So many screenplays… SO LITTLE CONFLICT…

Yeah, you guessed it. Gots to talk about it…

CONFLICT!

First, as always, let’s look up the defininition:

n.

1. A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war.

2. A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.

3. Psychology. A psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies.

4. Opposition between characters or forces in a work of drama or fiction, especially opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot.

Wow! Good stuff!

Now for my definition…

conflict: The Protagonist’s success versus the Protagonist’s failure of attaining his or her story goal. The goal of course can be within a beat, scene, act, or the screenplay.

Let’s take this a little further…

Remember, your Protagonist experiences SUCCESS when he/she advances toward or experiences any SUCCESS toward his/her goal.

Alternately, your Protagonist experiences FAILURE when he/she is pushed farther away or experiences any FAILURE to reach his/her goal.

Now… If we can do this correctly… i.e., make a reader and hopefully, an audience sympathize, empathize, and ultimately IDENTIFY with our Protagonist, we begin to create HOPE and FEAR within the minds of the reader and audience.

HOPE versus FEAR = TENSION or more specifically… The audience’s HOPE of your Protagonist achieving his/her goal versus the audience’s FEAR of your Protagonist’s NOT achieving his/her goal creates TENSION within the audience…

DO THIS CORRECTLY, and you create other emotions within the minds of the reader and the audience… ANTICIPATION of what happens next! Waiting for the outcome of the conflict creates SUSPENSE.

Whew… That’s a hell of a lot of math for me in one day.

So how do we create this tension, anticipation, and suspense?

CONFLICT. Plain and simple. You’ve gots to have conflict in your story and more specifically, you’ve got to create conflict for your Protagonist as he/she progresses through your story.

Okay, okay… So now you’re sitting there wondering about conflict…

“Geez Unk… I can’t have my characters arguing with each other all the way through the screenplay!”

Ah…

Hmmm. A statement like that assumes there is in fact only one kind of conflict within a screenplay…

Nope.

THE TWO TYPES OF CONFLICT

  1. Inner conflict.
  2. Outer conflict

I know, I know… The books and the gurus say that there’s more… Three types of conflict… Four types of conflict… Whatever.

I like as little math as possible so I’ve boiled them all down to two types… Let’s discuss.

INNER CONFLICT

OUTER CONFLICT

Inner conflicts can also be spiritual… Man against God or man against Satan. Look at the character, Father Karras in . He struggles throughout the film with his faith. That translates into CONFLICT.

I recently watched with Pierce Brosnan. This character is definitely experiencing inner conflict with himself. He’s a cold blooded hit man who’s been experiencing flashes of conscience lately that pretty much keep him from doing his job. CONFLICT.

Even is a story about inner conflict. Bill Murray’s character is his own worst enemy and it’s not until he achieves personal growth that his day no longer repeats.

Outer conflicts can be just about ANYTHING!

Need I go on? Hopefully you get the idea…

When I read screenplays, one of the big problems I see is with the conflict simply not being BIG enough. I’ll read about two characters arguing and of course that’s conflict but I want to see MORE.

Set these two characters up to be complete opposites. Just by doing that alone, creates unwritten conflict and unwritten conflict is an outstanding foundation to build the rest of your conflict on.

Maybe these two characters are not only complete opposites but in addition… What’s going on behind them? Maybe they’re on the ledge of a building… Maybe they only have a minute to resolve the argument… Maybe they’re being chased…

In other words… You can have more than one type of conflict going on within a scene… Which brings me to writing scenes… Make sure that the characters in your scenes have a GOAL they want to achieve within that scene and then establish some conflict(s) that interfere(s) with that character achieving their goal.

Keep RAMPING up the conflict… Show us that your character has what it takes to break through. Drag his or her ass through the mud… They will be the better for it and SO WILL WE!

One note of caution…

As you create conflict, you build tension, anticipation, and suspense within your reader and audience and it’s always a good idea to release a little tension after you ramp up the conflict and create that tension… Just like we all enjoy releasing a little tension, so will your reader and audience enjoy releasing a little tension.

How do you accomplish that?

Cut to a subplot or have your Protagonist achieve his/her goal within a scene after some difficult conflict… Don’t dwell on it too long however, before you introduce some new, RAMPED UP conflict… LOL.

To summarize…

Create RISING CONFLICT for your Protagonist. Be sure to KEEP RAMPING IT UP!

Through the creation of this conflict, your reader and audience experiences, TENSION, ANTICIPATION, and SUSPENSE.

After some conflict that creates tension, anticipation, and suspense, RELEASE a little tension… i.e., take it easy for just a while before ramping up the next source of conflict… Remember, the audience experiences PLEASURE each time your story RELEASES their TENSION after having created tension, anticipation, and suspense within their minds…

Unk

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August 21, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

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Screenwriting Expo 5…

I’ve been asked by to mention a few words about their upcoming …

I can honestly say that FOR THE MONEY, the Screenwriting Expo is probably the single greatest event of the year for screenwriters looking to break into the business.

I’ve attended every single Screenwriting Expo since it’s inception and I would say for the most part, I’ve enjoyed every one of them…

Yes, every once in a while you do end up in someone’s class who’s only purpose is to sell you their product or service but having said that… By and large, this doesn’t seem to happen that often.

Where else can you sit in on some of the best screenwriting gurus in the business and listen to their advice all under one roof?

Nowhere.

If you do plan on attending, I highly recommend pushing aside your shyness for the weekend and formulate some questions for the speakers after each class. Last year, I asked a simple question after every class…

“HOW DO YOU MAKE A SCREENPLAY BIGGER?”

It was simply an experiment on my part but I really did want to know what kind of answers I would get from each speaker and I wasn’t disappointed! Each had their very own take on what makes a screenplay bigger and I must admit… My writing is better for having asked the question.

Of course there are a lot of instructors but let me go ahead and recommend the ones I got the most out of…

If you don’t see some other guru’s name… LOL. Well, let’s just say I wasn’t too impressed and in my opinion, these are the best of the best… *NOTE: I went through the actual to build this list so YES… There are other gurus that are worth attending but I didn’t seen them listed.

On top of that, the Screenwriting Expo’s tradeshow always has some outstanding screenwriting books that you simply cannot find at your local bookstore.

On top of that, you can meet other screenwriters trying to do the same thing you’re trying to do… Meet other like-minded individuals and read each other’s screenplays…

Most importantly… HAVE FUN!

Unk

August 19, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

3 Comments 

Your First Ten Pages…

I cannot stress enough how important the first ten pages of your screenplay are. I cannot stress enough how important the first ten pages of your screenplay are. I cannot stress enough how important the first ten pages of your screenplay are. I cannot stress enough how important the first ten pages of your screenplay are. I cannot stress enough how important the first ten pages of your screenplay are.

And, if your inciting incident does not occur within those first ten pages, then the first ten pages of your screenplay are even MORE CRITICAL than normal because unless those first ten pages really GRAB the reader that’s reading them, they might just decide NOT to read on.

That’s not to say that your inciting incident must fall somewhere within those first ten pages of your screenplay but what I mean is that if it does not occur, then those ten pages must be even more intense and really grab the reader’s interest… This really isn’t as hard as it sounds as long as you pack all the following information within those first ten pages…

*NOTE: If you do not have your inciting incident occur within the first ten pages, then you only really have two more pages to accomplish it or you run the risk of losing your reader.

I’ve often been asked to send over a treatment… I rarely ever do that and instead, usually fax or email the first ten to fifteen pages of the screenplay instead.

If you’ve done your job as outlined above, the powers that be will ask for the rest of your script.

Unk

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August 19, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

5 Comments 

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