Watching Black Sails this morning got me thinking about conflict in storytelling and how I approach it in the stories I write myself. Having grown up on Bond films and Star Wars it’s no wonder that my own protagonists meet fleetingly with their antagonist throughout the story until facing off against each other in the final third. But what Black Sails got me thinking about is how the rise of the ‘boxset’ has got both antagonist and protagonist interacting frequently throughout a story. There are lots of ways of creating conflict, but having the main character and their adversary interact more is a very effective way. After all, good drama is built upon conflict, and the more that opposing forces come together the more conflict there is.
The traditional way of structuring conflict
Take Star Wars. Nerdwriter made a video essay a few years back showing how Darth Vader became an icon with only 8 minutes of screen time in A New Hope. It’s crazy to think that Luke doesn’t even meet Vader in the whole film. The subsequent films follow a more traditional pattern where they cause trouble for each other in the first acts before confronting each other in the finale.
The Mandalorian also follows this traditional approach. So far across two seasons there have only been a couple of times when Mando has faced off against his chief antagonist Moff Gideon.
This structure is ubiquitous throughout stories.
Now I’m being too simplistic here. Vader and Gideon create a ton of problems for both Luke and Mando respectively. But they do so indirectly. What I find interesting is how you can get an antagonist and a protagonist in the same room throughout a story without them killing each other.
Getting a protagonist and an antagonist together
Quite often the stakes are too high for a protagonist and an antagonist to come together, so how do many stories manage to pull it off?
Othello - Dramatic Irony. In Shakespeare’s play Iago and Othello interact throughout. Othello doesn’t know Iago is his antagonist, but the clever thing here is that the audience does.
Peaky Blinders - Mcguffin. There are some wonderful scenes between Tommy Shelby and Inspector Campbell in the first series, despite both characters wanting to see each other dead. But the thing that stops this from happening is a shared goal - the McMuffin of the stolen guns. Until both men get what they want they need each other.
Game of Thrones - The Ensemble Cast. Though Ned Stark is the closest to being the main character in season 1, it’s fair to say there are almost countless characters that also are. The beauty of this approach is the unpredictability and tension that arises from such a plethora of characters coming up against each other. If there isn’t just one character driving the story and anyone can do so, well, then the stakes are raised considerably as everyone is expendable.
The North Water - Setting. Ian McGuire puts his protagonist Patrick Sumner up against his antagonist Henry Drax in a location where neither can escape from - a whaling ship headed to the Arctic circle.
So, back to Black Sails. It uses the same approach as Game of Thrones in the sense that both shows have an ensemble cast that engage in frequent conflicts big and small. The payoff here, and what both shows use to good effect, is that there can be fatal consequences for anyone at any point.
For decades cinema reigned supreme within storytelling. With only a limited time to tell a story there was only time to invest in one character and to tell their story. With series having 6, 10, 20 episodes a season, there is much more time to tell the story of multiple characters. And if there are multiple characters driving the story, then the fate of anyone can be in the hands of the gods, or the writer. Lot’s of tension and lots of conflict = good drama.
So for my own writing, what direction am I going to take? Well my finished manuscript, The Fever Coast, is definitely the story of one character. A lot of conflict comes not just from the other characters she encounters but the situation and the environments she finds herself in. My second work in progress, Lions of the Ark, features several protagonists that all come together. I think this is a good chance to expand their stories and make them all fall out with each other. They’re all far too friendly to each other anyway.
What are your favourite protagonist vs antagonist conflicts and how often are they pitted together throughout the story? If you’re writing a story yourself, how do you pit your protagonists against their antagonists. Comment below!