Dear me and other screenwriting majors,
Sometimes it feels like every single time you're finally happy, something always happens to mess it up. Wanna know a secret? It's not all in your head- every time you're happy, a new conflict arises.
My friend's mom once said, "If you have no problems, what is life?" I think what she meant that life is like a TV show. Every episode, or every few episodes, there is at least one conflict that arises, a Plot A. If it's a complex show, there's also a couple of subplots and other conflicts- Plot B and Plot C. And an even better TV show would have an arc of one or more conflicts that span throughout several episodes or seasons, and every episode or so something new arises that is vital to the conflict.
You know what a TV show with little or no conflict would be? Absolutely boring. Conflict is important to any form of storytelling in both fiction and nonfiction. It promises adventure and opportunity, but it also builds character. The character's decisions on how to handle situations help make the character a three-dimensional person and influences their relationship with themselves, others, and the world around them, for better or worse.
You are a character in your own TV show. And everyone else is a character in their own TV show that's a spinoff but you are the writer, director, and producer of your own.
Every day is an episode, every season is a year and your main character is flawed, incredibly flawed, but hopefully still a hero or heroine by the end of the day.
Not only is your main character flawed, but so is everyone else in the show. It brings an amazing, beautiful depth to the TV show in your head that is your life. And you sympathize with them so much. Your main character is just so relatable and you just want everyone else to love your art but sometimes people say it is cheesy, that your main character is actually an anti-hero or villain or just too dumb and obnoxious in general, that the plot is too complex or too simple, that most of it is just overdone tropes.
And sometimes there are too many antagonists. Or the main character still doesn't finish their character arc after almost 18 seasons but that's a good thing. Characters are supposed to be constantly growing, and dynamic.
All I have to say is that your show is the best TV show of all time. When you cried, the audience in your head cried, and when you laughed, the audience in your head laughed. Of course, there are always going to be critics who hate the show, but what show doesn't?
So keep writing your show. If you find yourself stuck, there's only one thing to do, and it is to keep writing.
