Recipe for Conflict

I've sent a couple of scripts off for coverage. Both times they came back saying, "Needs more conflict." Sounded easy enough at first, but it turned out to be about as helpful as telling me I need to bake a cake without telling me how to bake it. I had no idea how to create conflict where there was none without it seeming forced.

I finally saw a glimmer of understanding when I read this article titled "The Task" by Terry Rossio. In it he says your character needs a Goal which is usually positive, noble and desirous. The character then needs Tasks which are those undesirable things that need to be done in order to complete the Goal. Ah ha. I don't need to create conflict. I need to give my charaters crappy things to do or put them in crappy situations and the conflict will create itself. Conflict is just a result. I need a source. I need the ingredients. So I set out to find them. This is what I've found so far.

Recipe for Conflict

1) Take one or more characters

2) Add the following - the more the better.
a. an undesirable task
b. a problem with no obvious solution
c. Circumstances that prevent the character from doing what he must
d. Circumstances that give the character no choice but to do something he hates (lie, hurt someone, do something immoral)
e. to feel helpless or incapable
f. to loose hope
g. a painful past or secret that must now be revealed
h. rotten luck
i. a tough decision
j. dilemmas where there is no good choice
k. opposite feelings or emotions felt simultaneously
l. then there's always things exploding, people shooting, cops or bad guys chasing, etc...
m. or any other nasty or undesirable place or situation or feeling you can think of

3) Mix together and see what happens.