Conflict Lines

Narrator

Lights come up

A story begins

Lights come up on protag

A child is born.

Protag cries

He grows into a man.

manly pose

He experiences happiness.

Protag: Ah!

He experiences sadness.

Protag: Aw…

He meets a girl.

“Hello” “Hello”

They fall in love. They get married. They go on their honeymoon. They have four children.

Babies are tossed

Three children. The children grow up and move away.

Protag: Goodbye kids, good luck with college.

There’s a fifty-fifty chance that he and his wife divorce.

They flip a coin and woman #1 walks away.

All alone, the man grows old.

protag sags

Older…

Protag sags more

Olllllllderrrr.. and dies.

Protag falls over

The end.

Narrator lifts protags wrist and lets it drop.

Not very satisfying, is it? And why? The story had no conflict. Conflict is a struggle, a quest, a battle. a challenge, a longing, an agony, a goal that seems forever out of our grasp. We, as an audience, desire, nay, we demand that our characters experience conflict.

As you speak, stand protag up and arrange him like a sculpture.

And why do we crave hardship for our main character? Why must he be tortured emotionally and sometimes physically? Because it is fun to watch. Here stands a man, but he cannot become a hero until I, he narrator, give him conflict. We need something besides the protagonist on stage. We need something… an object that will elicit desire and ultimately suffering. It could be anything, really… excuse me, madam…

Woman 2: Yes?

Do you have something in your purse we could use?

Woman 2: Oh, like what?

A stick of gum, or eyeliner, perhaps. The first thing you find will do. We simply need an object of desire for our protagonist.

Woman 2: I’m afraid all I have is a cantaloupe.

That’s perfect. Now we can begin the story again and generate enough conflict to please the cruelest of audiences. A story begins… a child is born… and at three years of age…

Protag: I’m thwee years old.

At the age of three years, he discovered that he absolutely loved cantaloupes.

Protag: Cantawope.

That’s right, little protagonist, that’s right.