Writing a Basic Conflict Scene

1. Writing a Basic Conflict Scene WRI 3320: Scriptwriting Assignment No. 2 Slide show adapted from Mark Tjarks

2. Basic Elements of Assignment 2 Protag.’s Goal Obstacles Resolution Protagonist & audience must care about goal • Intensify desire by frustrating 1st 2 or 3 attempts at goal. • Use a variety of obstacles • Antagonist • Environment • Internal After a rising conflict, aclimax in which the goal is achieved or given up NOTE: 3-5 minute scene (3-5 pages in proper script format)

3. Script progression • Act One • Establishes MDQ • Introduces Major Characters • Provides necessary exposition (basic situtation, disturbance, etc.) • Act Two • Develops complications, confusions, confrontations, to crisis • Includes subplots and parallel plots

4. Progression--continues • Act Three • Builds highest tension and conflict • Resolves tension and conflict • Subplots or parallel plots also resolved or dissolved • Acts are made up of sequences of scenes • Sequences form progressions • Progressions form acts • Acts form the screenplay

5. What is a Scene? • The basic building block of a script Must build, show change, contribute to progression Must NOT be merely exposition Must NOT be offering exposition • Focused event(s) or exchanges • Between characters (or substitutes) • Within a single time or place

6. “Characters at War”(Armer, ch. 4) Variety of Types of Conflict • With a character (antagonist) • With the environmental – an inanimate obstacle in the environment • With an internal, psychological condition • With a supernatural force

7. “Characters at War” (Armer, ch. 4) Variety of Types of Conflict • Unspoken • Arguing • Indirect Action • Fighting

8. “Characters at War” (Armer, ch. 4) Use Contrasting Characters • For Friends • For Partners • For Couples • For Combatants

9. Developing Engaging Characters Empathizing w/ character – What if I were this person? Positive Choices – How a character sees her own actions in a positive light. Substitution – Put a personal experience you feel strongly about into a new context. Illustration from Textbook Daughter can’t write about father until road rage incident (pp. 42) Mae from Cat on Hot Tin Roof. (p. 48) Friends vs. lover story moves from frat house to cathedral. (p. 44) “Characters in Action”(Wright & Downs, ch. 3)

10. “Characters in Action” – Building Characters • Base characters on real people - (see provisos on p. 53) • Avoid stereotypes (p. 53) – Engage stereotypes but then play against them. • Individualize characters – Give characters a trademark piece of business, habit, attribute, or dialogue • Piece of sugar – i.e., make multidimensional – good and bad, etc.

11. “Characters in Action” - Analyzing Characters Some writers let character come naturally out of the conflict/action; others prefer the action to come out of the characters, beginning with an invention of them. • You can flesh out characters by asking questions – see p. 45. This can be overdone. • Consider the dimensions in which character can be shown. (pp. 46-51) • Public face or mask • Personal side – face with intimates, self • Character shown through motivated action • Subconscious – the deep motivations for action, usually revealed at the end of the character’s arc, and distinct from the catalyst of an action (see p. 54)

12. Does protagonist have a strongly motivated goal? Does the antagonist have strong motivation to resist? Is the protagonist’s goal frustrated several times? Are there a variety of obstacles? To see the world series Big Nurse needs to control group/ward Yes, several times over 3 scenes – each attempt intensifying the frustration/desire The other patients, an object (the machine), and Big Nurse being passive-aggressive & then aggressive Elements of Conflict in Cuckoo’s Nest

13. Fights Group of Patients Fights Environment Fights Big Nurse indirectly - Ward policy Defies Big Nurse directly Structure of Conflict in Cuckoo’s Nest “Put your hands up.” “You’re gonna lift that thing?” “I'm sorry, Mister McMurphy, but you must have a majority to change ward policy.” “Somebody get me a wiener before I die.”

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