Say, hypothetically, you had a great life where everything fell into place and you've never experienced any type of conflict. If you were to educate yourself on conflict, what would you proceed to do?
I'm looking mainly for a person vs. person conflict, but all suggestions would be helpful. How would you go about insulting someone? What would you do to create conflict with those around you?
Are we talking conciously making the decision to seek out conflict or something you'd do subconciously because of your sheltered life?
Actively seeking it out. Trying to define "conflict" or capture the feeling of it in the shortest amount of time possible.
It could be done with a simple sentence. Even if someone is very subdued, if they think about it they'll realize they have plenty of buttons to push. The first thing that pops into my head is the scene in Your Friends And Neighbors where the guys are asking each other who their best lay was, and Ben Stiller very deliberately says "Gee, well that would have been your wife." Instant conflict!
The character himself is trying to define conflict. He needs to get to know it in order to write it. I'm looking more for a progression of him trying to create conflict with people (either complete strangers or family members). Therefore I'm trying to get ideas of how someone would go about that.
For instance, taking someone's parking space at the mall or insulting someone to their face. Those are things he's never done before but knows that people get angry when it happens.
If you were in that circumstance what would be the first thing you would try to create conflict? What would be the ultimate thing you would do? That's kind of what I'm going for.
(Sorry for being so confusing.)
How progressive do you want it to be? Do you want your character to incite something quickly, or slowly, with time, until it damn near explodes?
He's, at heart, a really nice guy. Therefore he'll start off with small things (fighting his need to understand conflict at depth and still retain his nature). As those don't get the desired reaction he'll continue getting more inflammitory. Still he'll have a hard time succeeding. Finally he'll do something just downright terrible, something so out of character he'll regret it for a while, and on just the wrong person.
You want some conflict? Go find a hot girl. Fall in love with her. Then tell her. There, conflict and pain up the ying-yang.
Quote from: RaikusThe character himself is trying to define conflict. He needs to get to know it in order to write it. I'm looking more for a progression of him trying to create conflict with people (either complete strangers or family members). Therefore I'm trying to get ideas of how someone would go about that.
For instance, taking someone's parking space at the mall or insulting someone to their face. Those are things he's never done before but knows that people get angry when it happens.
If you were in that circumstance what would be the first thing you would try to create conflict? What would be the ultimate thing you would do? That's kind of what I'm going for.
(Sorry for being so confusing.)
I'm reminded of Fight Club, really, where Tyler tells the group to all go pick a fight with someone ... and lose. Very cool stuff there, if a bit extreme.
But you seem to want to take things slowly, which makes more sense. So think in terms of the gradual. It's really easy. Just start by putting two characters together, and allow their personalities to clash. Then, small annoyances. They build up, your character starts to see how things work, and he keeps going, just figuring out how to push your buttons.
Basically, it's acting the opposite of what's appropriate. At the most extreme, have your character say things no civilized character would say. Like Peter, in Family Guy:
Quote(paraphrased)
Bryan: "Ok Peter, lets try to have a civilized conversation. Nice day today ins't it Peter?"
Peter: "Yes it is. After Hogan's Heroes, Bob Crane had his skull bashed in by his friend who was videotaping him having rough sex."
Quote from: GhostboyIt could be done with a simple sentence.
A single word could start a conflict too. "Fag" is sure to offend/piss off anyone, straight or homogay.
Send him somewhere where he would be obviously out of place such as a club frequented by a certain ethnicity that he does not share or a type of demographic that he wouldn't belong to. If he's a sheltered suburban white-boy, have him go to a Wu Tang concert wearing khakis and a buttonup shirt. The kind of thing where he is put in a natural situation where he is more likely to attract conflict would be a good midpoint between starting small and going all out to find conflict.
Get into the express lane with more than 10 items. Park in handicapped space. door ding someone.
walk up to a really hot chick, look her boyfriend right in the eyes, flash a shit eating grin, and ask him if you can smell his fingers.
Good ideas all. That's what I was thinking, starting with things like what metroshane mentioned and working up to something like SoNowThen said (although not that bad.) :yabbse-thumbup:
another thing is, he could just be walking by some sort of tough looking person, or just anyone who'd likely have a short temper, maybe he sees some white trash guy or something, but he could just walk by and say "Fuck you." With the right person, this is all you need to say to start conflict, even if you have nothing to say it about. They just instinctively say "Fuck you too" or whatever, and you have instant conflict.
FADE IN.
INT. MOM'S BEDROOM - EVENING
ANITA (40s) sits on her bed with her hands together. She prays.
JIM, a 6 year old boy, comes in. Anita looks at him and smiles.
JIM
Mom, I know what I wanna
do in my life.
ANITA
What, honey? Something
grand I guess?
JIM
Yes...mom, I wanna marry
a rich lady and then I wanna
fuck her to death.
CUT TO:
Should say, works best with Emiliana Torrini's 'To Be Free'. Should also say, his happened to my mom. My brother is an ass...
at 6 years old? your brother rocks
Well my first suggestion is pretty weak but who knows it may work stylistically. If your character were to systematically break all 10 of the commandments (out of religious context) he would create some major freaking conflict. So he could start out alphabetically and start to break them until such a time as conflict sprung up. He could then stop the cycle knowing that he had found the conflict he so badly needed to define. As a twist you could have him unable to stop the cycle half-finished as it has transcended into more of a piece of observatory art now whereby the canvas is as yet unfinished. Tragedy ensues, but ultimate understanding (buddhist refernce to moksha perhaps) is achieved upon dying. The mortal coil has been shirked and the soul has known what it was to be human outside of the domain of prescribed stereotpypical values.
My second one is he hosts a pet-peeves website (inspired by the earlier thread) and have a rating system for the top 10, then use them on the same person till they snapped.
Undoubtedly meager material, my deepest apologies. Perhaps it will help as a stimuli though, good luck.