Have you ever heard of “central conflict” in writing? Probably, maybe? It’s kind of a screenwriter’s term in many ways but its really a story term. The idea is that the protagonist of the story should be embroiled in a conflict over something important and that this conflict is what the entire story revolves around.
Its a pretty usable concept, but one that I find limiting. Today I’d like to offer up a different term that’s a bit more broad and definitely more flexible.
Conflict vs Competition
I’m not fond of “central conflict” anymore for the simple reason that conflict implies a clash, battle, head-butting, or some sort of fiery struggle. Its useful, don’t get me wrong. If you design a story around a central conflict you will likely get something fairly strong. You could do worse.
But competition, I prefer this word. “Central Competition” even if you will. The idea is similar to that of the central conflict but it bears rephrasing so lemme take a crack at it.
Something that the protagonist is in a competition with the antagonist (forces thereof) to obtain or achieve.
I.e. There can be only one (at least so far as it appears sans a twist.) But the mutually exclusive nature is important. It should appear that any one of the competitors “winning” will shut down all the others’ ability to achieve their goals.
The something we compete over could be physical like a MacGuffin. That works. There are so so many plots where the protagonist is jockeying against others for the possession of a thing. It’s not always a clash though. They might “fight” each other in many different ways. There are also plenty of stories where the protagonist is chasing something and must contend with varied sources of interference to get what they want.
This is why I like competition better than conflict. Its more flexible. The words we use can subtly cage us in, which is why I make posts like this. To explore the language I use for my creativity.
Another example would be the classic “to catch a killer” plot. Often times the detective knows of the killer yet doesn’t know who they are. The competition in these stories is usually the detective attempting to ID and catch the killer before they kill again, while the killer is attempting to evade the law while continuing to kill. Its simple, its powerful, and its a great example of competition since the detective and the killer often won’t come into direct contact with each other until the climax moment of the story.
A third is “man vs nature” since nature is impartial and impersonal. Usually. In “man vs nature”, the protagonist wants to survive at the minimum and nature is there to provide setbacks. The protagonist isn’t conflicting with nature (usually). They’re not out there going “damn nature keeps me from my son" and proceeding to attack the trees. Meanwhile nature isn’t like, “I’m gonna kill you, John McGrath the third.” Usually. There’s always an exception to rules of writing.
Anyway, hopefully I’ve made my point that conflict is a limited way of describing the core drama of a book whereas competition is broader, more flexible, yet still gives us some sort of structure on which to build a story.