LESSON TEN: CONFLICT
Working in Hollywood, there’s a saying I heard from some producers about a certain kind of story/script that didn’t work yet. “Nobody wants to live in the village of the happy people.”
Well, that’s not quite true. I think most of us DO want to live in the village of the happy people. What we DON’T WANT is our stories set there. Then they are boring. In stories:
- People getting along isn’t as interesting as people in disagreement.
- Two people who want the same thing isn’t as interesting as two people whowant it in different ways.
- A reality of life is that every human being is on their own unique clock, andwatching the collision is part of what makes a story feel realIf you think I’m wrong, I ‘d like to cite a children’s franchise called The Smurfs. Blue quasi-humanoid elfs who all got along like one happy family. As happy as can be. Happy, happy, joy, joy.“Are you a happy smurf?” “I’m a happy smurf!” “We’re all happy smurfs!”So the creator, well-aware of the need for conflict, simultaneously introduced an evil wizard named Gargamel, whose essential mission was to wipe the Smurfs from existence.Which is why it worked.In fact, Conflict is SO important to what makes a satisfying story, consider the following…Take a two-hour movie. Have you ever unintentionally watched about the first half- hour of a movie which includes the basic set-up and characters, THEN got pulled into something else in life for about an hour (a phone call, a visit, laundry, some kind of intersection), and THEN returned to watch the end of the movie, maybe the last thirty minutes which resolves everything. And despite the fact you missed the middle you could basically figure everything that happened out?You could, couldn’t you.
So let’s approach the lesson at hand yet another way.Say you had been hired to work as a junior editor at Marvel Comics. Not movies, but the comics.
Say you were working on a comic book starring the Incredible Hulk. You know the Hulk, right? He’s big, green, sometimes even mean. Goes RRRRRRRRR! a lot.
Ok, so you are working on a page of comic that has three comic panels on it. Three distinct shots. Still images. And the story of this particular page in the comic is about the Hulk breaking through a military blockade in front of the Pentagon. Let me describe the three panels on the page in the order they appear, and I want you to visualize them in your head.
Panel 1: Day – Washington D,C. In front of the Pentagon, two tanks are parked forming a barrier, flanked by soldiers with weapons drawn. The tank barrels and soldiers’ guns are pointed at the Incredible Hulk who stands only a hundred feet away. He’s looking at the tanks angrily, going RRRRRRRR!
Panel 2: Day – A view from inside one of the tanks as a BIG GREEN FIST SMASHES THROUGH IT. The tank driver is barely diving out of the way screaming “Ahhhhhh!”
Panel 3: Day – Washington D,C. It’s the same basic view of things as the first panel, except both tanks have been smashed flat, and the remaining soldiers are shooting into the distance at the offscreen culprit (the Hulk) who has left a trail off debris heading toward the Pentagon.
So, those are the three panels.
And the basic story should be clear – Hulk breaks through a military blockade.
Now you turn the three panels in to your boss and she says: “Uh, we don’t have room for three panels. Tell the same story with only two.”
When faced with that decision, which one would you remove? Panel 1, Panel 2 or Panel 3?
Please think about it.
Don’t just answer it. But think carefully.
Because you need the story of the moment to be clear.
Well, if you get rid of Panel #1, how will we know the situation? any context for what’s going on?
How will we have If you get rid of Panel #3, how will we know how the situation resolves?
But Panel #2, albeit a cool detail, is the one we could remove and STILL tell the essential story of the moment.
All you need to make the story point is the before and after. In this case, tanks. Followed by the next — flattened tanks.
All you need to make any story point quickly really is the before and after.
- A light is on. The light is off.
- They are enemies. Now they are friends.
- She is a baby. She is a grown woman.So consider what I brought up earlier in this lesson about seeing only the beginning and ending of a movie and still being able to figure out what happened. It’s the same phenomenon.And it begs a question. If before/after storytelling like that works in terms of clarity, why isn’t it done more often? Hollywood, if you didn’t notice, likes to make
money. Well, heck, if you only needed to shoot the first thirty minutes and last thirty minutes of a movie, you could save a lot of money by never shooting the middle. Then you could make even more money! And you could even have more screenings of a movie every day since it would run just an hour instead of two hours. That means the possibility of making even more money! Woo-hoo!!
…SO WHY DOESN’T HOLLYWOOD DO IT?
Simple. Because the struggle — the middle — is the fun part. We want to watch the characters wrestle with conflict.
In fact, us storytelling teachers often mislead our students unintentionally via language. We tell you every story has a beginning, middle, and end.
But to even say it like that presupposes equivalency. It’s really every story has:
A BEGINNING
A MIDDLE AN END
The middle is truly the same length as the beginning and end combined. shorten it. Expand it.
So don’t
If I was running Marvel, I would say do it four panels. Give us more middle. (And frankly, they are such pros they already know to do that too.)
