Conflict: A Writer’s Struggle.
Conceptualizing conflict in story.
If you’ve ever taken a creative writing class, or listened to a youtuber review a film, you’ve likely heard someone say “Story is conflict”
I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you’re not an idiot, or at the very least you passed the 4th grade with flying colors: You know what the word “conflict” means.
However, when it comes to conflict in story, the word has deeper meaning. There are three fundamental forms of conflict in storytelling. There is Inner-personal conflict, Interpersonal conflict and Extra-personal conflict, understanding these three categories as well as the concept of conflict itself is essential to crafting good stories.
Meat and Potatoes.
Again, let’s assume you know what the dictionary definition of conflict is and let’s start there.
When people write a story and they know there has to be a conflict of some sort, they tend to lean on what Merriam-Webster has to say. Writers envision two sides fighting against each other, where their protagonist is the good or bad guy, gal or non binary and some institution or force opposes them. The very existence of either entity places the protagonist in opposition to the antagonist, and this is served up on a platter with the word “conflict” emblazoned on it.
True conflict in story is not so simple. Sure, two sides oppose each other, but the reason for opposition cannot be a consequence of existence.
For example:
Tom likes meat. Jerry Likes potatoes. Mom asks: “what should we have for dinner?” Tom and Jerry argue for their preference to be the main course.
On the surface, this may seem like a conflict but most people would simply say “why not just have meat and potatoes?” or “Can’t mom just make potatoes for Jerry and meat for Tom?” or even more likely “Who gives a shit?!”
The problem here is a lack of mutual exclusivity. In storytelling, it’s not the existence of opposition that creates the conflict, it’s the fact that for one side to exist the other must cease to do so. A conflict can be complex or simple but opposing sides cannot coexist;
So let’s take the same scenario and turn it in to a true conflict:
Tom has a condition that prevents him from digesting starch. Jerry has a similar condition that prevents him from eating meat. Their mother is very poor and she fears that if her children go another night without eating they will die. The children’s mother was able to scrounge up enough coins to buy food for the night but she can only afford either a slab of meat, or a bag of potatoes…
The changes here make things much more dire. The sides of opposition aren’t mere preferences. One choice cancels out the other, and has an affect on what happens next. It would be rather hard for the average person to feel indifferent to a mother so poor she has to choose which child may live or die. There are also two levels of conflict working here (explained further below).
While this particular conflict probably won’t carry a story for very long, it serves as an example of how conflict works in storytelling. Applying this concept to an over arching conflict will give a story a struggle that audiences will care to see resolved.
Outside Looking In
A storm is coming, the earth is shaking and aliens have launched intergalactic nukes at earth and they’re due to arrive any day now. Some guy, who probably looks like Mark Wahlberg, hops over cars, weaves through crowds of people while pulling a young attractive woman behind him. They’re both trying to get back to their families or to safety or both. When our duo has a moment to breathe, both express regret over something they wish they had done better before the world was doomed. Then’s it’s back to running away from unfathomable destruction.
As ridiculous that sounds, it is still a conflict and a multi layered one.
Mentioned earlier, there are three different types of conflict; inner-,inter- and extra-personal. Stories should always have two conflicts playing out at all times. Though not 100% necessary, it also helps if these conflicts are in opposition with each other. Either way, it’s important to understand each form of conflict in order to ensure that they’re being used properly
Inner-personal conflict
Inner personal conflicts are struggles of personal change. A junkie trying to quit drugs to be a better parent. A jilted lover fighting the urge to let a past lover back into their life. An abused child learning that they are worthy of love. These conflicts are often characterized by a person dealing with alternatives to their regular Modus operandi; usually depicted through some sort of internal dialog or narration.
Interpersonal Conflict
This is the most common form of conflict used in story and the most easily identified. Two entities usually human or humanoid pitted against one another for nonnegotiable reasons. This form of conflict is the weakest and therefore hardest to get audiences invested in. It depends mostly on how well the characters are crafted rather than the conflict itself. Like random strangers fighting versus your family or loved ones. The more you care about the people fighting, the more likely you are to care about the outcome.
Extrapersonal conflict
Extrapersonal conflicts are exemplified in disaster movies, or stories that place a protagonist in a hostile environment. Forces of nature, or magic or technology or society conspire to destroy the protagonist or hero. Often these forces cannot be defeated and it is up to the character to simply survive them or escape. Extrapersonal conflicts depend heavily on establishing a setting. Audiences have to resonate with the composition of the world or else the conflict has no meaning or impact.
You may have heard of these concepts before; Man vs Self, Man vs Man, Man vs Nature. While those explanations have merit they lack the context of what true conflict is and so people blindly apply them without deft or care.
The very best stories have all three types of conflicts playing out as once. In Harry Potter novels, Harry deals with inner turmoil over whether or not he is worthy of his “destiny”. He battles or finds himself in direct conflict with several characters whom either want him dead or simply cannot stand his presence. All the while powerful forces conspire to kill him and essentially destroy the world. Inner-,Inter- and Extrapersonal conflicts.
Is it possible to tell a story with only one level of conflict? Sure. But stories that don’t have at least two levels of conflict are usually poorly written.
Plant The C4
I had the pleasure and opportunity of being in a class taught by Laurence Rosenthal and one of the things that stuck with me was something he called the “C4”.
It goes something like this:
A character enters a scene, encounters a conflict, is forced to make a choice and that choice causes change.
Character. Conflict. Choice. Change.
Going back to the meat and potatoes, The mother is dealing with a conflict on all three levels. Extra-personally she’s dealing with the world and how dire it is. Inter-personally the mother deals with the people at the local market where she doesn’t have enough coin to afford the food she needs yet the vendors can’t cut her slack because they equally need money to survive. Inner- personally, the mother is torn between choosing which child will eat and ultimately survive.
A choice is required on all three levels for the conflict to play out.
The mother must decide:
- how will I change my situation in the world/setting I’m living in?
- How will I get these vendors to give me what I need to feed my children?
- Which child do I feed?
Of course these choices are not independent. interacting with one level of conflict can and should effect all other levels active in the story.
For example if the mother chooses to simply steal the food, a choice in response to the interpersonal conflict, she would be come a criminal (extra-personal) but she would no longer have to choose between her children (inner-personal); and of course have new adversaries to deal with, like the local constable.
As I’ve pointed out before, there is a difference between character driven and plot driven stories; one of the key difference is that there are no real choices in plot driven stories. As the name implies, plot determines the outcome of a given situation, essentially because there is something at the end of the plot that must happen and so everything else in the story is slave to that event.
With that in mind, I’ve adapted my old professor’s teaching for the sake of plot driven stories:
A character enters a scene, encounters a conflict, pays a toll, and is allowed to proceed.
It’s not nearly as neat, and certainly doesn’t have a snazzy name but the idea is sound. How characters handle conflict in plot driven stories is simply a matter of withstanding a predetermined fate handed out by the writer for the sake of arriving at a designated destination. What plot driven stories give up in character choices, they make up for with a transaction of value.
Plot driven stories go out of their way to establish things of great value, narrative currency if you will. The main character may have loads of it or very little. The antagonist usually has much more than the main character. When conflict arises, characters trade currency.
Example:
- we stopped the bad guys but my best friend died.
- They got a way with the artifacts but at least we have the location of their hideout
- Me and so and so got much closer in our relationship but in doing so we’ve made a powerful person jealous.
No choices are being made in these scenarios, consciously anyway. Instead they are the result of characters losing or gaining something precious within the setting/world.
In either case, conflict is not a matter of two sides simply existing in opposition to each other. It is a matter of mutual exclusivity functioning on multiple levels. Conflict in story never happens independently. When a tree falls in the forest not only does it make a sound but it kills the best friend of the main character which starts him on the path to being the greatest lumberjack the world has ever seen…
or something like that.
