“The key is to view conflict as essential”

The other day, I posted this re Pixar honcho Ed Catmull’s new book “Creativity, Inc.” Subsequently at some point in my daily pilgrimage through social media, I stumbled across this tweet:

Of particular note this line: “The key is to view conflict as essential, because that’s how we know the best ideas will be tested and survive.”

I believe Catmull is talking about the creative process in the way the Pixar “Braintrust” specifically and Pixar in general operates. But we, as writers, know that conflict is also essential within the context of our stories. The question that sits there, lying on the table with this huge gaping hole for a mouth is this: How?

How do we bring / find / discover / wrangle conflict in our stories?

War of the Roses

I’m reminded of a producer who once told me the best way to handle boring exposition is to have the characters start screaming at each other. “Create conflict, then while they’re yelling and fighting, drop in the facts,” he said.

From one way of looking at the story-crafting process, that’s good advice. Anything to make exposition interesting. Yet this approach is so patently inauthentic, whereby the writer slaps any type of conflictual artifice onto characters. Shouldn’t the conflict arise naturally from the characters?

That leads me to this thought: There are different types of conflict.

* Intrapersonal conflict at work inside key characters.

* Interpersonal conflict between characters.

* Micro Conflict that occurs from scene to scene.

* Macro Conflict associated with the central plot of the story.

Helpful, but that still doesn’t get at the question: How?

How to think about conflict in our stories?

How to make it organic to the story and not feel tacked on?

How to understand it working in multiple ways to provide nuance and depth to the narrative?

How to build conflict so it sustains and builds tension?

Reservoir Dogs

Yes, conflict is essential. But how can we, as writers, surface conflict in our stories in ways that services the plot and feels authentic to the characters?

What say ye, GITS readers? How do you handle conflict in your stories?

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