story. They have to NEED IT. Or die, or something symbolically like death will happen to them.
So, now that I’ve written the longest introduction known to man, how are some ways we can use to increase story conflict, since its so crucial?
- Insert a time limit. Not every movie has an overt time limit. Finding Nemo didn’t have an overt “You have twelve hours…” limit. But once Darla was introduced, we now had a limit. They had two days to get Nemo out. Marlin now had two days to find Nemo. Or Nemo was going to die.
- Insert other persons with their own goals that stop the hero. The LA PD, the FBI, and the News are all interfering with John McLain in Die Hard. The Police, other criminals, the mayor, the District Attorney, and even the legal system in Dirty Harry are creating additional conflict. Eisenhower, Montgomery, Beadle Smith and unintentionally Omar Bradley are all creating obstacles that are stopping General Patton in Patton. The Turtles, Jellyfish, Sharks and the Whale are all stopping Marlin and Dory in Finding Nemo.
- Insert Story B. Story B sometimes adds a cross current that delays the hero. The Tank Gang in Finding Nemo are trying to escape, and now that’s another plot interfering. Everyone and their brother are trying to get Tuco Ramirez arrested and hung in The Good The Bad and the Ugly. The LAPD in Die Hard are Story B, and the FBI are Story C! DR. Chilton’s desire for fame and control is story B in Silence of the Lambs.
- Place distance into the story. Die Hard III was more successful than II (I liked 2 better), because now McLain has to be run around (borrowing from Dirty Harry) New York, answering phones – and there’s both distance and time limits – he has to cover distances to get to the next phone call before it rings (just like Dirty Harry), and the distance each time is almost too much to cover in that time. Distance versus time creates edge of the seat anticipation. Believe it or not, this was probably a Bruce Lee invention, because the first person to use it effectively in a movie was Stirling Silliphant, a student of Bruce Lee’s. And in the style of Kung Fu Bruce Lee was teaching, distance is something he stressed.
- Somebody’s lying. In the Guns Of Navarone, one of the heroes is discovered to be a spy for the Germans – she’d lied the entire time (it was a male character in the novel). Hans is lying about being one of the victims in Die Hard. Ash in Alien is actually a robot, and fighting to protect the Alien. Where Eagles Dare features the very man who sends the soldiers on the mission has been a spy for the Germans. There’s a Traitor in The Matrix. When the audience is Audience Superior, it creates HUGE amounts of tension to know that someone’s lying. It’s somewhat less tension when the Audience is not Superior, but if you drop little crumbs the whole way that hint, then the reveal is a big payoff. What do you need more, the payoff, or the tension?
- Make the Obstacle overwhelming. Both The Terminator and Independence Day had insurmountable obstacles. It was pretty much unnecessary to add in Story B with those movies. No story B. Just insurmountable obstacle.
- Hostage. The fate of a hostage in Dirty Harry, Die Hard, Silence of the Lambs, and Aliens all figured into the story. Stop the killer, or the victim dies. Start adding in a time limit, story B, distance, and overwhelming obstacle, and suddenly you’ve got a tense thriller. Now, if you can add Someone’s lying to it too…
Conclusion
This isn’t the only ways to add conflict. Indeed, if you can think of another way to do it, you may have just guaranteed a sale in Hollywood! If your novel or screenplay is limping along, ask yourself how you can add more and more conflict!
Wow, I may go write the Coffee Movie now!
How can you use this information to help you with your novel or screenplay?
