When I'm ready to design a story, I think the easiest place to start is with the conflict. Because conflict is kind of like the premise of the story. It's the reason why the audience is paying attention.

So if you want to design a conflict, I have a simple way to do it! My professor's professor— a screenwriter named Frank Daniel— Frank Daniel says that if you want to design a conflict, then you only need one seemingly simple sentence to do it. Are you ready?

"Someone wants something badly… but they have trouble getting it."

I think this is a great sentence because it prompts you to use four basic narrative tools together as a team. The "someone" who wants something badly, we call that character the protagonist. The thing that they want badly is called their objective. The reason why they want it so badly is called their motivation or the stakes. And the trouble that they face is called their antagonism.

So if you take Frank Daniel's prompt & fill in the blanks, just like a Mad-Lib…

…and if you pick fun, complicated, interesting answers that work well together? Then you'll be giving the audience a reason to stay in their seats until the ending.

Because they're gonna want to find out what happens! Does the protagonist overcome their antagonism to achieve their objective or not?? When you're designing a story, there are much worse places to start than that.

So next, let's take a look at each of these four tools: protagonist, objective, motivation, and antagonism. And I'll walk you through how I like to think about them when I'm filling out Frank Daniel's Conflict Mad-Lib.

Back when I was in school, my teachers told me that protagonist is just a fancy word for "the hero of the story" or "the main character." And for the record: that can be true! You're allowed to do that. The protagonist of your story can be a hero, who behaves admirably in the face of a crisis. And your protagonist often will be the main character of the story.

But the truth is: anyone can be a protagonist. And I mean anyone! The hero, the villain, the supporting character, an extra who never gets dialogue, the setting, the audience, the storyteller. The audience can root for any of them… at any point in your story, for as long as you want them to.

Because a protagonist is any character who the storyteller is currently shining the spotlight on. The protagonist is the main character of the story… in this particular moment that's happening right now. Who is the audience supposed to (pay attention to / bond with / root for / invest in) during this part of the story?

So if you want the audience to connect with your protagonist, then all you need to do is pick a character & focus the story on their conflict. "This person wants something badly… but they have trouble getting it. Now let's see what happens, step by step, as they pursue their objective & try to overcome their antagonism. Will they succeed? Will it be a trainwreck?? Let's find out!" And once you've got that conflict developed, then you can move on to another character whenever you want!

For example, let's look at Star Wars. The protagonist of the original trilogy is, of course, Luke Skywalker.

Luke Skywalker wants adventure in the great wide somewhere,
and for once it might be grand to have someone understand
he wants so much more than they've got planned.

But in the beginning of Star Wars— in the opening chapter of the very first movie— Luke's not in it yet. The protagonists of the first 16 minutes of Star Wars are the droids, the 2 little robots! They want to escape from the Empire (who's attacking them) and to deliver the stolen plans to General Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And within the droids' chapter, there's a scene where Darth Vader (the villain) is the protagonist! He wants to find the Death Star plans that were stolen, but none of the rebels will talk to him.

And within that scene where Darth Vader is the protag, there's a beat where Princess Leia is the protagonist. She wants to bluff her way out of Darth Vader's interrogation, but he's not buying it.

So you can move the spotlight from protagonist to protagonist in big, obvious steps. Everyone can take a turn!

But you can also swap protagonists by the second. You can have the characters tossing the protagonism around like a hot potato, from moment to moment to moment! You see a lot of this in farces, like Noises Off:

So if you build a good set of conflicts, then the audience is going to follow your spotlight wherever you shine it!

When I'm ready to design the objective, this is when the protagonist starts coming to life. They start popping off the page! I'm getting more introduced to them, at this point.

And that's because when you pick an objective, you are revealing the finish line to the audience. You're telling them, "If the protagonist succeeds and they achieve this objective— or if they definitively fail— then this part of the story will end."

As soon as the audience sees this finish line, they can start playing along with your story. Because at any given moment, they can tell how well or how poorly the protagonist is doing! So they can start cheering the progress, and fretting the setbacks, and savoring the detours.

It's also worth noting, a protagonist can have a really straightforward relationship with their objective. They sincerely want to cross that finish line. This achievement will improve their life in some meaningful way.

But on the other hand, a protagonist can have a complicated relationship with their objective. For example, a protag can be required to do something that they do not want to do.

They can even actively try not to achieve their objective! It still counts! It's still a finish line, whether they're aiming for it or not.

So far, the Mad-Lib has been pretty simple. When you're picking the protagonist and their objective, they can just be 1-word answers. You do have to pick them carefully! You need an interesting protagonist, who wants a compelling objective… but you didn't have to write much.

But when you're ready to design the motivation, you're gonna start writing too much! Because at this point in the Mad-Lib, this is when the story starts to explode in my mind.

Because when you design the motivation, you think about the character's life before the story began & after the story ends. Before the story began: what led the protagonist to this specific objective? Why exactly do they want it so badly, so much more than you or I would? And why are they uniquely vulnerable to their antagonism?

And after the story ends… well, that depends on whether or not the protag achieves their objective. After the story ends— and if they succeed— what will they gain? And if they fail, what consequences will they face? What are the best- and worst-case scenarios? After the story ends, how will the protag's life change?

When I answer these prompts— when I'm thinking about the character before the story began & the possibilities after the story ends— I feel like I'm bonding with the protagonist, sharing their formative experiences!

And eventually I know them so well that I can start imagining their boring, mundane, everyday life. What is the protag's comfort zone? Where do they normally spend their time? What's their routine? Which other characters do they regularly interact with? What's their relationship like? How do they behave together? What are the best and worst parts of their day, and why?

By answering prompts like these, my story comes to life. All of a sudden it's sprouting new characters & settings & themes, and I'm not even done with the conflict Mad-Lib yet!

In the first 3 slots of this Mad-Lib, you're basically hanging out with the protagonist before the story starts— empathizing with them— so you can build a working relationship with the character who's gonna stand in your spotlight. But now we've reached the last spot in the Mad-Lib, and here's where things get twisted.

Because when you're designing the antagonism, you gotta screw up the protagonist's life. The more personal, the better. Try to customize a challenge for them that targets their specific weaknesses. Find interesting ways to force them out of their comfort zone. Torture them! Threaten to send them to their own personal version of Hell.

Because when the protagonist is left with no good choices, they're forced to behave honestly. So which new risks are they willing to take? What are they willing to sacrifice? How far are they willing to go, in order to get something that they truly want? In short, antagonism prompts the protagonist to become the truest version of themself.

But what exactly should you pick to be the antagonism? Anything! Any part of the story can serve as the antagonism.

A character can be an antagonist, that's a common one. If the protagonist has an enemy, or if they have an ally who's just really bad at helping them. That's good antagonism!

A setting can be an antagonist. If the protagonist is in a dangerous location, or maybe they live in an oppressive era where the rules are against them.

A theme can be the antagonism. If the protagonist has conflicted feelings about parenthood. Or if the protag is lacking something that they need in order to feel independent. Theme as antagonism!

The audience can be the antagonist. If you've ever seen pro wrestling… you boo the bad guy, right? Well that's alright, because the bad guy doesn't want to perform for you! The bad guy's performing for himself. Screw the audience! Boooo! I love antagonism from an audience.

Even the protagonist themself can play the antagonist, if they have self-sabotaging behavior. And we'll talk more about that, in the lesson about character arcs.

For now, let's talk about all these different forms of antagonism. They're all pretty different— characters, settings, themes, the protag themself, the audience— but they all work (more or less) the same way.

So let's start with the antagonism coming from another character. When I have an antagonist, another character, who is stopping the protagonist from getting what they want, I give that antagonist their own conflict. The antag also wants something badly… but they have trouble getting it. And for whatever reason, the antag can't achieve their objective without colliding into the protag, as they try and achieve their objective. This helps me focus on the antagonist as a character and remember that they are their own individual character who we need to flesh out and make interesting and motivate all of their actions.

If the antagonist is either the setting or the theme? On the surface, those are not characters, but really… they are. The character is, in fact, the storyteller, who's hiding in the subtext & playing the whole story like a marionette on strings. In a disaster movie, in the Perfect Storm, the biggest waves happen at the worst possible times, right? That's not happenstance. That's the storyteller reverse-engineering the worst possible time for antagonism, and sending the biggest possible wave at that point.

So when I'm designing antagonism that comes from a setting or a theme, I can write a conflict. The storyteller wants to hinder the protag at this point because of [these reasons], but here's how the protag could cope with the situation I'm putting them in. By thinking of myself as a character in that circumstance and I'm setting up the playset for them to fail, that keeps me focused on antagonizing the protag at the worst possible moments, the times when we really need antagonism. I'm not just throwing every challenge I can think of at them. I'm picking my punches!

And when the protagonist is their own antagonism, when they have an internal conflict, I'm still using the same Mad-Lib. Macbeth wants to be king, but he's got to murder his friends and co-workers in order to do it.

This is what I like so much about Frank Daniel's prompt: it's so elastic! You can start any story in the world with this one sentence: "Someone wants something badly, but they have trouble getting it."

So that's how I approach this Mad-Lib. Now it's your turn! If you scroll down, you'll see a collection of creative challenges that are designed to help you figure out the conflicts of your own stories. I'm excited to read what you write!