What Conflict Do Screenwriters Avoid?

Nobody wakes up in the morning and says I hope I get into a huge fight today.

“It would be wonderful if I experienced a painful altercation with an intimate friend later today. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

No.

Most people get up and hope to have day where everything goes great. In fact, what do we often tell other people?

“Have a nice day!”

What’s a nice day?

One without conflict.

Yet as a screenwriter, I must run directly towards conflict. My work requires that I generate and develop conflict to underpin my script with the emotional power to effectively engage the audience.

People go to movies expecting to see characters they identify with. They want to see people like themselves overcome a problem. They experience gratification watching a character resolve conflict because it validates the challenges they face in their own lives. The greater the problem they solve, the larger the positive experience for the audience.

This is a heartbreaking challenge of screenwriting for me. Developing problems is something I personally want to avoid, but my work as a storyteller demands robust conflict.

But the greatest source of conflict I face is not the conflict I devise for my fictional character. It is the conflict I face within me as a human being in the act of creative writing.

Suspension of disbelief is a sexy phrase for telling the audience to ignore stupid stuff in a story. We ask our audiences to believe something in our movie that would never happen in their own lives.

Audiences naturally identify with a story that mirrors their reality. When they believe it could happen on planet Earth in the life they have experienced, measured by their own life experiences, the emotional experience succeeds, word of mouth occurs, and the movie is profitable.

When I ask an audience to care about a story that doesn’t match their lives, people will often reject this transaction. Sometimes they will suspend their disbelief, but often generally people will feel dissatisfied because it doesn’t reflect the conflict they face and the solutions they have employed in their own lives.

The conflict screenwriters avoid is the job of telling the truth. I know for me it’s easier and quicker to make up stuff that would never happen to any of us to advance my plot. When I make a character do something my audience will not recognize as humanly motivated, the people watching my story emotionally detach, which means they don’t care. The story has failed, and I am the author.

Screenwriters are the first people in a movie theater to point out something that is not logical in a plot. They will be quick to observe that a character would never make choice in a story. Why can’t I do this in my own script?

I can! I do! I know something is lazy and fraudulent and illogical and dumb. I can see it. And when I can’t fix it instantly, I get frustrated with my plot or my character or my big idea that doesn’t seem to fit where I wanted it to go. My goal of fame and riches and awards and triumph seem further away.

I cannot run from the battle of the right, great story within me. I must fight for it. I must trust that when I recognize my script problems for what they are and commit not to cover them over with lies about living and placeholder, hokey nonsense, I will come out the other side.

Telling the truth in screenwriting is the action of trusting an answer to your story’s problems will arrive. It’s not copping out. This is the reason there is a discussion of whether movie theaters will survive. They will not disappear because of streaming or phones. They will leave if I refuse to write a completely credible human story.

I remind myself today of my responsibility. Nothing has changed. The history of cinema has spoken. Share with us the truth and we will love you forever.

I hope this message supports you today with your writing as we solve the great beautiful problem once again together, in our seats, eyes on screen.