Where there is story, there is conflict, you can’t have one without the other! Well, I guess you could, but it wouldn’t be very interesting. When developing your scripts you need to ask yourself, ‘what is the conflict here?’ If you can’t come up with an answer, then you may need to hit the drawing board and rework your story beats.
If this is the case, have no fear! Today, I’ll be going over the basic types of conflicts and using some examples of successful films that have utilized them. But before we begin, I do want to say one thing that I’ve personally learned about conflict in writing. It’s stakes. What are the consequences for your protagonist if they do not come out on top of this conflict? Could they lose their job? Their love? Their life!? The higher the stakes, the more compelling the conflict will be, and the more we, as an audience, will be drawn into the story.
Of course, keep it genre appropriate. If you’re writing a story for preschoolers, it’s not advisable to have your plucky child protagonist come face to face with potential death, unless you want hordes of angry parents swarming your email. On the flip side, no one wants to watch a horror film about a monster that doesn’t pose at least SOME physical threat to our cast of victims. It’s all about finding that balance of ‘high stakes’ and ‘what’s appropriate for the story’. Anyway, that is just my two cents. Now, let’s move onto the basic types of conflict and how you may be able to implement them into your story!
1. PERSON VS. PERSON
This one is pretty self explanatory, you have your protagonist literally duking it out with another character. This could be in the form of a race to find buried treasure, competing against each other in the big game, or quite literally, a fight to the death.
This type of conflict works really well where the overarching story is about the protagonist facing off against a singular arch nemesis throughout the script.
One example of this conflict is the movie ‘Scream’ (and Scream 2, 3, and so on and so forth.)
We follow Sidney, a normal teenage girl that is currently mourning the mysterious death of her mother. Suddenly, a masked killer targets her and her group of friends. Sidney has to dodge the killer’s attacks, while trying to unmask the perpetrator and bring them to justice.
It’s Person vs. Person, Sidney vs. Ghostface. The conflict between these two characters lasts the entire film. Ghostface tries to murder Sidney on several occasions, and when he’s not messing with her, he’s offing her friends, thus attacking her indirectly through her support system.
The writer of the movie was able to build the entire story off this premise, off this conflict. And this is something you’ll see in a lot of horror movies, where there’s a slasher type killer.
What’s important to keep in mind is that the soul of the story here is that conflict, and that’s why it works so well. Everything that happens is based around Sidney’s quest for survival from the killer.
You’ll find that this applies to all types of conflict. The more ingrained into the story, the more compelling the script is!
2. PERSON VS. NATURE
You know those movies where people have to survive ‘Sharknados’? Yeah, this is that. This type of conflict puts your protagonist against mother nature, oftentimes having to survive her harshness. This is all your disaster type movies like ‘2012’, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, even the tail end of ‘Titanic’.
These are nine times out of ten conflicts that are insanely high stakes (there’s that word from earlier!) where your cast of characters will either live or die by the time the credits start to roll.
Now, here’s where conflicts can get fun! You can have Person Vs. Person conflict in a Person Vs. Nature story! You can mix and match conflicts all you want, and in fact, it may elevate your script to a higher level.
Think of any apocalypse type of media you’ve consumed. There’s almost always that guy with the gun, threatening your protagonist, stealing their supplies, etc. That’s an instance of Person Vs. Person within the greater conflict that is trying to survive whatever natural disaster is currently happening.
You see how you can play with these conflicts to make the story more interesting? If our characters are trying to survive, let’s say, a tsunami, we’re going to get pretty bored of watching them float around on stray rafts for 90 minutes. Adding in extra conflict breaks up the story and helps keep the audience engaged, on the edge of their seats, wondering what else may happen next.
3. PERSON VS. SELF
This one can be tricky. How can you be in conflict with yourself? Well, this is usually used when you have a sort of ‘morally gray’ character, who may be struggling with certain deeds they’ve performed, urges they have, etc.
One of my favorite examples of this takes place in the movie ‘Heathers’.
Our lead, Veronica, is disillusioned with her life of popularity. So much so, that she begins dating the school’s new bad boy. However, things take a morbid turn when he convinces her to start bumping off her classmates, saying it’s for the betterment of society.
Veronica ends up having a serious conflict with herself about halfway through the film. Sure, the people they’re killing are awful, but they’re also seventeen. Veronica has to come to terms with the fact that she’s either a cold blooded killer, or just doing her part to make the world a nicer place.
There’s also STAKES! She can either come clean and go to prison, or she can hang around her murderous new boyfriend, and wait until he takes her out next. Again, stakes combined with conflict help create a script we don’t want to put down.
This type of conflict is GREAT for more psychological pieces. It allows us to really get into the protagonist’s head, really see the psychological motives behind their actions.
This is a more difficult conflict type to base your entire story around, but it certainly can be done. I recommend watching the film ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’, and its usage of guilt, to see just how well done a story using Person vs. Self can be.
4. PERSON VS. SOCIETY
And finally, our fourth major type of conflict is Person vs. Society. Like the name suggests, you’ll often see this used in a story where the protagonist is pushing back against norms that have been ingrained in our society. This type of conflict is used a lot with period pieces, especially during times where people had to fight for their basic liberties, like the Civil Rights Movement, Stonewall, World War 2, etc.
However, that doesn’t mean you need to write a period piece in order to make use of this conflict! It works just as well in contemporary stories. Because I already mentioned two teen cult classics today, let’s make use of the ‘rule of three’ and examine ‘Mean Girls’ as a contemporary (well, for 2004) film that makes use of Person Vs. Society.
We have Cady who, born and raised in Kenya, is suddenly thrust into the American public school system. She comes to find that there is a ‘Girl World’ , a set of expectations and rules put upon teenage girls in order for them to hold onto societal power. Cady begins to lose herself in these rules, and realizes that if there’s ever going to be a change to how teenage girls are treated, she has to lead it herself.
And, like all conflict types, you can mix and match. This is a Person vs. Society film AND a Person vs. Self film, when Cady realizes she’s forgoing her values for popularity. It can also be argued it’s a Person vs. Person film, as Cady sets out to destroy the current queen bee, although many film scholars like to argue that society is the true villain in this classic teen comedy.
And there you have it! The four main conflict types that create a story. Now, go through your script and identify what kind of conflict is at the core of your story. A Person Vs. Self with a hint of Person Vs. Nature? Perhaps a Person Vs. Person, with societal repercussions? No matter what it is, it should be easily identifiable.
Also, you have homework. Go watch your favorite movie and find out what type of conflict is used the most throughout the film. It should be an easy task after reading this quick lesson. Go on, and happy writing!
