Hey guys, welcome to the Art of Comics. My name is Andrea Salazar, I'm your host. The Art of Comics, the show that talks about comic books, graphic novels, we even go into other kind of media and storytelling. But we're focusing mostly on comics. Today, I want to do something a little more informational, educational, some writer tips. As a writer, I've written in comics, written some film, you know, spec scripts, things like that, and written TV tell plays, plays themselves in college. A lot of different stuff, different mediums. But they all have one thing in common. Today, I want to talk to you about that. When you're working on your story, the word is conflict. Okay? Quick video about conflict. What is conflict? Conflict is drama. Conflict is comedy. Conflict is the thing that propels the story that gets this excited and that shows character. So one of the things that I did just most recently, and the reason why I'm kind of sharing this video is I just was thinking about conflict and how every scene needs conflict of some sort. I went through, I'm working on this graphic novel called Shangri-La States about a boy and his mother going through this divorce. They move out to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1984. So it's the 80s. It's the south and it's kind of transplants from California to Arkansas, which is a culture shock. Simi autobiographical. I have some experience in that. One of the things that I'm doing in my story after I wrote it is going through each scene, breaking that out, you can use index cards, however you want to do it, and looking at each scene saying, what is the conflict? Because if there's no conflict in that scene, I would say you need something there. What is the conflict? What does this character want and is having problems getting that? What's the obstacle? The obstacle could be someone else. Kid wants to go play. The mom says no to your chores first. There's your conflict. She's the barrier. The chores. I don't want to do that. That's the conflict. How do they get around there? How does he get? What he wants? How does she get what she wants? The conflict could be you get a flat tire in the snow. Okay, there's your conflict. A situation. What do you do? I want to get home. It's snowing. I have a flat tire. What do I'm going to do to get past that and build shows character? What are the actions of things that that character does that shows who they are? Another one could be weather. It could just be a storm or whatever. It could be situational. It could be environmental. It could be an opposing force, a person. Those are things to look at when you're writing your stories. If you've written your script or written your story, go back to each scene and look at the question. What's the conflict for each of these scenes and how is the character developing or changing in that scene? Okay, and that's a good exercise to do. It's a little tricky. You got to think about it. You might have to rewrite a bunch, right? But it's about showing characters, showing through the decisions of how they how they overcome obstacles or obstacles break them down and it shows who they are. That's what we love about comedy's dramas storytelling is conflict, conflict, conflict. If you, most stories do not have enough conflict. I'm just learning that again. I repeat these lessons and so I would say, go back to your stories. Look at conflict. It's very important. Scene by scene. There you go. Comment below. What are your thoughts about conflict? What are some good examples of that? We see them all over the place, right? Show me, share me, all that kind of stuff. Check out the Patreon if you want and all that good stuff. Link subscribe. Love to hear from you. Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to watch and listen to the Art of Comics. Bye guys. Thanks.