Conflict is the force that makes a scene matter.
Conflict is anything that resists the character’s desire, blocks the easy path, or raises the cost of staying the same. It can be another person, a system, nature, time, conscience, shame, duty, or love.
Conflict is not only argument. It can be silence. It can be temptation. It can be a choice between two goods, or two harms.
In writing, conflict is most powerful when it targets the Mask rather than merely adding noise. The best conflict does not just delay the character. It reveals them.
Conflict creates the turn that completes a Scene and gives the Mask, Scene, Conflict method its bite.
# Workshop In a workshop, set Conflict as the pressure that makes the interview matter: not an argument for its own sake, but a force that blocks the character’s easy story and targets their Mask.
Give each interviewer one “pressure card” to introduce into the scene at a chosen moment: a deadline arrives, a witness walks in, a letter is produced, a favour is called in, a contradiction is read aloud from the character’s own words, or a simple request is made that costs them something to grant.
Encourage conflicts that are choices rather than fights: two goods that cannot both be kept, two duties that collide, a truth that would break a relationship, a kindness that risks status.
For public domain characters, aim the conflict at what the text leaves unresolved: the motive they never confessed, the consequence they never faced, the person they never apologised to.
The goal is a clean turn: the character must either change their stance, reveal something protected, or double down and pay a visible price.
# See - Mask Scene Conflict