5 Ways to Create Conflict in Your Story
Conflict drives a story. I might go so far to say that conflict is your story. But I think too often, we miss that pivotal connection between conflict and character. If we don’t tie conflict directly to our characters we end up either with stories devoid of conflict and full of missed opportunities, or we force unnatural conflict on the story that doesn’t ring true. And it doesn’t help that a lot of advice on creating conflict is so high-minded (external vs. internal, blah, blah, blah) and often abstract — stakes! progression! empowerment! universality! — what does any of that mean and more importantly, how do you translate it into actual writing? Here are five ground-level ideas that will infuse your story with conflict and that you can put into practice right away.
1. Give your characters clear goals. Conflict stems from different people, different groups, different forces, different anything wanting different things—or sometimes, the same person torn between different things. But if you don’t know what your characters want, it’ll be difficult to wring any conflict out of them at all, let alone a serviceable story. Setting a story goal for your characters — the things they are striving for, seeking, wanting, going after, however you define it, really is the lifeblood of your story. Get these goals right, place them in opposition to each other, and the plot almost takes care of itself. Again, I’m not talking about high-minded theory here. This can really be as simple as asking, what does my character want? A new job, to save the world, the death of his enemies? The answer is up to you.
2. Go big, go small. Some actors use a method that teaches them to define a clear objective for every. single. line. of. dialogue. They’ll say, with this line, I want the other character to laugh. With the next line, I want the other character to cry, and so on. While you could argue that as much intention this method can give an actor in their delivery, it also can rob them of some spontaneity in their performance. You’d be right. But for writers it can be a wonderful way to pack a story with conflict. You’ve already set a story-level goal, so now look at your characters from different levels. What do they want out of every scene? What do they want out of every interaction? What do they want with every line of dialogue? Why are they saying these exact words at this exact time? Have an objective. Then go bigger. What are their life goals? Fifty years after the story ends, where are they headed? What do they value out of life. All these wants and desires, large and small, near and far, interact with and build on each other to help you create a story that’s always moving forward because it’s bursting with conflict, and a story that always works, because it’s being driven by characters seeking out clearly-defined goals.
3. Let your characters fail. You’ve chosen great goals for you characters and you’re concentrating on objectives big and small as you write, but if they get want they want too easily, you don’t have a story anymore. You’ve got, well, nothing anyone will probably want to watch or read. While we all want success from life, watching a character step out and immediately succeed doesn’t make for the most gripping entertainment. Watching them fail, get up and try again and again and again does. Think about your own failures in life. It’s how you’ve learned, right? It’s how you’ve gotten better. That can work for your characters, too. Maybe the first time they encounter the villain’s bomb they don’t know how to diffuse it and a lot of people die. What do you think will happen the next time? Keep in mind, characters don’t have to fail at just the big things in your story. They can fail at little things, also, especially if those little things tie back to the big things. Maybe a character who wants a new job has a lot of trouble getting to the interview on time (alarm doesn’t go off, they miss the bus, the building is on fire when they get there, etc.). Maybe a character getting ready for a big presentation breaks the coffee maker and has to go on without a hit of caffeine and so on and so on. Failure is ripe for conflict. Use it.
4. Make your characters opinionated. Think. Think. Think. What is a huge source of real-life conflict between strangers and family members alike? Opinions. About everything. Maybe it sounds obvious, but too often we see stories where we have no idea what the character really thinks about anything. Sure, if you’ve managed to give them clear story goals we probably get their values—they’re for good and not evil, they’re moral and forthright or dishonest and corrupt, or whatever. That doesn’t tell us much about what they believe, though, at least when it comes to the complexities of life. Look at it this way, maybe your husband character is a Republican and his wife is a Democrat. This is a real-world scenario that’s played out on cable news every election night for years that you can mine for endless conflict. But I think you can do even better (and maybe less cliched), just by taking some time to let the audience know your character’s thoughts about the things in their world. When they come up against someone who has different thoughts about the same things, BOOM. Instant conflict, instant drama.
5. Use exposition to your advantage. Watching two people agree in a story is boring, watching two people agree about some piece of exposition that you’ve had to stop the plot to give is even worse. Trouble is, most stories can’t make it without at least a little bit of exposition. Genre stories like science fiction or fantasy often require a lot. But here’s a trick that will help infuse your story with conflict and make your exposition so much more interesting all at the same time: if one person has to explain something, have the person listening disagree or question. It’s a simple bit of small conflict (though, it could be big conflict, too), but it’s more fun than hearing a character always say “yes, I understand,” or “yes, I agree,” or “yes, that’s so smart.” Try “I don’t get it,” or “I can’t believe that’s true,” instead.
Do you know where your scripts stand when it comes to good or bad exposition?
Make no mistake, exposition is necessary within a screenplay — but there’s a good way to do it, and a bad way to do it. And unfortunately, most screenplays fall under the latter category.
Defining Exposition
Believe or not, the problem with exposition in screenplays is that many writers don’t really know what it is.
Exposition is comprised of those pieces of vital information — often shared in dialogue — that are necessary for the audience to know and understand in order for character arcs and plot points to make sense.
These nuggets of information usually exist outside of the direct narrative and therefore are difficult to properly insert into the story and plot in a seamless fashion without halting all story and character momentum.
But that doesn’t mean exposition is bad. Exposition is an essential tool for storytelling.
So What Is Bad Exposition?
Film (and television) is a visual medium. The cinematic story is told through visuals and screenwriters are tasked to show rather than tell. It’s when screenwriters use expositional dialogue as a crutch to save on time, pages, and effort that there’s a problem. And sometimes they don’t even know that they’re doing it.
When characters are talking about pivotal events and information rather than the screenwriter showing the audience through the live narrative, that’s often bad exposition.
When characters are learning pivotal information by reading aloud to themselves from papers or computer screens, that’s often bad exposition.
When screenplays utilize a lot of incredibly detailed title cards (text that appears onscreen) to explain backstory and plot elements, that’s often bad exposition.
When screenwriters use the crutch of TV and radio newscasts to share detailed information about plot elements, that’s often bad exposition.
When screenwriters use dream sequences, flashbacks, and extended prologues to explain backstory and plot elements, that’s often bad exposition.
Read ScreenCraft’s A Simple Way to Make Dream Sequences and Flashbacks Work!
The problem with exposition — good or bad — is that it is utterly boring and lacking in drama. There’s no action, no suspense, no plant, no payoff, and no compelling beginning, middle, or end. It’s just an information dump that slows any narrative momentum down.
So how can you avoid writing bad exposition?
The first step is to be aware of exposition — what it is and why you need it. Half of the time you don’t need it. If it’s not partial to the story, plot, and character arcs, ditch it. But when you do need it, write it well.
Here are three ways you can do that.
1. Spread Exposition Thin, Not Thick — Trust and Respect the Audience
Exposition is better if spread out thin, as opposed to laying it on thick.
When you use monologues, extended scenes and sequences, and undramatic moments of characters reading information aloud (including background characters like newscasters), that’s laying it on thick.
There are certainly ways to utilize those expositional tools well, usually by keeping the usage of them — and the accompanying information — brief. When it’s brief, it’s subtle and fits into the narrative better. It can be worked into the story and character arcs as turning points, reveals, plants, and payoffs.
Too many screenwriters lay the exposition on thick through on-the-nose dialogue because they fear that the audience won’t pick up on more subtle information.
You have to trust the audience or script reader. You have to respect that they’ve been to movies and have watched series episodes before. They know when to pick up on certain information and they’ll appreciate a little trust with you spreading it thin and weaving it into the narrative, as opposed to you forcing it on them with big information dumps.
2. Inject Exposition into Compelling, Engaging, and Surprising Moments and Reveals
As good as Inception was, it suffered from overextended scenes of exposition — with Ellen Page’s character seemingly conceived as nothing more than a way for the characters to explain away the difficult science and rules of dream-sharing technology and dream espionage.
But the script made up for that by pairing necessary extended exposition dumps with big moments in the script.
This scene with Leo DiCaprio explaining dream espionage to Ellen Page was growing tired until the reveal that they were, in fact, in a dream.
The expositional sequence continues with them discussing the finer points of dream building. Again, normally this would be bad exposition — and it still is arguably borderline, mind you — but the script continues to distract us from the exposition by revealing compelling, engaging, and surprising moments.
Ellen Page’s character could be seen as nothing more than an excuse to allow the audience to understand the idiosyncrasies of the plot and tech through her eyes. But thankfully, her character worked by weaving her and the exposition into eye-catching visuals and reveals.
3. Have Characters Argue About the Exposition
Conflict is everything. The problem with exposition is that it lacks conflict — it’s just bland information.
So the easy fix is to create conflict by having two or more characters react differently to the shared or revealed information. If you can’t conjure a better way to share exposition and find yourself in the trap of having to use characters to recite it in dialogue form or reading from papers or screens aloud, then the next best thing is having that information cause conflict between two or more characters.
Take a look at this scene from Aliens. While this was a sequel to the original Alien, the writer still needed to summarize the events of the first film in case audiences hadn’t seen it or couldn’t remember the details. Beyond that, the narrative needed more information to set up the atmosphere and setting that was to come with the mission Ripley was going to be asked to join.
Normally, this information dump would slow the story momentum to a halt, but the writer was wise enough to create conflict between the characters. The company executives are questioning her story (the information) and she is struggling to convey the danger at hand.
Those that saw the first film know what happened and don’t necessarily need a rehash of the events. However, the narrative requires it and uses that exposition to create one of the central themes and conflicts of the overall film — greed versus logic, ignorance versus reality.
As written and produced, the expositional scene manages to create one of the best conflict scenes within the story. Those that saw the first film understand Ripley’s utter frustration. Those few that hadn’t seen the original understand that Ripley feels very strongly about what she saw and experienced. The company executives are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They come off as suspicious of her account. That’s great conflict.
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