Peder Hill: Conflict is the essence of Drama

Conflict is the most important thing in captivating your audience. Of course. This text explains that conflict is the most primal part of any good story, since the beginning of time.It then goes on to explain how difficult it is to properly create this sort of conflict. There are two kinds of conflict, internal and external. The internal conflict is the conflict inside the main characters head. This is the path of his mental evolution and character change as he grapples with his own beliefs and fears. The external conflict is the events which drive and force the character to advance the plot, and also do this self searching that was mentioned in internal conflict. Most conflict needs an antagonist, but that does not necessarily need to be a particular person. It could be a place or a thing. An antagonist should be a good opposite of our protagonist, our hero. 

The story should be littered with small obstacles, as I mentioned in the previous blog entry. These will help shape the character and his resolve. Doubt in the characters ability to pull of certain tasks or to achieve whatever is expected of him is what keeps the audience involved, they want to see the way things play out. The conflict should be explored in every bit of conversation in order to instill the ideas of what exactly is progressing is happening. This should also exist in the subtext of what has been said.