Conflict Should be Your BFF

I’m here to tell you that conflict is your FRIEND. Okay, maybe not so much in your real life, but when it comes to telling engaging stories it should be your BFF!

EMBRACE CONFLICT AS YOUR STORYTELLING FRIEND

Why?

Because it’s one of the main elements that brings curiosity and engagement to your story. Without conflict there is no resolution, without darkness there’s no need for light, right?

Often I hear nonprofits or churches say they don’t want to introduce conflict because they don’t want the story to feel depressing or too sad, they want to keep it upbeat and happy.

Here lies the problem. If there is no conflict to overcome, how can your audience cheer for your character when they have victory? The whole reason you have conflict is so that you can build your storyline to that resolution, where you want your audience to get chills, to shout “Amen!”, to feel so happy and excited for that character. But that won’t happen if you don’t have conflict.

Let’s make it practical:

Say at the beginning of your story you introduce your main character. Now this character runs into a struggle or a conflict that keeps them from reaching their goal or desire. This conflict creates a question in the viewer’s mind:

“Will they overcome this struggle? How?”

That question is what keeps your audience WATCHING all the way through until you answer the question (aka the resolution.)

Let’s apply this to a real film:

Daughter of the King

Take a few minutes to watch the film above.

If you notice, at the beginning of the film Kila’s conflict is introduced. She talks about how she was a tomboy and she was bullied, told she wasn’t good enough, etc.. All this points us to her conflict:

She feels worthless

The rest of the film is her journey on how she found resolution. To find out how she overcame her conflict, make sure you watch the film! :)

Do you see it yet?

Conflict is a great thing. Don’t shy away from it!

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