Today we started putting together conflicts from story starters.
The main story we dealt with was Roger's story. Remember that Roger has cleaned up his life, has a job, a family and a bright future. But then an old girlfriend calls. She says she's waiting in her car down the street.
What does she have to tell him? How will it change his life?
We came up with some interesting ideas like:
1. Roger's old girlfriend is finally telling him about a child he didn't know he had fathered.
2. She says she's going to kidnap one of his children.
These were excellent ideas because they take Roger's life and turn it upside down. They take him from being on the positive end of the graph to the negative end.
Then we wanted to know how to ratchet up the conflict further. Some of our ideas were
1. Roger's old girlfriend is finally telling him about a child he didn't know he had fathered AND he's sworn to kill the father that didn't raise him (Roger, that is).
2. She says she's going to kidnap one of his children. As hard as he tries to stop her, he fails, because Roger's WIFE is in on the plot.
In number 1 we take away Roger's familial stability, but at least he still has his life; so we try to take that away as well.
In number 2 there's a threat against Roger's family, but at least he has a family he can count on. But then his wife betrays him, thus he no longer has his family.
This is the essence of conflict escalation: find things that matter to the protagonist, and then threaten them. As the story goes on threaten things that are more and more important to the protagonist.
