In everyday life, we listen to the word “conflict” and think of something negative for the most part. Well, toss that notion aside. In stories, the conflict is bread and butter. Without the conflict, there would be no story.
Conflict is what propels the narrative forward and makes the story engaging. It arises from the protagonist’s desires and the obstacles that stand in their way. These obstacles can take various forms; it might be an adversary actively preventing our hero from reaching their goal, a broken-down car, a conspiracy by powerful opponents, and so on.
A theater teacher I once met used to conduct the following exercise to illustrate the role of conflict in a story:
She asked a participant to stand on stage. She explained that the stage represented a river, and there was a plank across the river. The participant’s task was to walk across the river on the plank. The participant did as instructed, and then the teacher asked the other participants, who now functioned as audience, if they found it interesting to watch. No, they didn’t. She then invited another participant to join the stage. This participant’s task was to prevent the first participant from crossing the river on the plank from the opposite direction. Immediately, the scene became much more interesting.
So, conflict is what hinders the acting subject (“the hero”) from achieving their goal. It can involve obstacles or conflicting desires and motivations.
If you are using storytelling for any strategic reason, you need to locate where the conflict is in your story. As should have been obvious by now, the story carries a lot of credentials and can have a great impact, but it also has to be restricted. Keep the story to the story. This goes for the conflict in it as well. Locate and clarify what the carrying conflict is in this particular story and you are well on your way.
A few examples from the corporate world; a conflict in employer branding stories can be, and has been, in some of the ones I have produced, prejudices from employers. Or in PR -stories from the wood industry; the conflict between using the woods for climate and business purposes or to let it stand for prevention purposes. Corporate history-stories can be rich with conflicts; the lack of funding money and the staffs drudgery to get the company on it’s feet for example. Public agencies are rich with personal stories of success and failures from the benefactors of the agency’s work; be it employment services or public health organizations. I could go on, but I think you get my drift.
Leave a Reply