LOW CONFLICT BETTER CONFLICT ACTUAL CONFLICT
Read moreHOW TO CONFLICT
Never AND. Always OR. Real dramatic conflict gives the protag a choice. This OR That. Success OR Failure. Save the mother OR the child. Capitulate to the antagonist OR get shot. Conflict that has a lot of options is not real conflict. The protagonist is free to save the mother AND the child only after…
Read moreCONFLICT: CATS EDITION
LOW CONFLICT BETTER CONFLICT ACTUAL CONFLICT
Read moreHow to dialogue. In a spec, this exchange would be a page and a half long, with Mal and Jayne stating many facts at each other. This is what direct conflict looks like. And it’s funny, too.
Read moreIn novels, problems are strung together so that the solutions to one problem often generate the next problem. It is out of the frying pan and into the fire, out of the fire and into the water, out of the water and back in the frying pan, until the novel is done. Jerome Stern, Making Shapely…
Read moreIMPACT
boojum.as.arizona.edu Spec scripts have this tendency to fall back on dramatic near misses. Like, if Jane found out Pedro cheated, the wedding would be off, but thank goodness that didn’t happen fifteen different times, and here comes the bride. Actually, no. Jane finds out. Impact. Now Jane and Pedro have a megaton of ejecta material…
Read morebetter-than-kanye-bitchh: a true role model Behold: a character, a premise, a motivation, tension, conflict… I can’t wait til she finds out, either. Shazam. Story.
Read moreCONFLICT: FOR THE CONFLICT-AVOIDANT
If you are not a combative or confrontational person, it feels more natural to resolve your interpersonal conflicts quickly and shy away from the hard consequences of failing to do so in your story. Unfortunately, this is opposite of drama, which is what the story is for. Direct, no bullshit, one-of-us-is-going-to-lose conflict is exactly what…
Read moreYOUR THIRD ACT REFUSING TO PAY OFF THE SETUP
New York Women in Film & Television: Notes from a Screenreader
New York Women in Film & Television: Notes from a Screenreader nywift: photo via Go Into the Story Real conflict is critical to getting your script past the first round of readers in a competition. All competition specs have an idea and an intent. Few of them deliver an emotional experience of that intent because…
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