3 Steps for Writing Conflict that Doesn't Suck (Writing Advice)

Learn how to create story conflict that will surprise and engage your audience. Examples from Seinfeld.

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[WriterBrandonMcNulty]

I boosted the audio in today's video, so please let me know if it's an improvement or not. Thanks!

[MerlinTheCommenter]

Dang, you unintentionally gave me a great idea for a story with a great conflict. This channel is a gold mine for inspiration.

[VNightmoon]

One of my favorite stories is a short Batman comic called, "Study Hall." A majority of it is Jonathan Crane/the Scarecrow monologuing a, "how we got here" to his current victim, Bromley, as he hits him with different versions of fear serum to see what he hates most.

Right off the bat, Crane tells Bromley that he's here for a lesson, and that he hopes to make it more intriguing than his American Literature class that Bromley constantly skips. This immediately sets up two things:

-Crane was a college teacher before he became a supervillain, but he's in costume now, which already begs the question of how this situation is even a thing to begin with, and what's the timeline, because this is all happening in a university lectern.

-One of the very, VERY few decent traits the Scarecrow has is he legitimately likes to teach, so what the fuck did Bromley do to earn his ire?

Between blasts of fear serum to see what makes Bromley tick, Crane tells Bromley (and the audience) that he recently realized there was going to become a point where he was going to get too old to keep playing these games with Batman, so after his last escape from Arkham, he decided to retire from his supervillain life, take on a new identity and return to teaching.

There's our first answer.

Then, Crane goes on to explain that among his students, there was one young woman, Molly Randall, who he quickly came to adore due to her hunger for knowledge. She is, "the type of student a teacher comes across only once in a lifetime, " and just talking to her brings out Crane's other interests that are usually blocked behind his fear obsession: art, music, poetry, history, etc.

Now, the Scarecrow is a well-known misanthrope, so the fact that he came to care for Molly at all speaks volumes. You might be able to count this as a twist, because he usually *at best* tolerates people on a good day.

And it's easy to piece together that something happened to Molly and it involved Bromley. And if you know anything about the Scarecrow, then it's easy to guess his motivation is vengeance, because it's one of like four reasons he ever does anything (the others being, "I'm just doing this mediocre crime to get funds for my *actual* scheme, " "FOR SCIENCE!" and "I'm going to claim it's FOR SCIENCE!, but really, it's Tuesday and I have an urge to cause chaos").

Now, this comic in question is based on Batman: The Animated Series, so what happens next is very much a, "kids aren't going to get the nuance, but an adult definitely will."

Earlier that day, Molly came to Crane's office in tears. The only blatant confirmation is that Bromley and Molly were dating, and he hit her. Except by Molly's closed-in posture, how she could barely maintain eye contact, and the look of horrified rage on Crane's face paints a VERY clear picture that more than that happened.

This is where the (non-arguable) twist comes in.

The Scarecrow is the type of person to terrorize a city block just for kicks, and likes to get a rise out of his victims. And he *is* a vengeful person who has a track record for dishing out tenfold what he got.

Except most of the time, it's a, "you hurt me, I'm hurting you back" kind of thing. This time around, he's doing it out of love and concern for another person.

(I will also point out that it's a platonic love. He has NO romantic interest in Molly at all; he just really enjoys talking to her, and their mutual fulfillment of teaching and learning from each other. Which in and of itself can count as another twist, because these types of stories are often done with love interests, and the avenging character is a hero, not a villain).

By this point, Crane has figured out Bromley's weakness (rats), and congratulates him for feeling like a helpless victim like Bromley made Molly feel.

And throughout all this, since it's a Batman comic, you're probably wondering, "where tf is Batman?"

Well, Crane was about to behead Bromley with his scythe, and now the Dark Knight decides to come out of hiding.

Batman mentions he's been tailing the Scarecrow for a while, thinking he was using the university as a base for a scheme, and he was shocked that Crane actually did just want to teach again.

"And you couldn't let me be?"

"I knew it was a matter of time before you reverted to type."

Well, the Scarecrow's a "one-punch and he's out" villain once you get through whatever he throws in your path, so that's all Batman needs to take him down.

But the story has one more twist.

Both Crane and Bromley get arrested (again confirming the implications that he did more than hit Molly), and Batman's final thoughts on the matter are:

"I suppose Crane was trying to help Molly in the only ways he knew how: with fear, intimidation, and force. Not much different from Bromley's methods. But Crane's always had the decency to wear his mask on the *outside*."

Yeah. When BATMAN is siding with the fear-obsessed nutjob this time around, that speaks volumes.

I love this story so much. It's in my top five Scarecrow stories solely because even though it's short (like ten pages), it plays out in ways few people expect and subverts some expectations compared to the usual pattern of, "supervillain causes trouble and the conflict comes from how the hero stops him."

[Zilopochtli]

Favorite story has to be Fullmetal Alchemist (spoilers of course)
-Conflict: Kid and brother lose parts of their bodies in a freak magic related accident trying to bring their mother back to life, the older one joins the military to get funding and research to get their bodies back, specifically the legendary Philosopher Stone
-Twist: after some very shady stuff happens, they discover that the Philosopher Stone in fact DOES exist, but it is made using human sacrifice and requires thousands of lives. Even after they find one, they refuse to use it, because of the moral implications.
-Complications: after learning the truth about the stone, they start to get persecuted by the goverment and it's superpowered and monstrous agents, the homuncili.
-New forms of conflict: the loved ones of the kids on the military get pulled into a great conspiracy after discovering that the goverment is actually controlled by a shadow goverment, who is employing the homuncili for a secret, catastrophic, nationwide project.
-The story gets messy after characters from both sides start dying, foreign nations start getting involved in the conspiracy and the chase for the power of the philosopher stone, and war, internal and external, looms in, all culminating in a cataclismic event that puts everybody's life in stake

[daltonadger]

The movie Fargo follows these steps really well- the initial conflict is a relatively simple kidnapping scene, the unexpected outcome is the police pulling the kidnappers over and the ensuing murder, and there are a whole mess of complications that leads to.

[mystbunnygaming]

Bill Murry's The Man Who Knew Too Little comes to mind with messy conflict, but this movie plays every bit of it out in the most satisfying and fun ways imaginable.

[briantrafford]

Without a doubt one of the truly great conflict developments comes in the movie The Usual Suspects. It starts as a standard police line up meant to figure our who did a specific crime, and slowly morphs into a set of huge competing story lines within which is an even more massive mystery.
Truly a classic.

[petelutz]

Hi Brandon, I've been an audio dramatist, writing steadily for a little more than a decade. Even though I've written all kinds of stories in multiple genres, I'm still open to learning more about bettering my craft. I enjoy your videos and find myself saying, "hey, I've done that!" or "oh, hey, I should do that!" Thanks for presenting your topics in entertaining ways. I'll keep watching!

[aix]

I wish you'd expand on the twist part. Maybe how to twist well, or how to brainstorm potential directions, or how to red herring the other outcome, or how to figure out which outcome is more unexpected yet interesting.

[dee-taylor]

ASOIAF is my favorite story and the conflict has evolved into confincting conflicted conflicts, and also ice demons.

[beanteam]

This guy’s videos are what I study WILLINGLY.
There’s always something new to add/fix and overall is incredibly helpful for future authors (like myself) or for people who just do it as a hobby.

[pyrojones]

I was really impressed by how Daniel Abraham's "The Dagger and the Coin" series kept conflict rolling. Very skilled in weaving those complications in, using them in service of pacing and stakes.

[bwanamatata]

Great video, as usual.
While you were offering your excellent example via Seinfeld, I thought of one of favorite novels, "A Simple Plan". It mirrored your breakdown perfectly.

[h.ar.]

I’ve been rewatching Seinfeld recently, and I must say they have utilized interesting techniques when it comes to storytelling.

Also, it’s hilarious!

[kingbeauregard]

I'm big on something I see a lot on "Community" and other Dan Harmon shows, but I don't think he ever describes the structure properly (or at least I don't see that his eight-step wheel describes it aptly). But it's related to what you're talking about:

1) Character wants something, so the conflict is in getting it.

2) Character gets that thing, but in doing so, creates problems.

3) Character has to fix the problems created in #2, and maybe even has to give up the thing they originally wanted. But they're a better person than when they started.

So the original conflict is resolved but then replaced by child conflicts.

[tallytaltalan]

Your dialogue and story writing videos have been helping and educating me extremely well in the past two months. Within about a week, I have already been thinking up a story concept that should become a great future television series, I’m only 18 by the way.

So far, it is about a secondary school, where students go through all these mysteries, secrets, and plot twists, which all started as a strange trend since the 60s. A lot of that inspiration is from my high school I graduated last year from, but also from this television series, ‘Lost’ I am currently watching, too.

All I’m doing is just adding major mystery plots I could establish throughout, rather than writing from the beginning of my story. I want to make sure to be more industrious with my television series, rather than those lazy writers handling the last season of ‘Game of Thrones’, or ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’, and ‘Rise of Skywalker’, yuck!

I have attempted story writing by myself in the past, but your channel seems to have influenced me much more than before! I hope you get back to me and explain if this a good idea of mine.

[WriterBrandonMcNulty]

In you favorite story... How does the conflict shift from simple to complex? Let us know!

[heavymetalelf]

Interesting. I like info on techniques that help braid and twist and Tangle various elements of plot together, especially if they can get a storyline going in directions that seem unrelated

[tylerpettit]

Another great video, Brandon! Through my dad, I've slowly grown to really appreciate Seinfeld, and the fact that you're using that as inspiration is JUST the icing on the cake! I can't wait to take your new advice and apply it to my today's novel chapter.

[victorvanderzier]

Braking bad has a lot of good conflict, a lot of them. But the conflict between Walter & Jesse, for me, is the best, becuase it's get from bad to worst.